I’m approaching my Junior year and I’ve started to keep notes of how costly the college admissions journey might be for me. I just wanted to ask you all how much money you believe you spent in total during this process for prep, applications, testing, college visits, etc. What was the overall breakdown and what contributed to most of your spending? Were there any expenses that, in hindsight, you now believe were unnecessary?
It’s good to start thinking about this now but you’re going to get a tremendous amount of variation in the answers. Some low incomes students won’t be able to visit schools and will get testing and application waivers so it will not cost much at all. Other families may have paid for test prep and private admission counseling.
You should be able to find costs (and possible fee waivers) for the following on college and related web sites:
- Application fee for each college.
- SAT, ACT, and SAT subject test fees. Generally need only one of SAT or ACT, but many take both because some do better on one than the other. Only a few colleges need SAT subject tests.
- For colleges that use CSS Profile (versus FAFSA only) for financial aid, there is a fee for that as well.
I set aside $100 a month during my D’s junior year to cover testing, test prep, study materials (SAT and AP), visits and college applications. I will end up not spending all of that amount since my D only had 1 SAT test that was not paid for by her school, she also used Kahn Academy and school provided prep course and book. She also cut her list to three instate schools that we could drive to. It looks like the whole process will be under $500, I bet I am on the very low side though.
College Applications $700 (10 schools)
ACT tests and reports $220
SAT tests and reports $150
Prep material $200
Visits to 22 colleges $4200
(hotels, flights, mileage, food, etc)
Final decision trips (after acceptance): $1200
So about $6600 overall. Thinking was that we were going to spend $100-$250K so making a good decision was well worth the in-person visits. We turned the college visits into mini-vacations on 5 separate trips.
We also visited some schools in the UK but that was more for a holiday (figures not included) and was not under serious consideration.
I did not think any of the money was wasted, we took 5 or 6 trips over 18 mo (NE, South, West, Midwest) and he was able to exclude many colleges immediately and put some on his short list. After he received his acceptances he visited his top 3 choices. Some he visited twice after getting conflicting information from the school and friends who attended there.
In retrospect I was pretty surprised at how inaccurate the NPC was for our family, which made the final decisions much easier. I can’t emphasis enough how much the visits mattered for our son. I’d limit them to 3-4 on a trip, take lots of photos and notes, after a certain point they all blended together. He ended up at our state flagship which was both the best school of his acceptances and by far the best value for his parents.
@TooOld4School Best answer so far. I would need to take a few hours to come up with our total costs. But they would be similar to yours.
Our big expenses were as follows for our family of 4 (two parents, twins):
3 plane trips (and associated hotel / food / local transportation costs):
Colorado (Col College), Boston / New England (multiple), Phila / DC (multiple). We had 1 other plane trip planned (Minneapolis area) but bagged that when it just got too much for everyone.
2 out-of-area driving trips (and associated hotel / food costs):
Iowa (Grinnell), Ohio (Kenyon/Case Western)
College consultant who helped provide quality feedback on essays without crossing any ethical line whatsoever. Worth every penny.
One kid did take an ACT/SAT group prep class, but it was inexpensive (maybe $50 total?). Neither kid ever had a tutor of any sort. Their EC’s were not expensive at all (that is, no expensive sports or music lessons involved).
This spending reflected our priorities – the visits to assess fit and the essays because we strongly believed those were the differentiators.
Very similar to @TooOld4School!
I would focus on ACT or SAT, but not both. Test prep to many free options, I won’t list as I got in trouble last time and don’t forget the library.
Applications fees vary average $50. Also depending on your GPA and test scores, they may have a special app with no fee. Don’t forget to apply to college close to home in case you need to take a summer class.
I visited to many, but do your research on school website and on here. Do the virtual tour on the University website. Plan your visit out 1 school a day. I did 9 in 12 days 4100 miles and 72 hours driving. Did 3 in 5 days, basically 3 in 3 days other 2 was flying. Did another trip 4 in 5 days including flights. Your visit should be general vibe of campus and particular colleges on campus meeting with professors. Also hanging out in student union and talking to students. No need to take campus tour or the raw raw admissions presentation. Can save you time.
I will be doing a final visit to my top 2 choices in March.
