@ucbalumnus
The point I am making (or trying to) is that Earlham has a number of different sources for the aid and scholarships that go into their packages, and… their calculator is “generic” because it treats the student as “generic.” It uses only family financial information has no means of adding the specialty money that they find for individually qualifying students.
I have eight former students currently there, and of those eight, five have full COA+ financialpackages. Of the other three, two families were quite wealthy, but one (a top tenner) still got merit money that made Earlham cheaper than the state school, and the other did not deem the financial aspect a major concern. The last family was middle class but the girl wasn’t just exceptional as a student, and I don’t know how much money she got, but it was also comparable to what she would have paid at the state school.
@ChillDad I’m looking at Smith because of alumnae connections. I’ve run Mt. Holyoke’s net price calculator and it is over $10k per year more than
@BB and @ucbalumnus I’ve run the Earlham net price calculator and it was one of the highest I’ve seen… I don’t feel comfortable applying somewhere that the cost is going to be so variable. Especially as it is in Indiana and doesn’t have any particular pulls for me (brutally honest). I may continue to look into it, of course, but as of right now I can’t justify it:)
@mamaedefamilia Thank you! I’m looking at closely at Wesleyan and have been in contact. I’ve also been researching Grinnell and Beloit. I like St. Olaf and I may visit in conjunction with Macalester and Carleton, but I am Jewish and I’ve previously been avoiding religious schools (other than Brandeis, Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr) so I need to do more research before commenting.
The price calculator is not correct, because of the way Earlham sources their funding. My students all recieved significantly more. I have 8 former students currently there and, six of them have more than full COA.
^@BB - The net price calculator is what it is. No net price calculator takes into consideration merit aid. They can’t. Merit aid is discretionary. You can say the OP has a good chance at getting merit aid but, there’s no guarantee, and maybe she just wants to compare “apples to apples” at this point.
Well Pomona gives extremely good financial aid as well as QB. They have strong research opportunities even for freshman and are great with low income students. They pay students who get unpaid internships and help fun student research and independent projects. Harvey Mudd definitely has a stress culture but is VERY strong in STEM so it depends on what exactly you’re looking for there. If your scores are high enough, apply to Pomona for sure. I can’t speak too much to the other LAC’s but the Claremonts are great because they have small class sizes and excellent professors but also the feel and resources of a bigger college because of the consortium. Lots of dining hall options, clubs and chances to meet new friends.
The students who chose to attend Earlham may not necessarily be representative of all students who were admitted to Earlham. I.e. those who received enough merit scholarships or preferentially packaged financial aid may make up all of the financially-needy current students you know, but other financially-needy students who were admitted to Earlham without sufficient merit scholarships or financial aid chose not to attend because it was too expensive for them.
A student who is considering Earlham but finds it unaffordable based on its net price calculator should make the reach/match/safety assessment based on earning enough merit scholarships to make it affordable. For competitive merit scholarships, there is often little information on how difficult they are to get, so they should be viewed as reach.
Re: #82 – Haverford, Swat and Bryn Mawr are not religious schools, nor is Earlham. Haverford has Quaker roots which can be seen in the culture in terms of Honor Code, consensus, plenary etc. But it is not a religious school in the sense that religion influences courses, students, faculty etc. except to the extent one could say tolerance and respect are consistent with Quaker values. Swat and Bryn Mawr have much weaker connections to any religious group.
This can be a big dilemma in building a reach-match-safety list with an eye to cost as well as admissions.
One strategy is to pick “match” schools that are less selective than necessary for likely admission.
If your stats are well within the top 25% for enrolled students, your chances for competitive merit awards are higher.
You also might want to apply to one or two schools that award big merit scholarships automatically for qualifying stats. http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
These may be larger schools than you prefer, or located in areas that (rightly or wrongly) many students don’t consider highly attractive.
@Midwestmomofboys Yes, thank you, I was saying that the most religious I would go would be those kinds of schools that are loosely connected but don’t actually influence.
@aphroditeayelet St Olaf is affiliated with the Lutheran church (the more politically liberal branch). I believe that one or two religion courses are required but they are scholarship-based and many world religions are offered in their curriculum. This may be more religion that you prefer but the campus community encompasses many faiths. I know an atheist who graduated from there a couple of years ago and was very happy there.
There doesn’t seem to be a Hillel branch but there is a Jewish student organization:
I work in education and I mentor students who are doing elite college apps. So, I am aware of all of the “if…” and “may/may not” scenarios that you propose.
However: the best advice I give such students about applications is not to be scared off by the apparent price tag. Even with the aid calculators… they rarely get a correct prediction of what will turn out to be their actual cost. It is truly a shame to tell a kid not to apply somewhere based on the coat calculator, because you are needlessly discouraging kids from pursuing good options based on an inaccurate presumption.
