<p>Trying to find an affordable option besides community college is more daunting than I realized.</p>
<p>Would love to hear from lower middle income parents who found an affordable school with not too much debt for a strong stats student, but not over the top strong stats.</p>
<p>Could you share some of the basic stats – gpa, sat, etc…there are good colleges out there for the middle-stat kids! </p>
<p>He’s gotten some acceptances, but I don’t think the finances will be there based on early scholarship. Our EFC will likely be around 9K, maybe a little less, but these schools are super gap schools. He’s continuing to apply for lots of outside scholarships and specific scholarships at these schools. He’s also up for a possible Corporate NM Scholarship, but early returns don’t look promising.</p>
<p>2230 SAT (730 CR, 750, M, 750 W)
710 Lit 730 Math II SAT II-will retake Math and is waiting on Physics
3.95/4.52 GPA
26 Community college units so far
No AP scores (will take 4 APs this year)
Homeschooled
Biggest EC is a ton of music; submitted music supplement (cello) to all schools that accept them; he’s very strong
Good LORs from all teachers (music teacher, employer-he was a professional cellist this past summer; college physics and English profs)
Also submitted Arts supplement in game design/animation/drawing</p>
<p>Other ECs are first place robotics team, bowling, and a ton of service related to cello and church.</p>
<p>Major of most interest is game design, follow by things like industrial design, product design, music, visual arts, arts& technology, CS, and ME.</p>
<p>California resident.</p>
<p>Special circumstances: diabetes, vision disability for which he had surgery to correct (the reason he didn’t take an APs before this year), and math disability.</p>
<p>I’m just really thinking based on early scholarships from not tippy top schools, we won’t be able to afford anything and that he won’t get into any of the schools that meet full need. (We could afford those)</p>
<p>Still waiting to hear on the two local schools he can afford, UCSD and SDSU. </p>
<p>My D and her BF do not meet any of your criteria, but they both graduated from an instate directional university and they are pretty happy with their choice, ( and low debt).
However, as it is increasing in popularity, admission can be challenging.</p>
<p>Yep, @emeraldkity4 . </p>
<p>I think I am just a bit discouraged. A young friend of ours with a 1740 SAT, Cuban, was already accepted to SDSU (and isn’t excited about it). My son has heard nothing and his stats are much higher. At this point, I would just like to see one affordable option. Of the 5 acceptances my son has so far, without the FAFSA (and probably even with it), they are not looking affordable. But, April isn’t hear yet, right? :-)</p>
<p>Which CSUs did he apply to. Those,should be affordable.</p>
<p>Five of them-SDSU (the only affordable one for sure), CSULB, Fullerton, SJSU and SLO. We qualify for Cal Grant and small Pell grant, but room and board we do not have. And he’s not been accepted, so the point is moot for now.</p>
<p>He is applying for Fullerton’s Presidential Scholarship, but it’s only tuition and fees. Still leaves room and board.</p>
<p>Room and Board is 11K at each school. Assuming we could afford our EFC of $8500 (we can’t really), that still leaves a large gap. Further, because we qualify for these grants, any outside scholarship my son might earn would disappear and just go towards the Cal/Pell Grant. That’s frustrating, for sure, but it happened to my oldest son, so California schools were not great for anyone with high need and outside scholarships.</p>
<p>At least that’s the way it worked three years ago. I need to check with my f. aid guru to confirm that.</p>
<p>Room and board are $11,000. Your son can take a $5500 Direct Loan. That leaves $5500 left to fund. If he gets a scholarship that covers tuition and fees…why wouldn’t the additional Direct Loan plus $6000 from you fund the cost of a CSU? </p>
<p>Is my math off?</p>
<p>Because my son does not want that kind of debt! That is too much for a CSU school. Not going to happen. That is not affordable, IMO. My definition of affordable is different from yours. I think 10-15K possibly, but even that scares me. Sorry, but I see too many people around here with 20-25K debt who are working at $10-13 an hour jobs just trying to pay off debt. Doesn’t make sense to me.</p>
<p>And I was hoping to hear from people who did this with little debt. I should have made that clear in the original post.</p>
<p>23K in debt is not ok with my son.</p>
