Determining Financial Reaches worth applying to

College Search & Lists
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Hi all. Mother of a junior who is putting together her application list. She wants to include some reaches, which for us, must factor cost of attendance. For instance, while she might get into highly selective schools, the only reaches she will be applying to are the ones that have a chance of a COA of 45K or less and we do not qualify for need-based aid. She needs to narrow down her list which is too long: Emory, Vanderbilt, Tulane, U of Miami, Fordham, William and Mary, UNC Chapel Hill, Univ Southern California, American, and Wash U St Louis. My question is, with her profile, should we consider full tuition or near-full tuition merit at places like Emory, Vandy, and Wash U an extreme long shot or no chance at all? Like, does she even come close to being the kind of applicant that these selective schools are wooing with significant merit? If not, I don’t want her to have to put in time for all the essays. Here’s her profile:

ACT Composite of 35 (36 Reading, 36 English, 34 Math); GPA of 3.8/4.4 (rigorous schedule at a high performing school district not known for significant grade inflation); four years of marching band with placement at state finals in top 3 every year; in audition-only wind ensemble with participation in regional honor band and summer chamber orchestra, four years Mock Trial with position as a mentor to new members, started a Debate Club in her junior year, works as a lifeguard year round x 2 years; will have great essays judging from her creative writing and is working with an essay coach, volunteer at our local history museum, music honor society, seal of biliteracy from the school district.

Anyway, she seems like a strong candidate for selective schools. Just not sure about the affordability aspect.

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If your family doesn’t qualify for need based aid…and your price point Is $45k, you need to look for colleges that actually have a good chance of giving merit aid..or have a COA at or below that price point.

I would suggest you first find a couple of affordable schools, or schools with auto merit where your student would be happy to attend. It is very easy to find reach schools but really your sure things are important to find first

She sounds like a great student!

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She does seem to be a strong candidate.

Unfortunately, the challenge you’ll face is that there will be thousands of other applicants like her at some of the schools on your reach list.

Additionally, these schools aren’t known for offering the level of merit aid you’re seeking.

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If your daughter applies then she has a shot, even if it is a very long shot. I would not count on it, but you could see what happens.

If you are looking to reduce the list, I would eliminate Emory, Vanderbilt, Wash U, UNC, William and Mary, USC.

American, Miami, and Fordham could stay as long as you recognize and research the odds for the merit you seek (I don’t know anything about significant merit awards at these 3 schools).

In order to receive significant merit, she has to apply to schools where that will likely happen. Unfortunately, that will not be the case for the schools you reference. These schools are bombarded with superior applicants.

I would research merit at the University of South Carolina and the University of Delaware.

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Two of my daughters had similar stats, they only applied to schools where there was a chance of decent merit, I don’t see any on your list. Look for schools with a 65%+ acceptance rate. One ended up at UDel with $17,000 a year, one followed her heart and got $10,000 at Clemson (did not bring it down to $40,000), both in the honors college. There are many great students who can’t afford a $65,000+ yearly price tag.

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The crux of the matter is with the more highly rejective a school is, they will either not offer merit aid at all or they will offer a tiny merit amount.

As you’re seeking a significant merit award, you’ll need to target the schools where…

  1. They offer significant merit awards to a significant number of non-need students
  2. Your daughter would be a “high stat” student in comparison to the admitted students at those schools (i.e. she would thus stand out and have a higher chance of earning the high end merit award at that particular school)

Those two pieces of data are found on the Common Data Set for each school: the percentage of non-need based aid awarded, and the average amount of a non-need award. This is found in section H2A.

For example, Emory awards a high average merit award, but…they grant those awards to only 10% of non-need students.

In your case, you’ll want to look for schools that both grant non-need based aid to a high percentage of their non-need students, and for that average non-need award to also be substantial.

You can find that combination by checking this linked spreadsheet, and then confirming the amounts by looking up that particular school’s CDS on their own website.

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Another thought is to look at schools where she can apply for the Stamps Scholarship https://www.stampsscholars.org/brochure/StampsBrochure.pdf

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I could have almost written the same post about 12 or 13 years ago, except with a different musical instrument and otherwise mostly different ECs, different universities (more to the north and east), but most importantly with very similar grades and budget (adjusted slightly for inflation).

What we found was that a lot of universities offered pretty good merit aid, bringing the cost down to about what you are looking for. However, the most selective schools in the US that she got into (NEU and BU in our case – we live way north and east of you) did not offer any merit aid at all. The reason that I said “in the US” is just that our daughters also applied to some universities in Canada, where the affordability issues are different.

My best guess is that you are likely to find similar results to what our daughter found.

You need to make sure that your daughter applies to some schools that will end up being affordable. In our case this included the flagship in a nearby state where the NPC predicted merit aid and an in-state public school (and for us universities in Canada, but this was because of dual citizenship). Some NPCs will predict merit aid, and some will not. We did have several schools offer pretty good merit aid even though the NPC did not predict this, but these were not quite the most selective schools.

You also need to make sure that your daughter understands that attendance at the reach schools (I would probably put Emory, Vanderbilt, USC, WUSTL, and if you are out of state UNC in this category) is dependent upon their being affordable. I think that you are relatively likely with your current list to get at least a few unaffordable acceptances, and you want your daughter to understand up front that “unaffordable” is not going to happen, and that an unaffordable acceptance is essentially the same as a rejection.

I would also make sure that applications to schools that are safeties and are going to be affordable go in early in the process. Once these are in it is fine to send in applications to schools that are a reach, whether for acceptance or for affordability.

