<p>Hugs to both you and your D. I know exactly how you feel. I hope that it works out and that you find a perfect fit. I don't know anything about ACT s but if that 28 is much better than the SAT score, it might give you some breathing room. Also there are some colleges that do not use test scores for admissions and they do tend to be the smaller LACs. But if you do not qualify for much financial aid there are out of range. I have also noticed that even some of those schools that do not require test scores for admissions, want them for merit awards.</p>
<p>zoosermom,
I looked at the Moravian financial aid site and it looks like there are other scholarships offered besides the straightforward ones that spell out academic requirements. What we found with some small colleges is that they find money if the candidate is someone they want. We are not paying much more then if our kids went in-state to Penn State at small private out of state schools. There's no harm applying and filling out the fafsa and other finaid/merit aid forms and just seeing what happens.</p>
<p>Kathiep, your advice pertains to our situation as well. Don't know your kids' profiles, but just from experience and a short chat with the GC at his school, it is unlikely we will get aid. The grades, test scores, recs, activities just do not put my S in the category as a highly desirable student if we are not full pay. We shall give it a go, but we do need a number of financial safety schools as well. We have found that a number of those unspecified scholarships are also highly dependent on academic stats or some factor that the school really wants. With an average kid, with a slightly above average academic background, there is not much money out there. The private schools at that level tend not to provide anywhere near 100% of need even if need is clearaly there, and most of the financial packages are loans. What we are finding difficult is finding the proper mix in atmosphere and cost with the likelihood of admissions. I don't think my S would get into Penn State because of the onus on the stats, and that is not the type of school we are targetting any ways. West Chester, Millersville, little SUNYs are really more his level in the state school area. St Mary's is a lovely school at a decent price, but it is a bit selective. It would be a reach for us, though it is on our list as is Mary Washington. In our case, it is the safety and match schools with financials in consideration that are difficult to find when you throw in that atmosphere element.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I'm confused. Your daughter has a 28 on the ACT? I looked up the conversion to comparable SAT's (without writing) and a 28 is comparable to around 1240 on the old sat's. Kids are getting into Binghamton with lower stats than your d. No, she does not have the stellar stats that you often see on CC, (the stats you see here are representative of kids applying to VERY selective colleges) but she is in good shape to get into most of the sunys, if not all. I realize there is never a guarantee, but based on the stats of the kids I know that got into suny's she is in very good shape. I think Marny , our CC expert on the suny's, (welcome back, kid!) would agree.</p>
<p>This is just what we found out. My daughter had good stats, excellent ec's but not top ten percent of her class. We were not suprised that she got merit aid at Elon or the school she is at and nothing at the state schools. In our area we have an avg. house and the only debt is our mortgage. Husband is an engineer, I work part time at a library. Three out of four grandparents attended college. Our son had one hook - he's an Eagle Scout but ended up with just a B avg from HS but did take a fairly rigorous set of classes. Just okay SAT scores. </p>
<p>We did not think we would get any merit or finaid for our son but both my daughters college and Roanoke college offered him quite a bit. Roanoke starts at $33,000. inclusive. He's getting almost $16,000 in grants! He was also offered a work study and we've been told that will probably disappear once his sister graduates next year but the grants are his as long as he keeps a required gpa. This required gpa starts off incredibly low and goes up a couple of percentage points a year. </p>
<p>He was offered a few thousand at Allegheny also. Now Roanoke is not one of the most competitive schools out there but the avg. SAT is 1200 (old SAT) and the avg gpa I think is just over a 3.0. My husband and I were just down there to move him in last weekend and we were impressed with everything we saw. Spotless campus, very friendly students, emphasis on students succeeding academically, morally and socially.</p>
<p>I understand what you are saying cptofthehouse, about finding match and financial safeties. We did the same thing. Millersville and York college were our financial safeties, but it turns out that two of the most expensive schools that he was accepted to were just a few thousand more expensive then then least expensive ones.</p>
<p>Zoose- I didn't realize your d scored that well on the ACT- I am really sure she will do fine with the SUNY's. My d got into all she applied to including SUNY Albany and SUNY Buffalo (Buff State too) with an 89 average (3.4??) and a 23 ACT. I was most surprised with her SUNY Buffalo acceptance but she did list Exercise Science as her major and that may have helped her get an acceptance from UB. Other than sports, she really did not have the time to do any other EC -so I'm going to agree with Chocolate (Hi!!) and I think your d will do fine with the SUNY's. We also looked at York in Pa. D thought campus was in too remote an area, so she didn't even apply. The only school that gave d money was Univ. of Tampa. They do give up to $8,000 / year merit for kids with 3.2 GPA or above. My d got full $8,000. Tampa has gotten mixed reviews on these boards, but then again I do not think it is a typical school that cc posters look at. I thought it had potential and they do get quite a few kids from the NE. Their tuition was around $19,000 so with the $8,000/merit scholarship the cost was pretty reasonable. I think they also had a nice marine bio program at Tampa. But when I went to their Open House on Long Island, it came up that Florida education majors must follow a very strict curriculum for licensing in Florida. So if your d does go OOS for teacher education, she should look very closely at the teaching requirements for that state. I am sure the teachers here on board can give you better info than I can. D decided she wanted to be closer to home- so ultimately Cortland got her nod.</p>
<p>kathiep, My best friend's son went to Roanoke. He is a wonderful young man and I had the pleasure of watching him grow and mature throughout his four years there. I never visited, but I can tell you that my friend and her husband speak VERY highly of Roanoke as does their son. He also got merit aid --with a B average and around 1100 sat's. My friend felt her son got a lot of personal attention, and she always raved about the services there. A big negative for us was the distance--9 hours one way, but I must tell you they thought it was worth every mile they put on their car. I wish your son the best of luck there!</p>
<p>Thanks, parents. Will be checking out Roanoke. Will probably be picking your brain, Kathiep. This is the third time for us, but it seems that there are new challenges with each student.</p>
<p>If zoosermom is still considering PA state teachers colleges turned universities, here's another one:</p>
<p>Slippery Rock University<br>
<a href="http://www.goslipperyrock.com/index.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.goslipperyrock.com/index.shtml</a></p>
<p>zooser--Our D. did not do at all well initially on the new SAT. I think her original writing score was in the low 400's. We enrolled her in a Kaplan test prep class that de-mystified the whole thing for her and gave her lots of practice. If your daughter has not done a prep class I'd recommend it. Self study is a nice idea but these kids are busy and the classes give them some structure around doing the prep work. Not all kids are able to do something like the Xiggi method on their own--face it, the SAT is deadly, deadly dull.</p>
<p>Definitely check out st. mary's because I saw many teaching programs on their website.</p>