<p>cherryhill - loving your idea re Salisbury! Here’s what I found interesting - I looked at the FB page for the incoming class. While most of the kids are from MD - most are not from the more Jewish areas of Rockville/Potomac/Chevy Chase or from the Baltimore area - but are instead from more rural areas of MD where there are fewer Jewish families - hence - the low Jewish population at Salisbury.</p>
<p>Regarding the $50,000+ tuition at some of the schools - my approach on this is to keep an open mind and not limit the list in terms of price tag at this point - as long as we have lower cost options on there as well. Besides Towson, we also have C of C and James Madison under consideration - which are both under $30,000 for OOS. S2 understands that we are not paying $50,000 per year. He can apply to an expensive school - but will not be able to attend unless he gets merit aid or unless we do apply for need-based aid. </p>
<p>My experience with this issue is that you just never know what you will get - so you might as well apply and see what happens. S1 is at a $50,000 school - and I assure you we are not paying anything close to that amount. In his case - it worked out. Will we be that fortunate a 2nd time - who knows - but I am willing to spin the wheel again and see what happens.</p>
<p>cherryhillmom: as a parent of a Syracuse student, I know that the “B” (and “C”) students are not receiving merit money (and may in fact, be subsidizing the rest of the school)…my older daughter is on large merit award and says that most of the school is comprised of “B” students who are full pay…the higher level students she knows have merit and FA awards (or are only in Newhouse)…</p>
<p>in terms of FA, it varies…there are some students who are attending because this was their best package…there are 70% of students that are receiving some sort of FA according to the last info session we attended.</p>
<p>If one is looking at at this realisically in terms of the merit aid component, if a school’s sticker price is aboiut 52,000 and one gets a VERY generous offer of 20,000 in merit aid, you will still be looking at 32,000 per year. I don’t know how much the average merit aid is currently at these schools. Now, 32k can work if your EFC is high enough. Otherwise you’ll need to see how FA works out. Many schools on my son’s list were priced in the mid 40s and a couple were priced in the 30s because I think that sticker price DOES matter. If one gets a merit offer of 15k-18k at a school with a sticker price of 43,000, that beats the same merit offer at one with a sticker price of 52,000 in terms of cost to you. Also, consider what it will take to KEEP that merit aid. I spent countless hours looking at this because I did not want to deal with sleepless nights if my freshman pulls a 2.8 or 2.9 and the required GPA is either a 3.0 or a 3.2 (this happened to a good friend of mine and they did not get FA grants).</p>
<p>northeastmom - agree with you completely. I’d be very happy if S2 ended up at one of the lower-priced schools on his list so that we were not dependent on any type of aid - be it merit or need-based. But, I also hate to eliminate schools that might be a good fit solely based on price tag - I’m willing to wait and see what happens in those instances.</p>
<p>unbelieveablem and PRJ - please feel free to bring up schools outside the mid-Atlantic area whenever you want. Even if S2 is not interested - I’m sure others will be. And you never know, S2 might consider a school that is further away if everything else about it fits.</p>
<p>Rockville we kept 3 over 50k dollar/year schools on our list (son applied to more than the suggested 8 schools). The packages for 2 of them were several thousand more than what we were comfortable with, and one was acceptance was completely off the table (offering no grants of any kind). I agree that you should keep a few on the list, but just have those financial safeties in hand too. Then you can always take the >50,000/year acceptances off the table. Just have rational options on hand!</p>
<p>I just wanted to point how 52,000-12,000 (in possible merit aid)=40,000 and a school that starts at 40,000 and offers the same 12,000 in merit aid will cost 28,000 before any of the FA part of the discussion comes into play. This is why sticker does matter for that B student. If a school that has a sticker price of 52k were to offer 24,000 in merit aid (pretty doubtful for a B student, IMO) then you would be on equal footing with the school that has the 40,000 sticker price and is offering 12,000 in merit aid.</p>
<p>The other concern I have regarding merit aid is that besides having to maintain a certain GPA - the merit award amount is set for 4 years - while COA increases every year. So, the $15,000 merit aid that looked ok against a $50,000 COA looks a lot smaller senior year when the COA is $62,000. </p>
<p>Actually, that is really something to consider - we keep saying $50,000 price tag - like that’s the highest it could be - but the $50,000 school this year will be way above $60,000 by senior year - that’s really frightening.</p>
