Where is the starting line, anyway?

[DavidPuddy]

@mamaedefamilia
Again, thank you. Your input and opinion is valuable and appreciated. A few thoughts:

I wouldn’t dismiss NMF too quickly. If nothing else, the prospect may motivate him to keep his grades up. From what I have read here, as long as there are no Cs on the transcript, it’s likely. A few scattered Bs are OK.

I won’t dismiss it, but certainly not an expectation. Good news is the few Bs should be confined to FR and SO. But again, and I know you know I know ( ), insight to prior peers’ results is not encouraging in this space.

I agree that there are few alternatives among the WUE schools that compare academically ASU and UA. However, if your son is interested in matriculating at a smaller campus, some of the better picks are Western Washington University, where your son would be almost assured of WUE discount plus admission into the honors program. About 15K students, gorgeous campus, surrounded by outdoor recreation opportunities. Not brown, hot, or dry, if your son would like a change. Washington State is also a reasonable choice. Still, that would probably bring your costs down to 20K, which isn’t quite enough.

It’s a good point, we will certainly look at each WUE school. My data on them is probably a bit old. I just don’t see that being the option we take, but we won’t rule it out. It’s too bad ASU Barrett is not an environment he sees himself at, because I think he may have a shot there. The size, proximity, and city are just … the opposite of the only criteria he has :)) .

Some LACs/smaller universities that offer small numbers of full tuition scholarships are Denison (OH), U of Puget Sound (WA) Grinnell (IA), U of Richmond (VA), Southwestern (TX), Colorado College, Case Western (OH), Wash U (MO) and Vanderbilt (TN).

We know someone going to Grinnell, it would be an option, and schools like it. Washington U is another one to explore - but I assume merit there may be tough. Vanderbilt is of course among my ideals given his “unknown” criteria (right now), but again, I think Merit there will be too selective.

Good luck and you are by no means behind the curve in the process. Standardized testing is mostly done. I recommend the early June testing date for subject tests and I suspect your son would do well on the Math II (he can try to get his 800 aspirations fulfilled there, perhaps?). My D took three and then sent the highest two scores. She ended up not needing them but that’s hindsight.

His plan is to take the June subject tests. Leaning to 3 at this point.