<p>Emily, all you have to do is look at the Binghamton forum and see how the in state applications are handled later. Which is not unusual. Other state schools handle in state versus out of state applications on a different timeline. I am surprised that this surprises you.</p>
<p>Just to be clear, I wasn’t saying that there are more out of state admissions, just that by the time the in state applications are considered, many of the spots are already filled by out of state applicants which skews the stats of the in state acceptances.</p>
<p>My kids are both older. However, I went back to the Binghamton forum and saw at least one thread for this year saying the same thing. Maybe your son being from an upstate private school gave him an advantage over downstate kids. Or maybe he was just a fantastic candidate all around. But this is an ongoing thing that has been present for at least the last four years.</p>
<p>The school is 84% New York residents - those 16% OOS students can’t have any large effect on the distribution of scores. If they are rejecting high stats kids from in state, they are targeting students they think have no chance of enrolling to improve their “selectivity” and yield.</p>
<p>Have you considered scholarships from other sources? Sometimes community organizations offer scholarships. There really are an infinite number of smaller scholarships and he could look at those to help a bit. (especially since he has better stats)</p>
<p>Sofrustrating, where did your childrens friends parents attend college?
When income is equal, schools may free up more money for first gen students.</p>
<p>Going back to the original post…bsmom123, if your retirement savings are in dedicated retirement accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401ks and the like) then most private colleges will not consider those savings to be available for your EFC. </p>
<p>You mentioned possibly using your savings to support a change in career. If that means a lower household income, that could mean a lower EFC, though not in time for freshman year.</p>
<p>Your son can apply to the Jefferson scholarship at UVa (quite competitive). There is Morehead-Cain scholars at UNC-Chapel Hill (competitive, but I have colleagues that got it). There are Robertson scholars at Duke (full ride), again competitive. NU gives full rides. I think some poster’s daughter (?) applied ED to NU and got that scholarship. UChicago offers some merit aid. University of Rochester (top 30), offers full-tuition scholarships. I think some LACs also do offer them: Kenyon, perhaps? Allegheny I think does. </p>
<p>Definitely in the same boat. Son is a junior in HS with a 4.4 GPA and a 1900 SAT on his first pass. With a 13 yr old as well, we can’t afford to spend everything we have on the oldest, but it’s tough because for as hard as the oldest has worked with all his AP classes, for him to go to a top 20-30 institution, we would probably be full pay or probably only get about $10K in need based aid at best, leaving us with a good $40K-$50K bill a year. </p>
<p>We’re in a tough position like a lot of you since combined we make $150K a year combined. Not as much as the wealthy, but not as low as $25K that some claim they make. Definitely caught in the middle somewhat. So the decision is to…take on a large amount of debt right before retirement, or decide to lower the COA and attend a UC school (Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego or Santa Barbara). Those would still run us around $30K a year, but the top 20-40 private schools just seem out of our price range. </p>
<p>What we’re gonna do is see if there are some private schools that we can get the cost down to close to the $30K a UC school would run and hopefully give him a few other alternatives. If not, I guess we’ll be going in-state.</p>
<p>Many families in CA end up sending their kids who have good grades to UCs, which are still reasonably priced with decent quality. Only few families we know are willing to spend more, if their kids can be admitted, to elite private schools. Some of them use their saving, some take home equity loan, to fully or partially pay for their kids. </p>
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