<p>Stefalis - Your post just articulated the heart of the matter, the rest will absolutely follow. I think you knew this all along and just needed to talk it through. Be kind to yourself. </p>
<p>CC is an absolute treasure trove of resources to find great schools that will offer guaranteed merit, competitive scholarships, etc. to widen your son’s options beyond your amazing state e’schools once you determine your budget. You couldn’t be at a better place to be moving forward. There are existing threads, forums to ask questions, search features to look for information, and people with so much information that are very generous in sharing what they have learned.</p>
<p>Come join us on the ‘Parents of high school class of 2014’ thread in the parents forum. We’re a friendly bunch, all going though this together. Support is good because let’s face it, Jr year is just hades sometimes and application season is pretty stressful as well.</p>
<p>The actual cost of college comes as a shock to all of us. At least to your credit, you have realized the situation early enough to do something about it. You absolutely have to have a talk with your child. It needs to be a frank talk as one adult to another explaining the situation. He may be disappointed (in fact he probably will be, since he had an expectation from you that will change), but honestly, most kids really do get it. Given time to process the reality, everything should be ok.</p>
<p>Practical help.</p>
<p>There are obviously in-state alternatives and excellent flagship schools. Otherwise, you need to look for schools that provide merit scholarships. What we found with our D. The “Ivies” do not offer merit money. Other Ivy Peers do – Wash U offers a limited number of scholarships as does Vanderbilt and probably several others. These are very hard to get, but worth going for.</p>
<p>If you’re willing to move down a level of school, there is a lot of merit money. By this I mean, the offers are not limited to 20 or so students a year). Tulane, for example has a $27,000 per year scholarship – which is offered to many fine students. Northeastern, Maryland, Purdue, UConn all offer significant merit money. Lehigh (great for engineering) is also reasonaby generous but less so than the schools above. There are many others which do so. ONe can get an excellent education at any of these – many offer Honors Programs Many other fine schools offer merit money. You just need to do the research.</p>
<p>The reality – colleges that want to attract a core of students who could get into so-called better schools often offer merit money. Colleges that can attract these students on their own do so less frequently (and if so, often on a limited basis, to get the Superstars).</p>
<p>Finally, take heart – you are in a position to pay a significant amount towards your son’s education. Since you will only need a partial scholarship, your universe of potential colleges expands. Also, in factoring in total costs, consider your son’s contribution through ‘work study’ and possibly loans (if the total amount will be reasonable).</p>
<p>It seems many of us reduce the “dream” to “we will pay for whatever great college you can get into.” And then reality hits. First of all, you are NOT alone, and situations like yours cause incredible stress for many, many families. Second, your son is smart. Do you homework on additional schools and share that with him. Look at OUTCOMES for students, not just “this is prestigious for X engineering.” From what I have read on this site, the content of the courses for engineering is pretty similar across institutions. Also, look at where the faculty at some of the “second-choice” schools got their degrees. I think you will be surprised at how many of them got their PhD from one of the top choices on your son’s list.</p>
<p>I agree with Haystack’s suggestion to look at UMN. Also I would imagine Lehigh–a great school for engineering–would give your son some great merit aid with his stats. Good luck.</p>
<p>Too bad he didn’t like Case, they are one of the engineering schools that often give merit scholarships that may reduce the costs, though probably not enough to make it as affordable as his in-state school. Also look at RPI, WPI, U.Rochester.</p>
<p>I was hoping for more from our Case visit because I knew they had some fairly significant merit, but we went during their Spring Break (it was ours too) which was not ideal and my son thought the city of Cleveland was not where he wanted to be the next 4 years, and really I couldn’t really come up with a counter to that, it did seem a bit grim.</p>
<p>Anyhow, thanks for the additional schools to check out and the other words of wisdom, I have one more question for anyone who has a child having recently gone brought the app process or in a similar situation. </p>
<p>If you are looking for merit aid as a big piece to the puzzle, how many applications are reasonable and not completely overwhelming to manage? He will have two safeties (both academic and financial) but it seems like with so many of the scholarships completely subjective he would need 10-15 more just to possibly reel in a couple of offers that will be big enough to make a difference. Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>If the two intended safeties are UT Austin and Texas A&M, be aware that UT Austin is probably not a safety if he barely within the top 10% of his class. UT Austin’s automatic admit threshold will be top 7% for fall 2014 entry: [Automatic</a> Admission | Be a Longhorn](<a href=“http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/after-you-apply/automatic-admission]Automatic”>http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/after-you-apply/automatic-admission) . Others will have to compete for the remaining quarter of the class (and engineering at UT Austin may have higher standards, so a student may be admitted to a non-engineering division there instead).</p>