By the way, when she was a high school senior and looking at two unaffordable acceptances, our daughter found this frustrating. She attended a very good affordable university with good merit aid. Then she did well and graduated and got a dream job that paid badly, that she could only take because she had no debt. Then she thanked me for being a stubborn father four years earlier and not letting her take on any education debt.

In the long run your daughter will most likely similarly thank you, eventually. In the mean time as a parent you need to act like the adult in the room and enforce the budget.

And I would think of Emory and Vandy and WUSTL as very long shots, particularly for affordability.

There are some universities on the list that I am not sufficiently familiar with, but I also do not see anything on the list that I would identify as an affordable safety.

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If you google something like “college transitions average merit aid”, you will pull up a handy page where College Transitions has scraped data from the Common Data Set. Among other things, it reports the Percent Receiving Merit Aid (Freshmen w/o Need).

So, for example, at WashU that number is 2%. At Emory it is 5%. At Vanderbilt it is 9%. At Fordham it is 18%. Tulane 23%, USC 27%, American 28%, MIami 35%. You can also check the average merit award. It also has data for publics, but definitely make sure to check the average award in those cases.

OK, now you want to know how you should think about, say, full tuition or near-full tuition merit at places like, say, WashU. Well, their average was $42,765, so I would say that is at least near full tuition. But 2% is really low. I honestly don’t know for sure what it takes to get one of those. I am pretty confident not just numbers, though, and indeed anecdotally it doesn’t seem like all the people who got one had the absolute best numbers anyway. But I think it is more a matter of something really, really standing out that makes the relevant committee particularly excited about this applicant even among a pool of many excellent candidates.

So to be very blunt–nothing you said rang out to me as quite meeting that standard. I can’t rule it out, I just don’t see a clear answer as to what it would be.

So if you are cutting schools and you want to know if you should cut WashU in favor of other schools on your list with a lot higher percentage getting merit aid–well, yeah, that sounds like a sensible decision to me. Do check the average, though–if it is less than you need, you have to dig in and see what they say about merit ranges.

But as to WashU–great school, but not exactly a robust merit program.

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Good advice, though we feel confident about the safeties and targets she has chosen. I’m just trying to figure out how much energy to put into reaches and if certain reaches are even worth that energy.

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I know two people who got the big Wash U merit awards.

One turned down Harvard, one turned down Yale.

If these two datapoints are helpful…. the awards are designed to get the kids who otherwise would have gone elsewhere- full pay.

Both exceptional students, citizens, human beings. The “social commitment” factor seems to be a big one, in addition to near perfect stats, extraordinary rigor, etc. These weren’t “I play tennis and volunteer a few hours every summer organizing the “bike for leukemia” event.

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Yeah, you are probably right about cutting those. Or maybe the best tactic would be like, invest energy into Tulane and Fordham where you have a decent chance at being considered for significant merit. And then I could set her expectations about the places like Emory and other lottery ticket type probability places. Maybe I could tell her that if she’s wiling to put in the work for the essays and be prepared for potential disappointment (getting in but without much merit), then I’m happy to pay the application fees if she wants to put in the time. I

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That’s helpful. Yes, my daughter is probably in the very bright but mere mortal category! I was just wondering if maybe they happen to really need someone from a small town (she has that College Board Small and Rural Town Awardee) or more people from the mountain west. But likely at places like Wash U, that might help get her in but not get her a full ride.

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I think your analysis is correct. And the midwestern schools in general don’t work as hard to get rural kids as the coastal schools do….

This could be a nice addition to a Fordham application. Their applicant pool skews urban/Catholic (but less than it used to on the Catholic piece) so anyone NOT those things has a point of distinction.

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It would be helpful for future readers of this thread if you shared the targets and safeties.

Anywho, I would let her drive the decision making about how much effort to put into apps, knowing if she is accepted but doesn’t get X merit, she can’t go. Some kids could handle that news better than others. (How would the parents handle that?)

Some of the apps in your OP really don’t take much extra energy in the way of supplemental essays/questions, some take relatively more. Sometimes the foundation of a supplement can be re-used too. If she wants to write the supplements for some reach schools, she can also do those over the summer, rather than waiting until the Fall. IME she is in the best position to make these decisions.

Is this the final list of potential reaches, or are you looking for more suggestions?

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Consider Tulane & the University of Miami as both offer lots of significant merit scholarships & both award scholarships for Marching Band.

Vanderbilt awards all marching band members a small service award at the end of the season.

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Just to supplement this point, every year I have been paying attention to this stuff now, I have seen kids who cannot afford to go to their favorite college that admitted to them. I do think some are fine, but I would say more often than not, it can undermine what could otherwise be a very exciting time as they compare actually usable offers.

They will probably get over it anyway, but I guess my point is while I would not forbid my own child to apply to any places where it is very, very likely they won’t get the merit they need, I would not exactly encourage it either.

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Yes, I think my kid would be more of the type that would feel good about the bragging rights but has been sufficiently prepped about our COA threshold to understand that it is not an option.

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Yes, my sense is that families are much more prepared for bad news than they were in the Stone Age when need-blind FA often meant, No-FA, “but you’re welcome to attend anyway”, typically because the schools assumed no one was applying who couldn’t afford to. We didn’t have the language we have today for “full-pay”, “high-need”, or “low-need”. You could either afford the equivalent of a new car every year, or you couldn’t.

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Great advice. Since these kids have to do the work, they should be in charge of how much they want to put in. I need to remind myself that I set the parameters and support her when she asks or appears to be flailing. The rest should be up to the teen. That’s the too-long list of reaches. I’m thinking four reaches makes sense and 6 targets and 2 safeties.

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