<p>On these forums, I read a lot about choosing financial safety schools, but would like to be referred to a thread that talks about the actual steps of researching and figuring out which schools might be financially safe for my son.</p>
<p>He'd like to go to a school with strong math/science/computer program with some access to liberal arts as well.</p>
<p>My son is going to apply to a number of reach private schools with excellent financial aid, but we have to face the reality that although he has excellent scores and grades, so do lots of other kids and he may not get into any of them. </p>
<p>This may have been covered on other threads before. If so, can someone refer me?</p>
<p>A financial safety is a school you can afford without any FA help other than a Stafford loan ($5500 a year for freshman). Add that $5500 to what you can either afford out-of-pocket, or can get (and afford) in loans as a parent and that will govern your choice(s) of a financial safety. It is also important to consider your son’s chances of being accepted to a financial safety. For instance: Ivy league schools are not considered safeties. </p>
<p>Obviously the more YOU can contribute to your sons education the less you need to worry about the total COA of his safety schools. Most safety schools are public universities that you qualify for in-state tuition and your local community college that your son might be able to commute to (and save room & board costs).</p>
<p>There are many, many threads with lots of suggestions. Look at the very top of this forum – the very top post has links to many, many very good threads. Bottom line is to 1) know what your minimum expected family contribution is (run both the FAFSA calculators and institutional calculators). 2) Look for colleges and universities where your son’s GPA and ACT or SAT scores put him at the upper level of entering student statistically. This will theoretically put the student in the running for merit monies. 3) Make sure the student applies to one in-state pubic school that you can afford. After that, read and read and read these forums and you will gain much invaluable information. But do start with some of the threads linked in the very top post on this forum (ther will be a little “lock” symbol next to it. As you put together an intial list you can search on each of the schools and read threads. Those threads will have information that will help refine and also discover other options. You’ll be an expert in no time.</p>
<p>Sometimes you can find a lower tier school with a strong program that your son or daughter wants to study. My daughter got an excellent package from a school that had a strong business program but not so strong in other areas. If other schools didn’t work out, she would have attended there with a good scholarship.
Many parents say their state school was their first financial safety because you know the cost before any aid and many can pay it, with or without loans.</p>
<p>I disagree that financial safety schools should be chosen by running financial calculators, determining your EFC or applying to schools that your child is in the top 10% of the applicant pool. A safety should be a bottom line…this is what I know can afford if I don’t get any of the help that I hope I get. I can sleep tonight KNOWING that my child has at least one school I can afford.</p>
<p>Applying to schools that your child is in the top 10% of the applicant pool is a great idea for expanding your school search and maximizing your chances for receiving merit aid. But you cannot depend on it.</p>
<p>Determining your EFC and applying to schools that meet “need” is a great idea for expanding your school search and maximizing your chances for receiving need based aid. But you cannot depend on it. Many schools say they meet 100% of need then determine for themselves what your need actually is… What if their idea of meeting need is different than yours?</p>
<p>By all means…apply to all of your son’s dream schools…but also apply to at LEAST one school that you can afford without outside help (other than a Stafford Loan) as a “safety”.</p>
<p>Financial safeties are often mid-tier schools and below where the mid 50 stats are below your child’s stats.</p>
<p>For instance, if your child has a 4.0 GPA and a 33 ACT, and the mid 50 range at your flagship is ACT 25-28, then that is probably a safety for you (except for Texas, UCs and other schools that don’t admit that way).</p>
<p>However, for such a school to also be a financial safety to you, the school must be affordable by one (or a combo) of the following means…</p>
<p>1) you can pay all the costs.</p>
<p>2) Your child’s stats will give him a large assured merit scholarship (and you can afford the rest out of pocket and/or with a small loan).</p>
<p>3) Your EFC is low enough that known fed aid, state aid, small loans, and/or contributing some of your own money will cover the costs.</p>
<p>A financial safety is not a school that you “hope” to get financial aid or merit $$. You must know what you’d get or know that you can afford to pay for it for the school to be a financial safety. So, a school that has competitive scholarships or has unknown awards would not likely be a financial safety. </p>