If a student really loves an elite-type LAC, they should apply at that school…regardless of the cost-calculater-prediction. There is a solid list of schools that CONSISTANTLY make the money work out, when the student is a good fit and really wants to be there. This is not true for every LAC, but… Earlham is one of the schools on that list. And, they should apply at schools they love anyway, (although having multiple safety options is important!)
On another note: I happen to bw very familiar with Earlham College, its policies, and its student body, as I am in education; it is realatively nearby; many of my former students have applied/attended; and one of my own children is even a student there currently. So… I am not, in this case, speaking on a “may/may not” basis. I am telling the OP the situation at this particular school. Earlham has an actual policy for a "floor"for merit money, based on GPA. So it is a solid thing, not a “what if…”
And “merit” money is not the only thing that doesnt apply on the calculator. Their specialty endowed funds for aid also dont show in the calculator. So: there is some possible “what if” there… but, it is all to the good, in any case, and missed by the calculator.
Ultimately, many schools consistantly find ways to make themselves affordable for kids who are a good fit… and that doesnt show up in the calculators.
Kids should apply at schools they love. Backup plans are good to have, but no kid should fail to apply at an elite LAC that they really love, based on the college calculator.
If Earlham does not want to scare away applicants with its net price calculator, it should include the GPA based merit and other enhancements for specific characteristics that can be added to the package. Other colleges do that.
Otherwise, it would only be reasonable for an applicant who sees an unaffordable net price calculator result, but the possibility of apparently competitive merit scholarships to treat the school as a reach.
“If Earlham does not want to scare away applicants with its net price calculator, it should include the GPA based merit and other enhancements for specific characteristics that can be added to the package.” @ucbalumnus I don’t disagree with you there. I am not a fan of the aid calculators.
It isn’t Earlham’s calculator, though. Or any other college’s calculator. It is the College Board’s calculator.
So…There is a standard calculator and each school can plug in their info and link/embed it on their page. There is not a way for the colleges with unique aid policies to fit those exceptions into the calculator. As a result… for the schools with the best aid policies, the calculator is usually wrong and the real financial package offers are usually better (often MUCH better) than the calculator shows.
The less aid options a college provides, or the more basic/less sophisticated their aid policies are, the more they tend to fit into the College Board’s Calculator formula, and the more accurate it then can be.
I suppose there may be colleges who have created their own aid calculators, but I personally have ever only seen one who has done. They all seem to use the College Board calculator.
NB To be perfectly clear, I am only talking about LACs. For clarity’s sake, I am adding that state universities and community colleges sometimes seem to prefer to use the ed.gov calculator, rather than the College Board’s. Or, since they are publicly/state funded, they may even have developed their own state calculators. (I don’t work with those type of schools that often, so I am less familiar.)
But… in the case of the LACs, they seem to be using the College Board calculator.
Finally: I do acknowledge that I have not seen 5,000+ schools’ aid calculators, and that exceptions to the rule are most certainly possible.
^Earlham appears to have a very generous and well-funded aid program but, just for the record, almost no one there seems to really be paying the full sticker price of $45k a year which means that just by stepping on campus you are technically the beneficiary of a $10,000 signing bonus. Another way of looking at this would be if Earlham decides to raise the sticker price tomorrow to $55k, the “merit” scholarship grant would rise another $10k to $20,000:
The College Board provides a net price calculator template. Each college that uses it customizes it with its own parameters (which can include merit-by-stats as well as various financial questions that may differ from one college to another).
So just because https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/earlham is on the College Board’s web site does not mean that it is generic. It is the Earlham-customized version of the College Board template. And yes it does ask for GPA, course work rigor, rank, SAT, ACT, Indiana 21st Century Scholar, Indiana Honors Diploma so that it can account for those things when estimating a net price.
It looks like Earlham’s minimum net price with maximum aid is estimated to be $7,805, based on a poor ($20,000 income) family in Indiana with a student with 4.0 GPA in the hardest courses, 1600 SAT, 36 ACT, Indiana 21st Century Scholar, and Indiana Honors Diploma. Since you say that Earlham is nearby to you, it is certainly possible that your students got the enhancements from either the state or Earlham for the latter two things, and if they were top students, they also got embedded merit that may not be offered to other students.
If the same student and parents were from Illinois and had average (for Earlham) stats like 3.69 GPA, 1300 SAT, 27 ACT, and no Indiana stuff, then it estimates a higher net price of $13,905.
And if you go to different colleges’ versions of the College Board calculator, you may see different questions and will get different estimated net prices.
Regarding Reed: @vonlost expressed it succinctly. That is what I have heard from friends too. They will be full-pay and generous for the students they really want. I know someone whose parents were divorced and the dad was refusing to pay his share. It took conversation and maybe a letter from the divorce attorney, but Reed came up with the money so the student could still attend–which was above and beyond.
I have never heard the grade deflation comment about Reed. Please share your source. As per other threads on this board or Wikipedia, Reed won’t tell you your grades unless you are in trouble. Your work receives specific comments from your professors–more thorough than most schools. If you thrive there, your recommendations for med school will be personal and specific.