<p>nemom and RVM: You make some really good points. It is a different scenerio with a B student than with an A student attending a school that guarantees to meet need without loans. In the latter case there can definitely be some descrepancy about how need is defined but it does seem that FA does increase with increased tuition. The increase may mean more workstudy but at least it doesn’t mean more loans. This perspective really does make instate public schools look that much better. I’m hoping S2 continues to favor this choice.</p>
<p>You have to look specifically at merit aid. USC Presidential scholarship, for example, gives 50% off tuition. Tuition can go up, but it is still 50% off the current year’s price. However, I agree, that it is very difficult to get merit aid for a B plus student unless you look at a less prestigious school. For example, if you look at the Stevenson website near Baltimore, you can figure out how much merit aid your kid will get when you type in GPA and test score. I think my son would get $9,000. in merit aid, but total cost of attendance is still high. We considered this school, but my son is not interested.</p>
<p>I like the idea of parents on this thread trying to get their Jewish kids to form a Hillel at Salisbury. Not sure why few Jewish kids want Salisbury. It is really a nice school–campus is like a smaller UMCP. The staff we met were very nice.</p>
<p>Thanks for the actuary web site.</p>
<p>My son only wants to apply to schools which offer both actuary science and accounting so he has different majors to determine best fit.</p>
<p>With the stock market performance so poor recently, and job market concerns are prevalent, it just seems safer to stick with in state publics or with schools whose bottom line cost are pretty reasonable. I can’t justify $50,000 potentially $60,000 a year schools.</p>
<p>spectrum, instate schools make some sense depending upon the family’s EFC, instate school pricing, and whether instate schools offer meaningful FA depending upon EFC (meaning grants vs. only loans), and possible majors that the student is interested in.</p>
<p>In our situation there were carefully researched private schools (it was very very time consuming) that were a better deal (2 kids in at the same time) than our 24,000 instate public optioin (NJ)! If we lived in another state like NC, where the cost is 12,000 for some instate schools (this price includes R&B, but I know they just had a price increase now, so I don’t know the cost now, but I assume less than 14,000), then that deal would be better for us than the private school deals. So, there are still variables that will change which deals might be better. I suppose there are B+ kids that might get some merit aid offered by some of their instate public schools, which can help as well.</p>
<p>Yes, Rockville’s makes a very good point too:</p>
<p>NEM: I know that 2 kids in college at the same time will decrease the EFC but we will only have one year of overlap. The COA of UT Austin is somewhere between 22 to 24K. (At least that’s what it was in 09) Other state schools are less expensive. I could be surprised, but while S2 may end HS with an A, A- or B+ GPA and in the top 7 to 10% of his class, I will be surprised if he pulls out a good ACT or SAT score. (Right now he is leaning toward ACT and the time is killing him) I have seen schools that provide merit aid for strong standardardized test scores but not so much for GPA. I’m thinking that for privates we are looking mostly for schools that offer significant grant money in their FA packages. I also think we may have a difficult time figuring out what we can expect from FA down the road since Freshman year will be the year that 2 kids are in college. I’m not closing any doors, but your comments and RVM’s highlighted the reality that applying to at least 3 instate schools would be prudent because there is a really good possiblility that the privates that make the list will be out of reach. At the moment S is only talking about instate publics so I feel that I have to tread very carefully with encouraging privates because I don’t want to change his focus only to let him down.</p>
<p>I know private school costs have gotten utterly out of hand, but I will say on a somewhat positive note that they are highly, highly unlikely to go up 20% in the next 4 years. Our D1 has been at a high-ticket private, and now in her 4th year the cost has changed very little since fall '07. There may be a small change while the '11s are in school, but I think it’s unnecessary to start referring to $50K schools already as $60K schools. </p>
<p>We have enormous cost differentials on our D2’s list; I’m not sure at this point how we will weigh value and price at this point. There are so many variables. I’m sure it will be a significant point of discussion as we see what her acceptance choices are. She has been told by several of them that even as a B+ student she would qualify for merit aid, which is a relief.</p>
<p>I did not realize UT was in the same price range as Rutgers. I know that NJ public Us are more expensive than most other state U. systems. </p>
