Is your California kid really open to any size school in almost any random place? I think I would try to get the kid to really think about the kind of environment they want to be in, and how far from a major airport if leaving CA. My California kid just toured University of Puget Sound (a CTCL school) and I was so impressed! My kid, however, thinks it might be a bit small for her. But this was her first official college tour, and now she has a datapoint. UPS could be worth considering for your child. And also Willamette, which someone else mentioned. Possibly Chico State (so underrated IMO) and I agree with the Humboldt and Sonoma State suggestions. Sonoma State even offered my older D a scholarship for $1000, completely unexpected!
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It would be preferable for the student to be able to change majors completely (like into a STEM major, specifically something like computer science, data science), in case the student decides to change majors for practical reasons. Student does well in CS & math. I understand that this would probably be impossible at a UC.
I apologize for my incorrect assumption. I’m glad to hear about your daughter’s experiences and how things have worked out for her. It seems like many schools offer a DC semester program. My student is very interested in it, but yes, could be a budget problem. Hopefully, they can do well in college and apply for continuing student type of scholarships through the school.
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Thank you for your input! Unfortunately, Willamette, Whitman, Dickinson & Gettysburg didn’t meet our budget (Willamette & Dickinson were close). Denison is w/in budget but student not too keen about how big the Greek system may be (we have moved it on & off the list multiple times over the last 6 months).
Thank you for the info. What don’t you like about the town that Beloit is located in? Will check out Central Michigan!
@AustenNut I can’t think of it - but what’s the name of the program where you can attend another campus for a year and pay your campus price. I know CPSLO was on it. Maybe others are on it - and perhaps there’s one in DC???
I can’t remember what it’s called but you’ve mentioned it before.
It’s the National Student Exchange. But in looking at it tonight, a lot of schools have left the exchange in the last few months or for the next school year, or however they do it. Cal Poly-SLO, St. Olaf, Gustavus Adolphus, etc. all used to be on it, and now they aren’t. Ditto with U. of Alabama or any of the Canada schools. Don’t know why it happened or if things will change again, but that’s the name of the organization.
Thank you so much for compiling a list of schools that we can look into! Will be using the NPC first to go through each one.
I think my kid has no psychological problems getting a “B” grade. Kid already has two B+ grades from 10th grade and is pretty laid back and not perfectionist. It’s more about whether it would be disadvantageous for college admissions purposes to get a “B.” I do agree that struggling and figuring out how to succeed is best learned in high school, rather than in college. I guess it depends on what’s at stake at this point. I’ll talk to the kid about AP Environmental Science but I think the kid will resist - kid doesn’t like heavy memorization of science (this is why they do better I think in physics, math & CS, among the STEM subjects). We’ll see.
Running the NPCs took days. But I knew that with our limited budget, I just had to run tons of NPCs as most schools will exceed our budget. I wish there was a consolidated platform which all schools use for NPCs so that we don’t have to keep on re-entering (CSS & shoppingsheet? can save some data, but many others used other platforms) and we can just put our budget and the platform would spit out a list of schools within the budget.
Thank you for the NYT link. I have it saved somewhere, but had forgotten about it. It’s a good reminder. Do you know where the source data comes from? I don’t think this level of household income breakdown is in the CDS. I wish they would come out with an updated list. Would really help with trying to figure out how need aware the institutions are.
Yes, I check on the financial standing/outlooks with Bain. I was able to do Forbes 2023 financial grades before too, but I don’t have access to the newest data for Forbes. Don’t want to send kid to a school that may close or need to start laying off faculty. I wonder if the financial outlooks are going to reflect the funding withdrawals from the federal government.
Thanks again for all the info & the list! Looking forward to going through them.
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Thanks - if I have it right, schools like CPSLO, Chico, East Bay, Monterey Bay, Northridge, San Bernardino and Stanislaus are on it. SJSU too UNLV is too. UNR says at Lake Tahoe so maybe not UNR. The closest I see to DC is Towson - which is Baltimore and Bowie State - somehwhere in Maryland. Was just hoping.
Thanks for providing.
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UC Riverside and UC Merced do not appear to be too difficult to change into majors like CS. This also tends to be true at CSUs other than the more-selective-for-CS ones like CPSLO, SJSU, and CPP.
However, majors like CS or data science do tend to have more sequenced prerequisites, so the student considering changing into such a major needs to get started on the courses from the beginning.
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My son is a 2019 Denison graduate who ran track and field. It’s a terrific school, so I hope you will keep it on the list for now. The Greek system at Denison is fairly low-key, in part because the members do not live in separate houses but are housed in the dorms along with everyone else. My son was not in a fraternity but he roomed with two frat members his sophomore and junior years - one was also on the track team, one was not into sports. It is not a cliquish place, and that is one of the things that attracted my son. My son was not a history major, but he loves history and took a lot of history classes. It is a very strong department with excellent professors. I know less about the political science program, but the Lugar program is very well known. The track team is also a good one, if your child is interested in continuing in the sport. My son was a walk-on but he had a terrific four years on the team.
