Hi all, I haven’t posted on this thread yet, but have been trying to keep up with it for the past couple weeks. It’s been interesting hearing about everyone’s kids–this is such an exciting time for us all. In our family, the college search came to a close a couple days ago. Here’s the summary…apologies for the long post:
My sweet D16 wants to be an engineer, and applied to 10 schools with the following results:
Rejected: Vanderbilt, Rice, UVA
Waitlisted: GaTech, WashU StL
Accepted: Northwestern, UWashington, UTulsa (+Honors), Mizzou, Kansas State (+Honors)
FA packages:
- UDub: $7500/yr merit (OOS)
- Mizzou: $10,000/yr merit (OOS)
- K-State: $9,000/yr merit (in-state)
- Tulsa: $32,000/yr merit
- Northwestern: $0.
Yes, we are considered full-pay by Northwestern. When I ran the EFC last Fall, it indicated we could receive ~$20k/yr need-based aid, but apparently after seeing the full picture presented by the CSS PROFILE, they came to a different conclusion.
Four-year total costs, assuming an annual 4.5% increase in the non-discounted sticker price:
- K-State $51,300
- Tulsa $93,900
- Mizzou $119,300 (this could be reduced $10-15k if she were to qualify as a MO resident)
- UDub $169,600
- Northwestern $280,800
It was a sad moment in our family, with some tears (both hers and mine), because NU was her dream school all along. She was born in Evanston Hospital, grew up going to Wildcat football games, and loves Chicago. In my mind, the absolute most I would be willing to pay for her education would be about $140-150k. But twice that figure? It’s simply too much $$.
She was never super-high on the large state Us, which meant that Tulsa became the obvious choice, and so I’m happy that she has made the decision to become part of the Golden Hurricane family. She’s going to graduate without any debt and I’m not going to have to take on any, either.
We’re convinced we’ve found a gem in Tulsa. Some of the things we like really about it:
- It’s a small, private school (only 3500 undergrads, smallest of any D-IA football school).
- It’s highly residential (3/4 of all students live in university housing).
- It has great financial resources ($1B endowment), and the campus has a bunch of spanking new buildings.
The only downside is that TU doesn’t offer Biomedical Engineering, which was her first choice. But the more I researched BME, the less convinced I became that that mattered. So, she’s going to have to pick ME or ChemE, and with the money she saves she can get a Master’s degree in BME if she’s still interested in 4 years.
Well, thanks for reading. Wishing all of your DS’s and DD’s great happiness and success in their college years.