Chance my daughter for engineering (TX resident - 4.0 UWGPA, 1580 SAT, 1520 PSAT, 36 ACT) [<$60k]

Chance Me / Match Me
21

Congrats! She will qualify for a lot of need-based aid at the two most generous schools on your list for your income: UPenn and Hopkins. You might consider adding other highly generous schools with MatSci Engineering such as MIT, Stanford, Harvard

22

Thanks very much for the response. It looks like she already applied for UVA (EA) which I missed it. I will ask her to look into applying for Alabama. She will also look into applying other reaches (Stanford, Harvard and MIT) for generous aid schools but it’s really high reach. She already planning to apply for UPenn and JHU in regular decision which is also going to be high reach. She could spend time on essays/supplements for these schools instead of UC schools.

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23

Before you do this, run the net price calculators for each school to ensure they will meet your cost - because you’ve listed a budget for each kid but now say, $120K ($60K each kid) is too much.

These schools have no merit - Johns Hopkins has limited - but the UVA short of the Jefferson, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and U Penn are need based only.

So fill out each’s Net Price Calculator - I put one below for you. Each school has one and they’ll all be different. They take 15 mins or so but could potentially save you days, hours, and heartache.

If it makes the $$ cut you need, great.

If not, no reason to apply - better to spend your time on schools that will.

It seems like on your other thread, you are “hoping” - but there’s no reason to hope. The schools will tell you up front.

If they hit budget, great - and if not, remove them.

Welcome | Net Price Calculator

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24

You had a question up thread about whether any of the colleges still offer extra need-based aid if a sibling is also in college.

Our experience is that some of the CSS profile schools still offer this, at least as of a couple of years ago. If it’s not obvious on their NPC and if they are a CSS profile school that either of your kids are interested in, it might be worth it to call their financial aid office and ask. Often times the person who answers the phone is a student who may not know, so best to ask to speak to an actual financial aid officer with your question, if possible.

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25

I’m not sure I’ve seen an NPC that doesn’t ask how many are in the household and how many will be in school at once.

So all these schools should cover that in their estimate.

OP can play with the # - switching from 1 to 2 to see how/if it changes.

All will be CSS schools.

26

Thanks for providing the link for net price calculator. I see Stanford, Harvard, MIT, UPenn and JHU are coming around 40k but the other 3 (UVA, CMU and Northwestern) are really high with not much need based scholarships. So this definitely helps us where to apply and which ones to remove from the list. UVA already applied so we can just ignore.

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27

In situation like yours I would

  1. Apply to instate public.
  2. Apply to OOS public with at least a chance (bigger than 5%) for significant merit.
  3. Avoid all other public (unless they are very cheap)
  4. Focus on privates that can give you money and see that you have twins. Most OOS public do not care how many kids you have or your income. You are cash cow for them. Their mandate is to teach instate students.
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28

They will be NMF so they have Bama with 5 years free tuition (so Masters included), 4 year housing and $4k per year plus $2k one time for research or abroad.

They are currently Nmsf but awaiting NMF. So think Tulsa (4 year tuition and housing) or Wash State free tuition.

29

Just to note that Ron Lieber of the NY Times recently noted that Northwestern’s NPC seems to be notoriously wrong when using the new Niche price calculator. The NPC shows a much higher price than what Northwestern seems to actually deliver in aid. He apparently tried calling them to ask about their NPC, but didn’t get a response. Not that you should automatically include Northwestern on your list (a bad NPC is a perfectly fine reason to me to exclude a school), but just note that Northwestern may give you more aid than you expect.

30

Your daughter will be competitive applicant at all the schools mentioned. Keep in mind OOS admission rates for some of your publics when setting probabilities. For instance, a school like Georgia Tech has about a 9% acceptance rate for OOS applicants. UCLA is about the same at around 9%. Whereas Michigan is around 15-18% OOS acceptance rate. However, a private school like CMU has about an 11% acceptance rate. Obviously, since you are in-state Texas, the acceptance rate is much higher than OOS for the other Publics listed a lower probability or low probability.

31

A family member is a freshman VIPER student ant UPenn and thinks they will do MSE as their second major. Obviously a very reach-y school and program for OP but might be worth an application. They love it and love the people in the program. Glad to know your child is having a great experience.

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32

Thanks for all responses. She will only apply for 3 RD schools (Rice, U Penn and Cornell) and remove all other ones from the list including UC schools. We did run the NPC for all 3 and it looks good within our price range.

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