<p>SUNY Binghamton has a very reputable engineering program that your son might consider. My niece’s boyfriend is an engineering student at University of Delaware - he has been been able to get some helpful internships there.</p>
<p>Stefalis: Three years ago my DS went through much of what you are discussing. He applied to 9 colleges and knew he wanted biomedical engineering. In that group were 2 Ivies and Duke which offered him zero merit aid. He also applied to UVA which is in state for us and to Bucknell in PA, Case Western and RPI in Troy, NY. I know your son did not like Case but Bucknell, RPI and Case offered DS enough merit aid to essentially make the cost the same as instate.</p>
<p>No significant merit aid at SUNY Binghamton. I believe there is some merit aid at SUNY Stony Brook. The cost is basically the same for out-of-state students: about $31k.</p>
<p>I sympathize. I am really feeling your heartbreak. Fortunately for me, I told my kids from birth that Daddy doesn’t pay for college, weddings, or bail bonds. Because I daily see the results of the parents who did. Here’s your out:</p>
<p>Your name won’t appear on all the grants and scholarships (+) and loans (-). His name will. In finance talk, he is getting the benefit of the assets, so it is his duty to assume the liabilities to achieve a balance, called net worth. That’s Philosophy and Economics 101. </p>
<p>I’m flashing back now, to the time when my kids won a free Pizza Hut pizza for a grade school academic reward. Now, I live in NJ, where there is no shortage of quality fresh pizza made by a guy named Luigi. Still, I pointed out how the chain pizza tasted extra good because they earned it. They agreed, or at least pretended to.</p>
<p>You have a smart kid. He’ll see the look in your eyes and feel you even more than I do. I see a magical bonding moment in your future.</p>
<p>It’ll help if you play Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” in the background. That song kills me.</p>
<p>I would also consider Pitt - both my ds (hs’11) and dd (hs’13) got significant merit aid from them that made it similar to our state univ. With “texas” on your app, and those SATs, possible to get either 10-12K or full tuition.</p>
<p>I’m going jump on the bandwagon of the poster who suggested Canadian schools. If its really important to him to get out of state and have a new experience, going international will definitely provide that and you won’t have to compromise on educational quality to be able to afford it. Colleges pretty much ANYWHERE else are considerably cheaper, even for international students. Schools like Mcgill and U Toronto and UBC are great in Canada, I’m not sure what is the strongest for engineering. Or if prestige is important as you said, Imperial College in London, although that’s very hard to get into. Universities in Australia will also have a much more affordable price tag I think about 25k/yr</p>
<p>I’m in the class of 2014 as well but my brother went through the process a few years ago (3.9uw, 2150 on the SAT) and was also interested in engineering. He got into Harvey Mudd (excellent school for engineering) and was offered a full tuition merit scholarship there. I’m not sure if this helps you at all, but it HM might be another school to consider.</p>
<p>whatever you do, make sure he applies to two affordable state schools and then see what merit aid he is offered everywhere else. Good thing you know your limits now and can make wise application choices. Also, he has to realize that all of his hard work, no matter what school he attends, is not wasted effort. He is the better student for it and learning to work hard towards goals and learning… just to be a smarter person … is valuable in and of itself.</p>
<p>There is no magical number of applications. If the safeties have rolling admission, apply there right away - as soon as a good application can be put together. Having concrete numbers and acceptance in hand will make it easier not to cast to wide of a net for you. That being said, if you’re relying on merit scholarships, you may apply to more schools.</p>
<p>We were in a similar situation, with a student with very high stats (but not NMF), good ECs, excellent recommendations and looking for merit for engineering schools. Big State U. did not really come through, Georgia Tech gave $10K, Northeastern $20K, but Stevens Institute of Technology gave dear S an amazing deal: full tuition+, possibility of a master in 4 years at no additional cost (president scholars program). Lafayette in PA is also worth looking at with a 20K merit scholarship for high achieving students.</p>
<p>As far as safeties, no we are not counting on UT due to 7 percent requirement. in state safeties are TxAM and Baylor (with his stats he gets full tuition and my husband and I are both alums). Engineering is ok there and he probably would qualify for Honors program.</p>
<p>I’m checking out some of the options suggestions, thanks for all of the help.</p>
<p>Academically, there are fewer than ten (maybe fewer than five) schools in the country ‘better’ for engineering than UT or A&M. Now, your son will need to think about what ‘better’ means for him. He might prefer the atmosphere or focus of some other school, and that’s fine, but academic prestige is probably not a good reason to pay more. </p>
<p>Regarding the Canadian recommendations: there are some very good engineering schools north of the border. Most of them are not cheap. Make sure you do your due diligence on international and engineering tuition rates.</p>