$90 ACT
$45 to have test sent (you get 4 free)
$1500 First Trip (not including EC or meals)
$650 2nd trip
$600 3rd trip
? Final visit
I would say that how much the process will cost varies a lot depending on the specific student.
A student with a 3.00 gpa, a 24 ACT, and limited extra curricular activities is going to receive much different advice from a student with a 3.95 gpa and a 35 ACT score, and major extra curricular achievements.
In general, The more that an applicant has high grades, high test scores, and state/national level achievements, the more complex, and expensive the search and selection process will be. Posters here can provide a much better advice if you can provide information about your grades, test scores (even sophomore PSAT is fine), significant achievements, and which state you live in.
@Much2learn I don’t think that grades, test scores, and achievements necessarily correlate to college admissions costs. Someone with a 24 ACT may still want to visit and apply to a lot colleges, do test prep, hire a college counselor, go out of state, meet with athletic coaches at various schools, etc. And, conversely, a strong academic or highly talented student might want to target just one or two instate flagships.
Total admissions expenses are likely more related to the family’s income and the student’s college desires/goals.
@Much2learn , @MOMANDBOYSTWO , you both have good points and there is going to be a lot of variation between students and families. Either way it is an exhausting process, but I can attest that we visited places that we would have never seen otherwise and you can make them a lot of fun. Our southern trip turned out to be a ‘Diners and dives’ adventure where we sought out the best BBQ and regional specialties. By the end of the trip we all wanted to move to Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama or Texas just for the food.
@momandboystwo “Someone with a 24 ACT may still want to visit and apply to a lot colleges, do test prep, hire a college counselor, go out of state, meet with athletic coaches at various schooks, etc.”
They don’t necessarily, but they often do. It depends on the student.
For example, a Michigan family with a 24 ACT, decent grades, and no hooks can probably attend Michigan State for a much better price ($23k including tuition, room and board even at full pay rates) than they will get at any other comparable school. The percent of Michigan students with stats like this and no hooks who leave the state is very low. Spending money on an expensive college consultant, or paying for test prep to raise an ACT score by a point or two, is unlikely to change the situation. However, for a student who is a legitimate top 10 school candidate, that could be a different situation with a higher potential payoff.
“expenses are likely more related to the family’s income and the student’s college desires/goals.”
I don’t think this is a wealthy family or they would not probably not have bothered asked this question.
Yes, student desires and goals will have an impact, but they usually have a bigger impact when the student is a strong candidate because that means the student will have many more viable options. For example, if the student is low income and can get into an Ivy, they may be able to attend for free or nearly free. That student may get more value from spending money on test prep, a college consultant, and a few trips via airplane.
It is also possible for a student with higher stats to have a simpler college admissions situation, if his/her top choices become safeties with his/her stats. E.g. suppose a Texas student’s first choice is University of Texas - Austin, s/he is safely in the top 7% of his/her high school rank, and s/he is not interested in a selective major. S/he still needs to take the SAT or ACT because it is required, but is not too concerned about the score (hence no need for test prep costs), since s/he will be automatically admitted to his/her first choice.
On the other hand a classmate outside of the automatic admission rank range also aiming for University of Texas - Austin would need to apply to other schools for backup options as well as be concerned about test scores and test prep, potentially increasing costs associated with applying to colleges.
I agree with @Much2learn in that a student with top 10 stats and ECs will probably have a more complicated (and more expensive) college search process. This situation has played out in our extended family. Of course this is a general observation and there are exceptions but the observation holds true more often than not.
You can keep your costs down by doing a lot of online research. Look at a variety of schools locally and think about what you like about each school. Don’t plan to send applications just to see if you’ll get in, or because “it’s worth a shot.” Plan plan plan. I think you can get the number of applications down to 5, but some people ‘need’ to do 10. No one needs to do 20. Do your research.
Some schools have a free application online, or during a certain time of the year (early fall?) and some will just waive the fee if you ask. It’s still not free as you have to send the test scores and your high school transcript (our school charged for OOS and private schools, but it wasn’t much, just more legwork), but every little bit helps. And don’t miss deadlines and incur late charges. My kids missed the ACT registration deadline and had to pay a late fee (I refused to pay and they had to)
Make sure you understand all the benefits of staying instate as there may be more than just lower tuition. Scholarship only for instate students. State programs like Hope or Bright Futures, or Colorado has a $75 per credit tuition benefit for residents, can really help when every dime counts. Think about the lower cost of transportation to an instate school, public or private. Insurance (health) might be cheaper in your own state if you can stay on your parents’ plan. If you apply to a bunch of OOS schools but really can’t afford to give up the benefits at your own state school, you’ve wasted a lot of money on the applications. Compare the price of schools, but compare YOUR price, not just the posted COA.
