If so, each college has a net price calculator on its web site. However, your situation has the following complications:
Some (not all) colleges want both parents’ finances to calculate financial aid. You need to check whether that is the case for each college; if so at a given college, you need to include both of their finances in the net price calculator.
Some colleges have financial aid methods that are unfavorable to small businesses, but are not reflected in their net price calculators (often less detailed ones that do not ask about small business income).
If a college uses only FAFSA, then the above may not be an issue. If it uses CSS Profile, it may or may not require the CSS Noncustodial Profile. If it uses the CSS Profile but not the College Board net price calculator, then the net price calculator is less likely to account for the small business.
UK can also be better for a student like you, who is very clear about what she wants to study and not wanting a lot of distribution requirements in less-desired subjects (i.e. STEM). Since you prefer to go north, you could also consider a few Canadian options - these also tend to be more major-focused than US schools. Dalhousie in Nova Scotia, for example, is lovely and less expensive than many OOS publics in the US. About - Department of English - Dalhousie University
To offer a contrarian option to look at, Sewanee is small and southern, but a beautiful campus and surroundings, and great for English/writing/lit. Could be one to look at in comparison to the larger schools on your list.
Have you thought about the 5-college consortium in MA? Mount Holyoke would be a reach but not a ridiculous reach; UMass would be a high match or maybe low reach.
“Should have” or “should‘ve”. Sorry, as a speech and language therapist, I used to review and “correct” my students papers/essays for their language classes, prior to submission. I know this is a public website, but this error was redlined by every AP and Honors English class teacher, on my campus, at the beginning of each quarter.
It would be a “D” in 2nd quarter.
If you’re majoring in English Literature, please remember the basics because some admissions personnel will be picky.
As for your choice of schools, I think the UK schools sound like the better choices. In this field, the return on your investment (ROÍ) would be better.
One of my high school classmates is a tenured English Professor. She has many students who graduate with an English major and have difficulty procuring long-term employment. It’s contractual, piecemeal work.
My best friend in high school became a journalist after majoring in English and Political Science. She was gainfully employed for about 25 years with phenomenal benefits, then the internet usage changed all of that. She’s a guest writer now for her publication, but it’s not what it was.
That’s partially why I would suggest sticking with affordable options in the UK.
If this student is looking at Dalhousie and is interested in English Literature, they may instead want to look at the University of King’s College - it has a Foundation Year Program where the first year is dedicated to a Great Books curriculum, with program-wide lectures and small-group seminars. Foundation Year Program | University of King's College This is likely of particular interest to a student interested in an English degree and interested in a UK-style degree. Your degree requirements are then completed in years 2 through 4.
King’s and Dalhousie share a combined Faculty of Arts and Social Science (and the degree in English is delivered by Dalhousie), so OP would be able to benefit from a small LAC seminar-style education through the Foundation Year Program, while still enjoying the benefits (social, academic, and otherwise) of a larger research institution (there are about 16000 undergrads at Dal and about 1000 undergrads at King’s).
Fixed it lol. Thanks for the advice! Ik it may be ‘naive’ however I’ve been raised on the principles of pursuing what im passionate in. In my supplementals I’ve really emphasized what I bring to the table, the things that make me stand out, and I have high hopes for job opportunities in the future
You might look at College of Charleston, VCU, and UMN too - although not in your areas.
Pitt, mentioned earlier, is fairly urban.
I wonder if you should seek a writing major vs literature, but you are right, there will be less and less writers already today, so many short and long form magazine writers are contract.
you are venturing into an important butt slowly dying major so you may want to look at cost because the ROI financially is probably not strong although you may break that rule.
Anyway, these are three different urban colleges - varying size.
Since you’re open to schools that aren’t big, I’m going to start throwing out some names:
Emerson (MA): This Boston school has about 4200 undergrads and has definite niche. In fact, when you arrive at the home page the message says, “Ignite your passion for the arts, communication, and media at Emerson College.” So it’s very clear where its focus lies. There are some majors that could be of interest to you such as Writing, Literature & Publishing; Marketing Communication; and Business of Creative Enterprises. Their writing/literature/publishing page boasts of a number of alumni at well-known publishing houses, so although I believe in broad, generalist degrees (like plain old English), this does seem a place where you might be able to tap into a solid network to work towards the areas where you currently are thinking you want to head. But if you’re avoiding NYC because of the cost-of-living, Boston’s not that much better.
For English or writing majors, a broad general education may be especially important, because there may be writing jobs on varied topics where some general familiarity of the topic will be necessary to write effectively about it. For example, you may encounter jobs writing about science, business, computing / AI, history, government / politics, economics, etc..
“Pure” English literature jobs would include teaching it at the high school or college level, but those likely require additional education (teaching credential for high school, PhD for college).
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