<p>I'm with HImom and dstark and joev and others who appreciate someone who comes on the board and offers, in a nice way, to share information about a certain approach to scholarship and college choice. </p>
<p>Calling someone else's choices "ridiculous" and "misguided" and slinging arrows at someone who is simply sharing information is really not appropriate and is actually counter-productive. Don't you know how to disagree in a polite way?</p>
<p>"that fits her budget"? Presumably we are talking about parent contribution beyond financial aid, and unwilling to pay for even room and board.</p>
<p>If it is the right thing to do to send you child to U Texas El Paso on a football scholarship, do it. If it is the right thing to do to send your child to a 4th tier honors college because it's the right thing to do for your child, do it. If having the child take on such enormous debt that it would hobble her future, don't do it.</p>
<p>If you are so into parents' life style or finances in some other way that you send your child to an inappropriately unchallanging college to save a few bucks, even covering the room and board of supporting her at home, you have values that should be acknowledged as such.</p>
<p>Politeness is overrated in the face of error.</p>
<p>Also, "Do we look down at athletes who PICK a Tier 4 schooL"? I do, unless he/she couldn't do better academically, unless perhaps a professional contract is in the offing.</p>
<p>MomfromTexas, what kind of grades do you think you need to get some of these scholarships? I looked at your original post and it seems you have to have very strong grades to go along with the SAT scores. Probably close to 4.0 gpas. True?</p>
<p>EUL........... - UUUMMM have seen no mention from the OP about their financial situation - affordability or not - which is no-ones business but theirs. </p>
<p>To the OP - you have done some great research - which I am sure will benefit many others.</p>
<p>I found this list from Kiplinger which is Free!
and you can sort by % of aid given and how much loan students have at graduation.
Best values in private colleges
They also have lists for public colleges too.</p>
<p>Remember also that many students just out of Stanford and Harvard and the like who want to get into the "education profession" take their first jobs at schools like UTEP. I had a great professor once who had just graduated from Stanford. He taught a US history class at a UT school in the Rio Grande Valley. And that said, school is what you make it. We are so lucky in the US to have thousands of wonderful institutions.</p>
<p>The Kiplinger list is a great first start for those trying to navigate the college finance process.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, I thoroughly agree that opportunities are what an individual makes of them. There are wonderful educational opportunities in large public state Us as well as elites & everything in between. Yes, there of course is a difference between the different settings.
I don't believe I or anyone I know who attended a large public was "shortchanged" because we didn't go to a higher-priced elite college & would gladly make the same choices again. There are many wonderful schools in the US.</p>
<p>OP. Great job. From one research hound to another, you are playing the game well in an attempt to meet your family's needs. I applaud your effort. Bravo. </p>
<p>Folks need to realize that the Honors College at Ole Miss is a heckuva great place, run by a heckuva smart fella (no full-rides or even full tuition unfortunately) and was my daughters first choice when we started the search. That the scholarships and most importantly the opportunities offered the recipients of the McDermott at UT-Dallas are phenomenal. The same can be said for the highest scholarships at Texas State.</p>
<p>And now to clinch that we are with the OP in more than just spirit , my high stat kid's first choice school (as of today anyway, it's always in a state of flux ) is a third tier school. Texas Tech. Why? Well, </p>
<p>1) She hates A+M and Texas </p>
<p>2) We needed an in-state safety and </p>
<p>3) There is a program called UMSI that she wants so badly she can taste it. </p>
<p>If she gets it (which is highly unlikely) she'll be admitted provisionally to med school (no mcat), have medical and science mentoring and research opportunities out the wazoo, special treatment deluxe with registration, dorms, semester abroad etc. and graduate as a physician with zero debt without bankrupting her parents. Sounds pretty good to her. And guess what? It will be MORE money than some of her private school choices as there are limited scholarships. LOL. So, in summary-a third tier school without a free-ride may be my kid's first choice school (if she gets the program). So, I guess to some I'm even dumber than the OP. LOL.</p>
<p>The truth is that you'll never know if you've been shortchanged. Although you may be really successful at a state school, you may achieve a different level of success if you were at a private school.</p>
<p>a little off topic but could anyone clear up the tiering of schools? like what schools on the US News ranking consists of tier 1, tier 2 etc..?</p>
<p>Like would tier 1 be the top 25 schools?</p>
<p>Yeah, or we could be failures wherever we went & in our later professional lives. There are folks who went to ivies & top tiers who are NOT happy with their lives & have tons of debt too. Who knows what would have happened to them if they went elsewhere? How fruitful is this type of speculation? Having options & letting folks make informed decisions sounds like a good plan to me. Thanks TexasMom for helping with this discussion & thread.</p>
<p>Or vice versa. It works both ways! :) College is more than classes. It is friends, and serendipitous experiences that lead you on your path.</p>
<p>hobo, "tier one" usually refers to USNWR rankings within a USNWR category. It goes by 50 per tier. Tier 3 then would be those schools ranked from 100-150 (although USNWR fudges and selects more than 50 schools for its second tier).</p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind is that even within universities, there can be exceptional departments or schools. For example, the University of Hawaii has one of the best International Relations & International Business Schools in the world, from what I've heard from a former dean. It also has an exceptional marine biology department & astronomy department. University of Arizona says they have an exceptional astronomy & physics department.</p>
