if you have prepaid florida tuition, i’d
- prep all summer with ACT or SAT
- check to see if prepaid can be used elsewhere.
- encourage her to keep her grades up
good luck!
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Have you looked at Flagler? It’s not particularly expensive to begin with for a private school. Lovely campus and location.
@twoinanddone can someone use FL Prepaid at Flagler?
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Just looked it up (quickly, so OP may want to review carefully)
Florida Prepaid can be used both instate and OOS and at public and private universities.
The difference is that the Prepaid Plan covers the tuition&fees that were “locked in”, regardless of increases, at public universities, whereas for privates and OOS it’s the “paid” value without any accrued benefit (ie., if you were Marco Rubio and you started paying into PrePaid when you got married, you’d put in sufficiently for roughly $3,500, whereas your kid would enjoy a $6,500 tuition at almost 50% discount if they went to FSU today, but just $3,000 would be “paid out” for a private or OOS college. Picked a Florida congressman because I was just reading the “When Congress went to college” publication and was surprised to see how inexpensive FL publics were just 17 years ago. And now I can’t find the exact number because I closed the publicationbut you get the idea …)
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To add onto everyone’s great comments, I would suggest looking at test-blind schools. These differ from test-optional in that they don’t want to accept standardised test scores at all. A few options: Hampshire College (MA), Reed College (OR), Dickinson College (PA). I know Dickinson specifically offers generous merit scholarship up to $40k/annually. Acceptance rate is around 50% so if your kid is strong in all other areas that’s a good chance. Definitely have a look 
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Yes, the Florida Prepaid is accepted at private schools in Florida. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I thought they gave the equivalent of the cost of tuition and fees at public schools, or about $6500 this year (not the amount you paid in). My daughter went to a private school and I think they said she’d get $6200 (that was in 2014, and we didn’t have FPP, they just thought we did so told us that amount). Yes, you can roll it over to grad school too, and I think you’d get the tuition/fees undergrad amount for the year you use it. A co-worker’s son got a full scholarship to UNC and let his FPP ride for grad school.
At a school like Flagler (which I think is beautiful, on the ocean, historical), she’d get to use BF (if she gets it - needs a higher test score than 1100), but also Florida resident grant which was $3500 a few years ago. That is a really nice bonus at Flagler, which doesn’t have a high tuition to start with. Flagler has some nice merit money too.
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Flagler will also likely provide good need-based FinAid.
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I apologize for being MIA. I’m new so I was limited to a certain number of posts and was locked out until now. I’ve been reading all your responses and really appreciate your help.
Excellent advise! Thank you. Her core UWGPA is 4.0. Her current weighted is 4.4 and will likely go up slightly. She has had straight As all year. I think her GPA makes it enough for some decent four year universities, but unless she significantly improves her SAT TO and OOS will also need to be be options. We do have four year Florida prepaid tuition. FB is out as the SAT requirement for even the lesser amount has gone up significantly in recent years. I’ll still see what merit money she can get at the private schools in state. UM went TO this last year, if they go TO again we will even see what gets there. They do give a lot of merit scholarships. I know because I was able to attend UM myself because of a generous merit and financial aid package. She would be legacy there and could live at home.
A lot to look at and research. What steps should we start taking this summer? I want to make sure we apply to all these places early on so that we have a better chance and also so that we have plenty of time to pivot and have options.
again - too far but 4.0 at Arizona = 35K off the 37K tuition.
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UM has gone up significantly in selectivity but her being a legacy could help. They only admit 27% applicants now, and the BOTTOM SAT scores are 640 for math and 630 for verbal (average = 690 and 660). Since only the top 25 (top 10% realistically) get merit aid, she’d need to demonstrate that without test scores, which is quite difficult.
They don’t “meet need” so run the NPC and if it looks like it may work out financially, add it in the “reaches” column
Basically, run the NPC on every university we list and keep all that are within budget (+/-). 
For Florida privates, UM, Rollins, Eckerd, and Flagler can go on her list. They’re all different (vibe, environment…) and I’d rank them in that order for selectivity, so I’m quite sure she’d get significant merit at Rollins, Eckerd, and of course Flagler (which is relatively “low cost” to start with, but isn’t the strongest academically). Knowing they’re competing with large publics for FL residents’ kids, they would likely offer better deals for FL students, plus you can probably visit relatively easily (relatively, compared to OOS).
Look into FIU Honors if she’s willing to commute - living away from parents and/or on a residential campus can be for college students’ growth, of course if it’s affordable, but having commutable options is always great and of course even if one could commute, it’s always possible to live on campus and have a full experience completely different from HS even if the HS is 20mn away.
If there’s no IB nor AICE at her school, then indeed BF is out due to SAT score, because 1010->1330 is really tough to achieve, 1260 perhaps but still hard to count on. (Only 18% Florida graduates end up benefiting from that, but for those it’s a great deal. You’re right, the numbers have gone up tremendously thus limiting who benefits. 
And there’s a big battle about funding right now, you can look for “changes in BF” or “Benacquisto” on this website, where posters follow the legislative sessions about it.)
Steps:
Figure out your budget.