<p>You can’t assume a school is going to give you great FA based on running an EFC calculator. Most schools don’t meet need and often people find out that their real EFC is higher than their estimated one. A parent painfully learned that this year at a VA public that claims to meet need. The family’s actually EFC was much higher than the estimated one. </p>
<p>Often financial safeties are the local public that a child could commute to if he had to or a school where the student knows he qualifies for an assured merit scholarship and the balance is affordable.</p>
<p>AUTO $$$ CC Important links to Auto Scholarships…
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>Lots has been discussed already, so I’ll tackle an area that has not been touched upon: early decision applications.</p>
<p>Applying ED is not a good idea if financing a college education is problematic. You basically only have one option. My D considered applying ED to a no-loan school and I wouldn’t let her. It’s a good thing. She was admitted RD and the fin aid package was 5th out of 6th. She has less expensive options at equivalent or better schools.</p>
<p>While ED is out, early applications can play an important roll.</p>
<p>1) Early action applications can be used to lock in acceptances at colleges know to have good fin aid. Since many EA notifications are made in early December, there is time to make additions/subtractions from you list of schools to aply to prior to the Jan 1 deadlines. When admitted EA you won’t get a fin aid package early like you do with ED. That will come later.</p>
<p>2) Rolling admissions. Applying early to schools with rolling admissions is essentially a form of early action with the same advantages. This can be effective for state schools in some states, but the better schools with top notch fin aid rarely have rolling admissions.</p>
<p>3) Early scholarship deadlines. Richmond, for example, automatically considers apps submitted by Dec 15 for scholarships. Make sure you don’t miss out on these opportunities.</p>
<p>Applying ED is not a good idea if financing a college education is problematic. You basically only have one option. My D considered applying ED to a no-loan school and I wouldn’t let her. It’s a good thing. She was admitted RD and the fin aid package was 5th out of 6th. She has less expensive options at equivalent or better schools.</p>
<p>I agree. Applying ED gets some kids side-tracked. They are so certain that they’re going to go to THAT school, that they don’t bother applying to financial safeties or schools that will give them assured merit. Every January we see kids who are very upset because their ED school gave them lousy aid, yet it’s now too late to apply to many, many schools that had earlier BIG scholarship app deadlines (see below). </p>
<p>*
3) Early scholarship deadlines. Richmond, for example, automatically considers apps submitted by Dec 15 for scholarships. Make sure you don’t miss out on these opportunities. *</p>
<p>Yes! Some have scholarship app deadlines as early as November 15th! Many have Dec 1st deadlines.</p>
<p>With regard to colleges where your student is in the top percentages - my point was simply this:…many college/unis outside the T-20 or so publish merit money and automatic scholarships on their websites. Private and publics do this. These are awarded automatically to students who apply. Read the financial aid and admissions websites to find these. If a college has a published cost of attendance of $32,000 and your student automatically qualifies for $5,000 in automatic awards it effectively reduces the COA to $27,000 and so on. For both both our kids we set a “budget” for college and then worked from there to target a couple schools that we knew would come in budget based on these types of givens that also fit their “wants” and needs. So for some families that can be their “financial safety” even though they aren’t paying the total COA. I would caution any family that has not saved for college or has a very low EFC that this might not be a viable plan of attack to locate financial safeties… just to follow up aglages post.</p>
<p>Starting early and reading each website FA is a big help. I knew when my son went to college, Marist and Clark had set amounts for scholarships for a certain SAT score. I knew we needed a certain amount of grants, which we got at one and not the other, but it gave me a starting point.
Some colleges don’t give amounts, keep it open so they can change it, but you get an idea. My son only wanted to apply to about 5 colleges, I allowed my daughters and encouraged them to apply to many more (free apps were about 1/4 of them)and it paid off for us. I saw wide ranges in aid, wide ranges in full-need schools and it was a continued education in the uncertainty of college apps.</p>
<p>My emphasis on applying early with respect to safety schools is that as soon as you are accepted somewhere you have a safety, provided it is affordable. Once accepted early that doesn’t mean the process is over. There could be an even better opportunity when RD decisions, scholarships, and fin aid packages are released in the spring.</p>
<p>Conventional wisdom is to apply to a lot of schools in hope of getting into a really great school.