<p>Spectrum, you depending upon what your son is looking for, in terms of price, you might want to make sure some lower sticker priced private schools are on his list (you might let him keep some >50,000 schools on the list as long as he understands what you can pay for and warn him not to fall in love with any one school. This worked for us). where he stands a good chance at some merit aid. A 40,000 school that offers 12,000 in merit aid might be more affordable than the 52,000 school that offers 15,000 in merit aid. Also pay attention to the required GPA to keep the award. </p>
<p>I do agree with EmmyBet, about the climbing cost, but nobody has a crystal ball.</p>
<p>Yes, and after sounding so positive I’ll remark that I know many people whose aid packages after freshman year are shockingly different, and occasionally unaffordable. So much has to depend on faith and gritting your teeth until it’s all done.</p>
<p>^^ One never knows about their package the following year, but it does help to look at average need based aid freshman year vs. soph,junior and senior years. Of course, that still does not tell you how many are gettting a few shekels (since this is the Jewish B student thread, I thought that term was fitting, lol) in FA grants because a merit award was lost!</p>
<p>Emmybet - Gettysburg College is one of the most expensive schools on my son’s list. This coming year - 2010-2011 - it will be $50,880 for tuition, room & board. My son is going to be a junior in hs this year - if I assume a 3% increase every year (which seems pretty reasonable - there was a thread in June about how much various schools went up - and 3% seemed pretty typical) the cost would be $53,978 his freshman year and $58,983 by his senior year - so getting pretty darned close to $60,000 - and surely over $60,000 when you add in books and travel. So, I think the $60,000 school will be here before our '11 or '12 kids graduate from college.</p>
<p>I agree with you completely about need-based FA and getting a worse pkg after freshman year. This was a very sad thread in June about a woman whose daughter went to Connecticut College and had this issue - her pkg for sophomore year was much worse than what she rcvd freshman year - and while other posters did a good job of explaining it in terms of the family’s changes in income - the bottom line was still that they could not afford it. She never wrote a conclusion - at least not that I saw - so I still wonder if they were able to resolve it or if the girl had to leave Connecticut. The other problem that I see is that you often don’t get the FA award letter for returning students until June - yet the bill is due August 1. This leaves precious little time to scramble if the award is less than expected. I deal with this issue now with S1 - and I can tell you that waiting for that letter in June was nerve-wracking. Our FA did drop a little - but it is still doable. But, and I mean this very seriously, I don’t know that we can go through this stress again. So, while we have Gettysburg and American on the list for now - it would be easier on my stomach if we stuck to less expensive schools.</p>
<p>Again, thanks for comments everyone!
spectrum2, do you remember which schools offer merit scholarships for SAT scores and put less emphasis on GPA?
For those interested in a Western school, does anyone have Naviance data for Pitzer?
And, I just heard some anecdotal stuff about racial discrimination at University of South Carolina, in case anyone is considering it…stories about African Americans being excluded from fraternities because the “sorority girls’ parents won’t let them go to our mixers if black students are there”. Does anyone know anything about this sort of thing at South Carolina or any other school, particularly schools in the southeast?</p>
<p>After a week at the beach, it’s been fun to catch up on this thread. Here are a few thoughts on various discussions.</p>
<p>Salisbury: A lot of kids from my area attend this school and love it. I know a few Jewish kids who are happy there, but I don’t think they’ve found much Jewish life on campus. I’ll see if I can find out anything else.</p>
<p>American: I visited with both of my daughters. It seems like a good school with nice, studious kids. My younger daughter thought it seemed a little small and quiet, but has kept it on her list. I didn’t like the large number if freshman assigned to forced triples. The dorm rooms are nicely designed for two, but looked very tight for three. The campus is very pretty with beautiful trees and plants. It’s on the outskirts if DC in a nice, suburban area. It has a very nice campus for a city school.</p>
<p>My daughter is getting ready to start her applications. I’m trying to be helpful, but not intrusive.</p>
<p>Levim,
I have also heard rumblings about racism at South Carolina. I know of a few kids who transferred for “cultural issues”, but I don’t know the details. Many kids from my area are very happy there, however. I have heard that it is very Southern.</p>
<p>Levim- a friends daughter went to South Carolina, she went there a committed involved Reform Jew. She left there an evangelical Christian-now married to another Evangelical Christian doing missionary work.</p>