<p>Seconding what Hunt said, UNC-CH is a very tough OOS admit and highly unpredictable. The fact that he is male could help him there with their 60/40 female to male undergrad ratio but I don’t think ANYONE who is OOS can reliably call UNC a “match.” </p>
<p>UNC has terrific merit monies available and also has several awards designed specifically for OOS students.</p>
<p>If he is looking for “schools in the middle” The University of South Carolina is an “up and comer” in everyone’s estimation and they have incredible amounts of merit money available which is stealing many high profile kids from the mid west and northeast and bringing them to Columbia. The Business school is highly thought of and has been ranked #1 in International Business for the last several years.</p>
<p>My D was awarded a generous merit award that came with IN STATE tuition remission PLUS a $6000 departmental scholarship for freshman year. Her total cost for freshman year was around $7K! Her cost now is still far less than sending her to our flagship school U of Texas.</p>
<p>She turned down offers from many other more highly ranked schools to take the money and the top rated program and absolutely has loved her experience there.</p>
<p>I agree it’s puzzling to call Brown a high match and Penn a reach when Brown is significantly harder to get into than Penn (50% of the slots, and 90% of the applications). Unless one is applying ED, Brown is a lot more similar to Princeton than to Northwestern.</p>
<p>However, I think it’s valid to treat Berkeley as a match. In my experience, such as it is, ultra-high-stat out-of-state students have a good chance of admission.</p>
<p>I also think there’s no need to chase merit scholarships if the family is truly low income. Any of the reach colleges will provide adequate aid. Not so sure about Berkeley, UNC, or UIUC (out of state), though. So there is some trouble at the match level. I think it would be a good idea to look at some LACs with a reputation for good need-based aid as a financial match. Grinnell? Swarthmore? Amherst? Haverford? They’re all a little less random than HYPS, and most have excellent economics departments.</p>
<p>CMC in Claremont near LA would be a good school to check out. The consortium makes it feel like a bigger college campus, and the weather is not too cold :)</p>
<p>I know a young man with stats not quite as high as DADII"s friend’s S who was accepted at UNC-Ch. He did not get much aid, merit or financial aid, however. It was his highest cost school next to his state school. He did much better at schools like Case Western that gave him a generous financial aid with merit package.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t look for great aid from Berkeley. California’s finances are a disaster, so all the UCs are facing huge budget cuts. I don’t imagine their highest priority will be helping out OOS kids.</p>
<p>I second the recommendation of Haverford. Grinnell, I think, would be too isolated and too cold for the young man. But the more I look at the kid’s list, the more I think I have devoted more thought to it than he has. What does he want? Pretty much all top LACs and top research universities have good econ departments, since econ is a popular major, so that doesn’t help narrow things down. </p>
<p>Urban vs. suburban? Distribution requirements (like Harvard) vs. no distribution requirements (like Brown)? Does he care about science? About art? Theater? Sports? Does he want a preppy school or a school that’s more laid-back socially? Politically liberal (Brown) or more conservative (Princeton)? Does he want to write a senior thesis? Study abroad?</p>
<p>As a CA resident, I also recommend that an OOS econ student needing financial aid should eliminate UC Berkeley. Because of CA’s current budget woes and the state of the economy in general, this year will be especially competitive for all applicants, and next year, resources will become even scarcer for attending students. If your friend’s S is considering Berkeley’s Haas business school, be forewarned that Haas does not admit freshmen - instead, students are admitted into Haas before their junior year based on their 1st and 2nd year records (and a couple of years ago, the admit rate into Haas was well below 50% and those admitted usually had frosh-soph GPAs around 3.4 or so - a considerable accomplishment at Berkeley). Since pre-Haas candidates are usually Econ majors, that makes Econ particularly overcrowded and “impacted”, making it more difficult to satisfy prerequisites and to graduate on schedule. Unfortunately, for an OOS applicant Berkeley offers a public school education (albeit a good one) at a private school price - not a great option for someone needing financial aid.</p>
<p>The problem is this: With 11 colleges on the list, there are at least 6 admissions reaches that are financial matches, three admissions matches (sort of) that are financial reaches (the OOS publics, where merit aid would be a necessity), and one high-matchy school that may or may not be a financial match (Northwestern – I have the impression that its financial aid packages are not in the same league as the Ivy types). So really, all that’s there is a bunch of reaches and one safety, maybe one safety and one high match.</p>
<p>I don’t think that works too well. </p>
<p>The 11-school limit is artificial. This student will no doubt apply ED or EA to one of the top-line schools. If he is accepted, he’ll be applying to 0-6 additional colleges (including his State U as a financial safety), and none of the others will matter. If he isn’t accepted, then he either needs to re-examine his list or expand the limit; he really can’t count on getting admitted to HYPS etc. or getting good aid at Berkeley etc. </p>