The new conventional wisdom is to apply to a lot of schools in hope of getting into a school that offers a great financial aid package, need-based or merit.</p>
<p>Two thoughts from our experience:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Be aware that just because a school says they will meet need doesn’t mean that the FA award will match your expectations (or comfort level). This is especially true with the prestige schools that have lots of talented admits and little or no merit scholarships.</p></li>
<li><p>During the search process, visit candidate financial safeties until your son has found one he really, sincerely, wants to go to. It’s great to say, “sure, I can see myself at X, I’ll apply” but when that prestige acceptance comes along with limited FA, you really find out if he meant it.</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>Would you mind naming the schools in question? My daughter applied ED with a lot of need to Williams when they were no-loan and it worked out for us. I do think some schools may be using “no-loan” as a marketing tool while giving less generous definitions of need. The more light that can be shed on this the better.</p>
<p>*
- Be aware that just because a school says they will meet need doesn’t mean that the FA award will match your expectations (or comfort level).*</p>
<p>Very true. These tend to be CSS Profile schools and they sometimes do have a higher expectation of family contribution unless the family is obviously low income. However, even families with low incomes are often shocked to get inadequate aid from these schools because the non-custodial parent’s info is used or needed.</p>
<p>Would you mind naming the schools in question? My daughter applied ED with a lot of need to Williams when they were no-loan and it worked out for us.</p>
<p>IF there is no NCP with a highish income throwing off “need,” I think that those students who have lots of determined need (very low EFCs and little assets) will get better packages from the “100% need met with no loans” schools.</p>
<p>I think it’s the ones with modest/moderate need are the ones who can be surprised that those schools expect more from the family. Maybe because those families have more home equity, or other things that FAFSA doesn’t consider.</p>
<p>Financial Part:
Step 1) Figure out how much you and your child can afford to pay in cash money. Nobody but you will be able to tell you that. </p>
<p>Step 2) Figure out how much you can or are willing to borrow</p>
<p>Step 3) Add $5500 for Stafford loans</p>
<p>Search Part
Step 4) Go to collegeboard.com and use their search tools to identify schools with a total list price cost within your budget and where you are ~95% certain your child will get into. Make sure you note priority application dates and whether the school is rolling. Some schools like UWisconsin which may be safeties if you apply in September, may not be safeties if you apply in December. Also consider Canadian schools like Waterloo, Toronto, McGill and UBC, which are sometimes more reasonably priced than US public OOS. New York and Minnesota schools are often very reasonable even for OOS. There are others.</p>
<p>Notice that the CSS or FAFSA has no part in any of this.</p>
<p>
Davidson. I did get a preliminary estimate of fin aid from the school and that was what led me to believe that the fin aid might not be all that exceptional, even with no loans. The actual fin aid award was better than the estimate, but that still wasn’t enough to make it comparable to other awards.</p>
<p>D also applied to Williams and their fin aid estimator showed a much better number than Davidson’s estimate. If D wanted to apply to Williams ED I probably would have let her. Congratulation to your D on her acceptance.</p>
<p>Please don’t forget to ask your child’s guidance counselor about schools that have been generous with merit aid and financial aid for students like your son. D’s guidance counselor knew of a number of such schools, some of which we would probably not thought to look at. Spring is a nice time to talk – much less crazy than the fall – and that way you can start researching schools more.</p>
<p>it looks like OP’s son is eligible for Questbridge? not exactly a financial safety but it certainly helps.</p>
<p>one in-state U/community college</p>
<p>Then apply to every generous school that you have a decent shot at. More not less, make sure several are matches and safeties. Wash U in St. Louis has no loans for incomes under 60k. it’s only a safety for those with Ivy League aspirations but it sounds as if your son does. Admissions is incredibly random at top schools. What about Rice University? That also sounds match-ish though without stats it’s hard to say and they give great merit aid and also meet full need. </p>
<p>here’s a list of schools that meet full need [Need-blind</a> admission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission]Need-blind”>Need-blind admission - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>
When did “meets full need” and “need blind” begin to have the same meaning?</p>
<p>it doesn’t but if you clicked the link you would have seen they only list school that meet full need…it’s the list right under the heading “Colleges and schools that are need-blind and full-need for U.S. students”</p>