<p>Part of the equation is also "name recognition" of the particular schools in the area of the country where you plan to get a job & live. In HI as I suspect a lot of other places, part of name recognition happens to be how well the football team does & whether it competes in the conference HI does or at least a well known, high profile conference.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the great football team & buying a lot of NMF & bright students thru generous merit aid has caused USC's rep to really rise recently. I've heard others mention this as well.</p>
<p>Wow, I kind of suspected that this might be a controversial thread. I will add a bit more now. </p>
<p>The higher stats that the student has, the more possibilities that open up. But of course the higher up the rankings one moves, the more competetive the scholarship becomes. At the lower levels some are automatic with certain stats. At the higher levels one is competing with hundreds and hundreds of applicants for a handful of awards at most. Most of our searching was in Texas, the south, the southwest and the lower midwest. States with lower PSAT cutoffs and with declining as opposed to increasing students at the age to enter higher education generally provide the best opportunities. </p>
<p>Because of a semi-complicated family situation, I decided to take this search for merit-based funding for higher education as a challenge. It has not been easy to figure all this out. But I think I have learned a lot about how to do it. One poster asked about GPA's. Most scholarships mention a GPA of 3.75 or top 10% though some are higher and some are lower. I have not seen a distinction between weighted and non-weighted however.</p>
<p>By the way, Curmudgeon has some different criteria than I do and has a student with higher stats, but he has learned many of the same things that I have about how to play the merit scholarship game. He has obviously spent many hours researching information to learn what he is now able to apply. He has also been very generous in sharing this knowledge.</p>
<p>Any more questions about the method as opposed to the rational?</p>
<p>My parents are very well off and they dont want to pay for my out of state tuition. There are a lot of parents that are skeptical about an undergrad degree that costs 200K. However, I agree with the consensus that anything below tier 2 for a kid with a 1410 is a shame.</p>
<p>
[quote]
consensus
[/quote]
say what???</p>
<p>momfromtexas - thanks for starting this thread. I feel the unwarranted attack on your choice is outrageous -- apparently it stems from people who are so set on rationalizing their willingness to pay $50K annually for a college label that they feel compelled to disparage anyone who doesn't readily jump on the bankruptcy-bound bandwagon. Although I have not followed your path, I found it interesting to read how you did the research and think it can help many students whose families are not willing or able to finance their educations.</p>
<p>[edit: flame removed - JEM] I think of the many students who have posted on this board that they cannot get their parents' cooperation in filling out forms -- or who are foreclosed from getting financial aid because of noncustodial parents or step-parents who are unwilling to fund college. I am also very aware that the vast majority of colleges do not guarantee to meet 100% of need, so good students who are not in the running for elite colleges really do need to be aware of merit opportunities. You are offering a path that may be the only way kids from these situations will realistically be able to attend college.</p>
<p>I attended a top law school 30 years ago, but when I went out to practice law I quickly learned that in the courtroom, it made no difference whether a lawyer had gone to an elite college or was a graduate of the local night school -- in fact, often the graduates of the less prestigious schools were better litigators, perhaps because they had more street smarts or were more likely to have been taught by practicing lawyers than ivory tower professors. </p>
<p>My son attended 2 years at top tier elite liberal arts college, but very likely will finish his education at the local CSU -- with added maturity and work experience, he simply wants to finish his degree in the most economical way possible. </p>
<p>"Challenge" is what we do or find on our own, and many of us look beyond the classroom. I certainly spent more time in college and in law school involved in outside activities, jobs & internships than in class. I suppose when one is very young and inexperienced it seems like the ideal path to an education is through some college geared to "the best and the brightest"... but sometimes the very best and very brightest individuals are also very capable of forging their own paths. </p>
<p>I know so many successful adults whose careers are launched on credentials that are essentially self-taught or obtained through the type of courses that any one can enroll in -- such as real estate licenses or insurance brokers. These are smart and capable people -- some have undergraduate degrees and some don't -- but as far as "education" they really didn't need to be spoon-fed, but were capable of seeking out and acquiring the knowledge they needed on their own. A college degree always has value -- but for many people it really matters very little where the degree is from.</p>
<p>I honestly don't see how anyone can think it "intelligent" to undermine their financial security in order to obtain a degree when the same degree can be obtained at a less prestigious institution at a cost they are comfortable with and can afford. Obviously families that are well-off financially and have planned and saved for college are not facing that dilemma -- but those who attack your choices obviously also have a very limited ability to conceptualize situations different than their own.</p>
<p>MomfromTexas - </p>
<p>I've read this thread with an increasing sense of outrage that thread trolls keep feeling the need to challenge your family's choices. Me? I can imagine an infinite number of situations that would drive your strategy, and I applaud the effort you've invested to ensure your kids graduate debt free.</p>
<p>Thanks for offering to share that information with the rest of us.</p>