I’m curious, you said you don’t qualify for financial aid, but did you submit the fafsa for this daughter?
D19 goes like this.
Applied
Pitt
Miami OH
Missouri S&T
Loyola Chi
Creighton
Univ of Oklahoma
Warburg
Kent State
Alabama
St. Johns(NY)
Boston U
Fordham
Notre Dame
Brown
Princeton
Univ San Fran
Eastern MI
She has acceptances from all except ND, Brown, Princeton, Boston U and Univ San Fran
She is a merit kid so nothing is set in stone yet. Waiting to hear on some. The early leader is Missouri S&T. She visited but I still don’t know much about it. If anyone has inside info it would be appreciated.
Hi, my S applied to 20 schools, casting a wide net. He has a 3.97 unweighted GPA and 1460 SAT (did better on SAT than ACT). He attends a rural public high school and is involved in theater and music. He has taken dual enrollment classes at the local community college on a state (TN) dual enrollment grant and dual credit classes in high school. He will graduate with about 30 college credits. I have found through visiting schools that the public universities will accept these credits but most of the private schools will not. This makes me lean toward the public universities. He wants to major in engineering or technology with a minor in music. He also applied to the promise program (free community college) as a backup just in case. He will get the Hope state scholarship (3,200), General Assembly Merit (1,500) and likely the Ned McWherter Scholarship (6,000, but can not apply until 1st semester Senior grades are in). These can only be used in TN schools and are renewable as long as he keeps his grades up.
He has been accepted into 17: Austin Peay, UT Martin, MTSU, UTC, TN Tech, UTK, WKU, Missouri Southern, UAB, Union, Samford, Belmont, Berry College, Mercer, Ohio U, Lipscomb, and Furman.
Still unknown: Sewanee, Vanderbilt and Tulane.
Most have offered merit. There are potential fellowships still in play, especially for the private schools. The only ones close to a full ride now are Austin Peay, UTM, MTSU and UTC. I like Austin Peay because most of his college credits would apply to his degree and they have a nice PELP program (President’s Emerging Leadership Program). MTSU has a Buchanon Fellowship which would be great if he got. UTM is rural but they have an impressive music department which he loved. I will just be happy when this is over. I have two more kids to go so I am learning a lot in this go round.
My3Daughters, in terms of "I share my daughter’s story to illustrate that are many colleges for everyone. "
I generally agree with the statement. But, there is an issue to consider. It looks like your daughter was applying as a "full pay’ student. Students with similar stats requesting aid should not expect the same outcome. Being Full pay is a huge step up. I don’t know the stats as schools keep that pretty hush but I would guess that for some schools, a full pay B student (or one with scores in the 500’s) could be accepted while a student requesting aid with A’s and/or scores in the 700s is rejected. I’m sure what it adds differs across schools, students and circumstance. My point is that while there is a school for everyone, an outcome like your daughters is most likely for a full pay student.
@lostaccount and and @counselor26: We did not fill out the FAFSA. And yes, I had considered that full pay opened doors for my daughter. Many schools were test optional, so they didn’t really know how low the SAT scores were. (Some were not test optional, though, and she still received some merit from some, who, I think, really wanted OOS students.) Her grades were high – 3.7 unweighted and 3.8 weighted. She never took an AP class though, and she had 4 Honors in non-core classes. And she had some substantial ecs, though I have been told that many people fake those, and they really aren’t checked into (hers are real, but I’m not sure how much they counted).
Re; full pay…it’s kind of a joke. Yes, our income disqualifies us from financial aid, but living in Northern NJ, commutable to Manhattan, we live a very ordinary lifestyle in terms of house, cars, trips, clothes, and my daughter works part time for the past year and a half. (Taxes and housing is a killer). We certainly can’t afford full freight solely out of savings, even with the house paid off. But I work part time (college teaching – very low paid) and will simply have to take on more work, at 62, since my husband is the major bread winner, working a mentally draining job in public relations/government affairs. Not a cake walk, but I know we are relatively lucky. :">
I should also mention that since my initial post, my daughter received a $10,000 Presidential Scholarship from Albright, who also lowered their tuition by 34% across the board! (Naturally, she doesn’t want to go there). This would place this private school as the second most affordable on her list of 12 mostly public colleges. She did not submit her SATs to earn this scholarship, which I notice is a real departure from protocol from when D13 applied to schools. Then SAT Optional schools still required the SATs for merit.