Go on visits to get her excited about various different colleges: ask for a private tour at FIU Honors (ignore the SAT for now), visit FAU Wilkes and FAU, find a variety of colleges, not for her to apply to but for her to apprise what she likes. OR, if you can travel farther, take her to visit Rollins, Eckerd, and/or Flagler.
Apply for summer at UCF - why is she so taken with it, though? (Just curious, outside of Burnett, UCF seems to suffer growth pains and it’d be difficult to be one of 50,000… unless that’s what she wants?)
All in all, make sure she understands she can’t fixate on “one”, “dream” college.
Running the NPC on the 4 privates listed above, is any affordable for you?
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Thank you! Honestly, I think like many kids in Florida she was looking at FSU, UF, UM for her dream schools. But acceptance has gotten more difficult over the years. Definitely more so than when I applied to College. She thought she might at least have a long shot with her grades and rigor at FSU, but now she realizes with her SAT and recent stories from friends who have been rejected, that’s not really possible. After that she just basically she’d move on to the next larger public four year schools not in South Florida. UCF or USF. She knows she will have friends who end up there and it might be nice to have a roommate she already feels comfortable with. She really wants to go to a school that has a four year university experience. Dorms, activities, sporting events, mascots, pep rallies…etc. I know this is completely unimportant to some, but it is important to her. She wants a balance of academics and interesting student life. I don’t blame her. I wish I had enjoyed more of the college life when I was in school. I double majored and minored and graduated early, so I probably spent too much time buried in my books and working. If I had to do it over again I’d have cut myself some slack and enjoyed it more. I was the first in my immigrant family to attend college, and I was on an academic scholarship so I felt pressure.
There are tricks to taking the SAT test and learning those tricks can increase your score substantially. Based on practice tests, I worked with my daughter a few hours a day for about a week on the math portion and brought her score up about 150 points. (She got an 800 in reading section so we didn’t have to focus there). I taught her which questions to skip, how to narrow the choices and also some quick calculation tricks. She is not math oriented at all (she’s currently working on her MM in vocal performance at a top university in that area of study) but still managed a 640 on the math portion of the test. She had no background in either trig, calculus or even finite math when she took it.
I would encourage you to have your daughter take the prep classes. Hopefully they go over, not only learning the actual math, but also the tricks to guessing the right answer.
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@momhsc2 Thank you. That gives me hope. Yes, I want her to learn the tricks. I think the prep classes will at least help in that area. As far as the math, we are going to work on that through Khan academy videos and practice and possibly a tutor if we have to. I know she is in the same boat as your daughter as far the upper level maths. She really needs to learn more of that. Hopefully just learning some more upper level math can get her an improvement. Thank you.
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I can’t stress how much tutors helped my kids vs. prep classes. We paid $60 an hour for our tutor, a class cost around $500 (except for a free one zero period for a month which my kids said was pretty useless)
Most of the private colleges in Florida accept Florida Pre-paid. The web site lists guidance in this area. These as well as most OOS publics are test optional. Every school gives you a place to fill out their net price calculator. Many institutions offer merit scholarship based upon GPA’s in combination with financial assistance. May I suggest that you see if you can make an appointment with the guidance counselor at the HS to assist you with the navigation.
@Mjkacmom I’m definitely going to keep searching for a tutor. The one that was recommended to me seemed great but he wants her to go with him twice a week for a couple of hours each session at a cost of $570 per week! We can’t afford that. $60 per hour would be great!
@ECmotherx2 Thanks. We are looking. At the private colleges too and what merit aid she could get. We don’t want to blow through all of our prepaid money in a year. She really wants to have the full campus life experience. Any suggestions as to which privates, excluding pricey UM, could offer the most typical college campus life experience. Activities, events, school spirit are all important to her. Thank you!
There are books you can buy or online services - not 1:1. Depending on your child, they might work and can save you $$. When i took the GMAT years ago, i studied out of a book - an hour a day for 3 months - and my score really went up. It’s understanding the strategies. Yes, it won’t be tailored to you but it’s a low cost way. Even some community colleges offer sessiosn (perhaps online). You need to learn the tricks - that’s what they teach - so it can be done through 1:1 tutoring - or through Khan Academy or otherwise. So you might try a low cost first and see if that works. We did 1:1 tutoring through NGenius - was like $90 an hour. We did six sessions - but yes, not everyone has that advantage (hence in some ways, yes the system is rigged). See if her studying from a book or on-line software or Khan Academy videos might be better.
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She should be fine at FAU with those scores now and if she brought her SAT up in the 1150-1200 range she should be fine at UCF and just by retaking the test a few times and with some practice I would think she can get there!.
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Ask around, even on local Facebook pages. The one we found fir our 3 youngest was very popular in town (I could see who else venmo’d him). Since they aren’t needed for long, their names are passed along. I can’t tell you how many people asked me about a SAT tutor recommendation. He came an hour a week and had them do practice tests, and ho over why they got the wrong answer, and why they thought it was the correct answer.
For need based/merit/full residential experience, Rollins and Eckerd, perhaps Stetson ?
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What does your daughter want to study?
I recommend Florida Southern for the ‘full college experience’ too. I liked Rollins a lot more, but it is very expensive. Florida Southern is much cheaper and they have some nice merit awards.