I’d look for at least one school you can afford and want to go to, and hope for a rolling admission. If you have an acceptance in Oct or Nov., you might be able to save the application fees on those schools with a Jan 1 or Fed 1 deadline if you know you’ll go to the school you’ve already been accepted to over those ‘maybe’ schools. My kids did that, got into their first choices, and never sent in the other apps.
“I think you can get the number of applications down to 5”
If you ED, you can get it down to one.
@arsenalozil “I agree with @Much2learn in that a student with top 10 stats and ECs will probably have a more complicated (and more expensive) college search process.”
There are plenty of exceptions based on the kid, as ucbalumnus points out.
However, we did one top-10 focused search and one top 20 - 50 focused search, and in our case, the top-10 search was a lot more expense, time consuming and stressful, even with a student who had very solid ECs, and stats that were above the top quartile for every school in the country.
This is approximately what we spent for the most recent applicant, the first kid’s application expenses were very similar:
PSAT x 2 = $20
SAT x 1=$50
ACT x2=$100
Test prep $30 for the blue book and the red book
Sending test scores =$100 or so.
App fees x5=$250 (several schools had free apps)
Visits maybe $2000? Maybe more. Three visits total. This is just visits for scholarship interviews and doesn’t include visits made while on other vacations or to local schools.
What all this bought for our kid was more affordable choices and a better fit. She was also a finalist for a full ride competitive scholarship–that would certainly have saved us money in the long run! Even without that, the chance for her to find a great fit that we could afford was worth it. The visits also allowed her and I to visit some places we’d never been and have some fun sightseeing and making memories along the way.
For the other kid, it netted her a better fit and the opportunity to pursue her first choice of major, which was not available in our home state at all (and she hasn’t changed her major). In her case it also gave us an option that would have been much less expensive than all the other options. So all that expense could have saved us more than we spent, every year for four years. She ended up choosing the better fit, which cost about the same as our in-state options.
For both kids, we took this route for fit and affordability via merit, not need-based aid. I’ll add that it was a lot of work as well as expense! So many essays.
For my D09, I spent $2200 on an SAT prep course, which I pretty much regret since she wound up at a SUNY anyway. We drove to visit one school about 1 1/2 hours away. Gas and tolls were about $30. After she was admitted, I took the train up to the school she wound up attending with her and one of my other sons, who now attends that same school. The train fare was about $150 for the 2 of us (she and I had AAA discount and my son went on the visiting college discount. ) The hotel was about the same for 2 nights and we spent about 30 on cabs and 50 on food. I chose a hotel with free breakfast and we went to an admissions brunch the school sponsored. We used the free portion of the SAT and ACT to send the scores out. She did a couple of free applications, the SUNYs were 50 each and she applied to 4 and the CUNYs were 60, I think, and she applied to 2.
My S12 was less. He refused a review course and had already visited the college several times before he applied. Since he had a gap year, I had to pay to get his scores sent but I only sent SAT to 2 schools. We never visited the second school, to which my D was also accepted. Once he chose the one he wanted, I sent his AP scores. He had so many credits we never even sent his CLEP in.
For S17, I have paid for 3 ACT admissions, 2 with writing. D took him to see one school by bus, about 50 for both. Tutoring is $55 an hour and I have about 20 in for ACT math. I can’t get him to do the free online and since he’s dyscalculic, one on one is probably the best anyway. We are going to a SUNY fair next month and he will decide if he wants to apply to Fredonia. If he does, I will have to fly up with him, stay at a hotel and take a bus from Buffalo. We’d visit the 2 Buffalo schools at the same time. Air fare is about 200 per person round trip from what I have priced.
I think the true cost is your Major focus and nothing to do with stats.
If your major is not common the cost is much higher. Meaning less than 10% universities offer it in the US. Big difference. Regardless you want to find a home for 4 years+ that you’ll enjoy it’s not a prison your sent away to