My friend’s daughter was told no merit at test-optional Drew University (NJ) without SAT scores, so her family was shocked she received the $30,000 presidential scholarship, with no SATs (but a 4.0 gpa in all non-AP/non-honors courses). So it seems schools are recognizing they charge too much?
I share the amazement of one of the other posters about how many schools folks apply to. My D19 applied to 8, and it was painful for her to get all the various essays done. I can’t even picture trying to apply to 15 or 20 - we probably would have killed each other. She also tried to apply for some merit scholarships (which also require essays) and in the end, she just couldn’t get it together enough to apply to all the various merit apps to the schools she’s applying to. My biggest fear is that she doesn’t get enough merit to get herself out of state, which is what she really wants. Fingers crossed for her and all the others that are in wait and see mode.
@momof2atl Just thought I’d mention that the 7 schools (of 12) that my daughter received merit money to (3 awards were $10,000, $19,000 and $20,000/year) required no additional essays or anything else other than just applying. Many did not require SAT scores.
Yes these days even owning a house capable of being mortgaged for college is a luxury. My comment was simply intended to alert others who have similar scores to the fact that outcomes like your daughters may not be possible if they are applying for aid.
@lostaccount I’m sure you’re right.
Depends if the school has a needblind admission process or not.
It’s not difficult for students to get scholarships from typical schools IME seeing hundreds each year at our high school. I recall reading a few years back that schools which did not charge as much for admission were considered inferior by most parents and kids, so private schools raised their rates to appear to be “better” and then turned around and gave most of the students “merit aid” to make it appear that they were wanted. The sales tactic definitely works. I hear about it all the time from students at school. “I got X dollars in a scholarship from them!”
It’s very, very rare for any student - even our lower than average college bound student (not counting the non-college bound) - to get nothing in merit when applying to typical schools. It’s generally only some of the top schools that offer nothing and these students don’t apply there (unless need based aid comes into play). Whether the school is affordable after that 20K discount is still questionable, but it seems so much better of a deal when the cost is 30K vs 50K with a merit scholarship (just for easy math) than 30K with no price break as it could be.
I also occasionally read on the web in forums such as these that “schools would be much cheaper if they wouldn’t add all the fluff like rock walls and fancy landscaping,” yet when I hear from students and parents about preferred schools they rarely mention anything academic. It’s all about the cool dorms, gyms, and general look of the place. I doubt many schools without those perks would continue to attract enough students to stay competitive.
I agree with the statement above, though I have seen that students with low SATs/ APs but high GPAs (above 3.5) are getting merit aid, where applicants to the same schools with lower GPAs (3.3 and below) are not getting merit aid.
So, for D19:
Early Action:
UIUC (safety)
UMN (safety)
Early Decision:
ED1 to Middlebury through Posse.
Planned to apply to a couple of Universities and a bunch of LACs as matches and reaches.
Accepted to UIUC and UMN, but got the Posse Scholarship, so did not apply to anywhere else and withdrew.
So, she’s going to Middlebury next year as a Posse Scholar (full tuition).
We weren’t entirely sure if we could afford to most of the schools D19 planned to apply to. However, since D19 has good stats for her chosen major of Neuroscience/Psych, we were hoping that a couple of her matches would offer some merit support. In worse case scenario, she would have gone to UIUC, since we’re in state and my wife works in the U of I system, so we would have only paid 1/2 of UIUC’s in-state tuition, which is pretty cheap.
I guess we are an exception. Daughter '19 applied to one school, ED to Hamilton, accepted and will be going there next year. Athletics were involved though.
@HamSBDad Congratulations, both on the acceptance and on a short, relatively painless application process!
@MWolf Thank you! It is a huge relief to be over. While the application process was short, I wish I could say the whole process was short and painless. It has been about a 2.5 year grinding process involving the athletic side all during which she has had to maintain grades/studies and skills/training. I am amazed at what is expected of kids these days and how hard some of them work to attain their goals. Good luck to everyone out there! Here’s to the future class of 2023!
@HamSBDad My S was similar. He sent a couple other apps, but they were quickly pulled w/o hearing a decision. I know it’s not for everyone, but ED can be such a blessing. My S is way happier and less stressed out now that his college decision is made. I was a one-and-done ED application myself way back when, so I encouraged S to do the same if he felt strongly enough. It’s worked out really well for us.
Another pro-ED here! If it works for you, it’s indeed a huge blessing.
@ChaosParent23 Congrats and happy to hear it also worked out for your son! My D is definitely more relaxed and enjoying her senior year.