<p>If he insists on a limit, I would scrap one or more of Berkeley, Northwestern, UNC, and UIUC and substitute at least a couple of colleges with solid financial aid and slightly more forgiving admissions compared to the Ivies, like the LACs I named above, or maybe one of the southern ones, or Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>DadII, your friend’s list is neither good nor bad; it is incomplete! It simply reflects a list of someone who has not done much homework and allows the wrong elements such as prestige and name recognition of the schools to cloud the issues. It is a hodgepodge of all the usual suspects (HYPPS) and a couple of quasi safeties this student would probably hate to attend. Some choices are very poor. Case in point: an OOS who needs lots of $$$ at Berkeley? </p>
<p>First of all, if the student is interested in Economics, why would he leave schools that offer the very best undergraduate education in Economics of his list? By now, you do know what I mean by that! If education and financial aid do matter, you can’t leave LAC out!</p>
<p>Anyhow, here’s the very best advice I could give you: </p>
<ul>
<li>If the student is a Junior, check Questbridge and start working on the applications now as he follows this season’s results and outcomes.<br></li>
<li>If he is a Senior, use the same QB for a list of schools that would fit the desires. Pay close attention to the financial packages that are presented. </li>
</ul>
<p>Pomona and CMC only accepted about 15% this year. Pomona gives 0 merit money, but might be good on need-based aid. Don’t know about CMC and FA, but they are both reaches for anyone, imo.</p>
<p>Pomona’s FA packages were the best according to D’s friends. CMC has a merit scholarship for which this student is well-qualified academically. CMC is loaded with money and offers good need-based aid, too (on average, $25K per student). Of course, they are reaches, but a boy’s chance is twice as high as a girl’s chance at those schools.</p>
<p>From FastWeb:</p>
<p>“The College offers approximately thirty McKenna Achievement Awards to members of each entering freshman class. These awards are valued at $5000 each and are renewable for each of the four years, provided the student earns at least a B average. To be considered for one of these awards, a student usually must rank among the top 5 percent in his or her high school class and earn a score of more than 690 on both the mathematical and verbal portions of the SAT I. Candidates must also have excellent school recommendations and strong extracurricular involvement, including leadership, and must have filed a completed application by December 1.”</p>
<p>PS I do not think that the financial aid packages are substantially different between Pomona and Claremont McKenna. Both schools are known to be extremely generous. I also know that you’ll find genuinely nice people at the CMC Finaid office; they’ll move mountains to help students change their status from admitted to enrolled and will do the same for four years.</p>
<p>If he wants to apply to CMC, he’d better get busy. He needs to apply for those scholarships by this coming Monday. (Assuming he is a senior. But I think he is, since he has already taken his ACTs and three SAT IIs.)</p>
<p>This came by way of Dad II. He could be an 8th grader and have already taken his ACTs and three SAT IIs. I had the impression the kid was in 11th grade, but perhaps mainly because it’s late to be having this discussion if he’s a senior.</p>
<p>That is why I edged my response and gave two scenarios. This said, the statistics posted as “The stats are: 100%tile ACT, 2250 SAT II (3), NMSF, 3.90 unweight GPA with over 10 AP, very competitive HS, good list of E/C including some leadership roles” are more indicative of a senior. Unless, that is a NMSF *expected *based on his 2008 PSAT scores.</p>
<p>“DadII, your friend’s list is neither good nor bad; it is incomplete! It simply reflects a list of someone who has not done much homework and allows the wrong elements such as prestige and name recognition of the schools to cloud the issues. It is a hodgepodge of all the usual suspects (HYPPS) and a couple of quasi safeties this student would probably hate to attend.”</p>
<p>Dad II, can you explain more what your friend means by wanting a “prestigious” name? Do they see anything as prestigious beyond Ivies and the rest of the top 20? Are they even aware of LAC’s?</p>
<p>An Ivy League school or any school with an admit rate that low is NOT a “high match.” You can’t just go by stats but must consider the acceptance rate. Brown is a REACH for ANYONE. </p>
<p>This list is lacking in MATCHES. As well, we really do not know enough about the student and very selective schools go by much more than just these numbers. Further, we know very little of his selection criteria other than “prestige”. </p>
<p>There are lots of schools in between his reaches and his safeties…Georgetown, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, WashU, Carnegie Mellon, Oberlin, UMich, Wesleyan, UMiami, Brandeis, George Washington, Emory, and many many more, including LACs.</p>
<p>“So, it is the general feeling that OOS may be an acedamic match but $$ will be very difficult to get?”</p>
<p>Yes. Public universities have as their first mission to educate the students of that home state whose parents pay taxes into the system. It is unrealistic to expect a state university to subsidize a smart student from out-of-state when there are deserving students in-state already.</p>
<p>I think there are quite a few colleges that will give this young man a lot of money to entice him to apply, but they just won’t have the prestige name the parent wants. I think the parent will have to decide what is more important, a low college bill from a school that doesn’t have a “name” or a higher college bill from a school with a name. But I don’t think this young man can count on both. Dad II, which is more important to your friend, the name or the money?</p>