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Sadly, Sonoma State has laid off tenured professors, eliminated all athletics and eliminated many majors due to a budget crisis. The latest proposal is to merge some administrative functions with two other under enrolled CSU schools.
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Higher crime. It’s a smaller city that struggles in general. Granted, for some that doesn’t matter (my son is at syra cuse but my daughter wanted a safe college town). Just out of your list I would pick Appleton/Lawrence over Beloit (and Appleton has a small airport).
Central Mich is in a bit more a rural area but a true college town. Kids can walk to anything they want and be safe (Target, Walmart, all the fast food places within a mile). Contained campus that is nicely updated. Technically D1 for many sports but at a much smaller scale (my daughter likes that there’s opportunities but not the “in your face” D1). She was able to talk to professors at open houses and they actually emailed her back. No communal bathrooms (all suite style) and decent food were huge pluses for her. They have many service opportunities, a public service LLC, and what they call “Alternative Breaks” so my daughter felt she would find her non party people easily.
Tuition is costing us 7k a year (half off tuition) and 13k for dorm/food for the first 2 years. She will then move off campus and housing there is affordable. A con is no good public transport so she will need a car likely her 2nd or 3rd year perhaps. It doesn’t have the name recognition nationally but my daughter felt she would have ample opportunities in her field (social work) and feel supported. Sure urban schools may have been better for her major but she didn’t feel as safe in the more urban schools we visited.
I had shared this link yesterday, and I remember being shocked at how few schools were still on it. And today, it’s back to normal. So glad to see that!
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bummed no dc schools - could have been good here.
Anecdotally, we’re hearing more of a swing towards wanting a test score for many out of state schools that have traditionally used them. I wouldn’t assume that because few submitted during Covid years, they’re not going to want one next year. Obviously irrelevant for California schools. Someone else mentioned SAT, which I think is worth a look. I’ll also mention there are very specific strategies for the Science section of the ACT. It turns into a test on how quickly you read if you’re reading the entire passages vs looking at graphs (my kid bumped up something like 8 points on the practice test when they figured it out. If they can bump up their test score, it might help with some of the reachier schools.
Best of luck to you.
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You often need a test score for the best merit or better merit so it’s beyond admission.
Also, Denison is a particularly good place to add in the data science piece - one can either choose the Data Analytics major (with a concentration related to the history/poli sci interests) or add a related minor (e.g. Digital Humanities, Data for Political Research) to a history/poli sci major. And in addition to the top-notch Lugar program, it’s also close enough to Columbus to have access to the seat of state government.
OP, when you say that some schools (e.g. Willamette & Dickinson) come close to budget but aren’t quite there… I wonder whether the range of possible merit offers could still leave open the possibility (albeit not certainty) of affordability. Then again, if their formula for calculating need isn’t generous enough, any additional merit could get swallowed into the overall aid package, and the need aid adjusted downward to yield the same result. It depends on the school, whether there’s a chance of a lower out-of-pocket or not.
But I do think Denison checks a lot of boxes, if it’s one that works $-wise! Also not horrible travel-wise - there are nonstops to Columbus from at least some of the CA airports.
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The opinion piece that linked that resource mentioned that the research was compiled “based on millions of anonymous tax filings and financial-aid records.” In the original link I provided it says that the study was “by Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner and Mr. Yagan.” The research was published in January, 2017 and was linked to the Equality of Opportunity Project. When following the link, it says, “The Equality of Opportunity Project has expanded its research and policy goals and is now Opportunity Insights based at Harvard University.” In looking through some of the data and research, I was not able to find the 2017 study, but I suspect there are those around here who can (@Mwfan1921 perhaps?).
It’s not presented in exactly the same manner, but there is another tool that is available on the NY Times from September 2023. It only includes 139 schools, but most schools that are popularly mentioned on CC are likely to be in that number.
The new data comes from Opportunity Insights, a group of economists led by Raj Chetty of Harvard. It was behind a large study, published in July, that combined tax and attendance data for nearly all college students from 1999 to 2015 with applicants’ standardized test scores. The researchers also had access to internal admissions data for several of the most elite private colleges.
Using Hamilton as an example, it will show the income breakdowns of current students:
It will show whether students attending are more or less likely to attend a given institution (and by how much more or less) given equal test scores and their family’s income level.
To provide a frame of reference, here is what it looks like for the Ivy League (Columbia is teal, Cornell is darkest orange):
Selective private colleges (i.e. Ivy+ schools, the purple line is Carnegie Mellon)
And top liberal arts colleges (the purple line is Amherst):
Gift link below so folks can explore the tool for themselves:
ETA: Here is the line graph for Clark, which shows significantly less shifts in likelihood of attendance by income.
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In exploring the tool a bit more I found that I could make multi-school charts. So for the schools on your first post:
Acceptance rate (>50%): None of them were among the 139 schools in the chart
Acceptance rate (20-50%): Did not have St. Olaf, but the other privates are shown here:
The UCs (which you have in both 20-50% and <20%):
Acceptance rate (<20%), which I’ll need to break down into two charts, and Pitzer & Grinnell were not available:
Wesleyan is yellow and Carleton is purple.
WashU is purple, Emory is teal, and Tufts is orange.
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