<p>My nephew with similar stats is at UCLA (I know the deadline is gone) and got surprisingly good FA. Did he apply to Cal Poly? UA Honors?</p>
<p>Up here in WA my kids are gapped more than $10k each and the governor just cut more from higher ed. One of D’s friends from S. Cal. lasted only 1 semester because of lousy aid. Of the ones applied to, MT publics offered the best deal with WUE but did not apply to any of the farther states like AZ, NM, or Utah.</p>
<p>It sounds like he’s wiling to commute, right? Have you checked into all the local colleges? He may have to put the dream of video game design on hold for a few years and just go for a straight computer science degree. </p>
<p>I’m on the opposite end of the country but if I were in your shoes, I would have my son apply to all the commutable former women’s colleges that are now co-ed. Do you have anything like that by you? Around here there’s Immaculata, Rosemont, and Cabrini to name just a few. Those colleges are usually pretty generous with both merit and FA to boys, especially the higher stats ones. If you lived here, I’m sure your son would have some commutable options with less than a 10k price tag BEFORE loans.</p>
<p>Another option might be to look into schools that are not commutable but would give him full tuition and then bank on getting an RA job. Not ideal, of course, because there are no guarantees, but might be worth looking into.</p>
<p>Would love the name of all full tuition schools. I know Liberty Univ. gives full tuition for NM commended. Others? I think there was something like Louisiana Tech? I’m going to look into that.</p>
<p>He did not apply to UA (presumably Univ. of Alabama)</p>
<p>He applied to Cal Poly SLO but not CPP.</p>
<p>He did apply to UCLA and yes, according to the calculator, they are the most affordable besides the two local schools. We would owe apx 8K there, so yes, affordable. Getting in will be the hard part.</p>
<p>No other commutable schools of interest. Pt. Loma Nazarene and Univ. of San Diego are not good fits. Pt. Loma does have good scholarships for their Engr Physic dept., but it’s not ABET accredited, and I’m leery of that.</p>
<p>Have you considered Messiah in Grantham, PA? You seem to be receptive to Christian schools, from your comments. Their engineering program is ABET-accredited engineering, I believe. Your son’s stats would be high for Messiah, and he would bring in geographic diversity, so maybe they could make it affordable.</p>
<p>SBJ, I’m guessing you’ve already seen this site, but just in case you haven’t…
<a href=“http://main.abet.org/aps/AccreditedProgramSearch.aspx/AccreditationSearch.aspx”>http://main.abet.org/aps/AccreditedProgramSearch.aspx/AccreditationSearch.aspx</a></p>
<p>Thankyou, @fieldsports . We can look into Messiah. I have a friend whose brother attends and seems to like it.</p>
<p>While we are a Christian family, my son hasn’t expressed much of an interest in Christian colleges. He definitely walks to his beat when it comes to his faith. Still, I have recently suggested he take a second look at some Christian colleges. I see Messiah has a full tuition scholarship. I would want to ask them about stacking outside scholarships.</p>
<p>@"Deborah T" , thanks for the link. I haven’t seen this specific one.</p>
<p>Make sure you check the costs of room/board…and add in transportation to PA from CA if you apply to Messiah.</p>
<p>You may find that the costs of room/board and transportation equal the $11,000 that the Cal States would,cost you.</p>
<p>I hate to bust your bubble, but your son is, in fact, a super-star. Have you considered muhlenberg? Very generous and wonderful school.</p>
<p>Well, he didn’t receive near as much scholarship at UTD as I was hoping. It’s certainly not enough to make it viable. He’ll still apply for McDermott Scholars, but based on what he received, I’d have to say, no, he’s not a super star. They have much higher levels of AES scholarships there that he didn’t get.</p>
<p>I’ve never looked at Muhlenberg. I’ll check out their majors and run a f. aid calculator. Thank you.</p>
<p>I did find another possible school in Furman. They have full tuition scholarships and some great looking programs in music, English (he’s interested in screen/script/creative writing) and CS, but of course, the question is whether or not they allow stacking of outside scholarships.</p>
<p>Some LACs like boys a lot. That could be something to consider looking at.</p>
<p>What about Vassar? They have great need based aid, and as a young man, he would have a bit of an edge in admissions, I would think.</p>
<p>But if you start looking at east coast schools…add $350-$400 for each plane ticket home. Those add up. </p>