I really appreciate that link @ucbalumnus. More very important information that hadn’t occurred to me. You’re correct in your assumption that there is no “we”, only an “I”. It looks like we (meaning, my son and I) will have an additional hurdle, with each school that requires a CSS profile, to get a waiver. While there’s no waiver category for our situation, specifically, the nearest one would be, “No contact or support ever received from the noncustodial parent.” But, I’ll contact the schools that he’ll apply to directly, because the fact of the matter is that there is no other parent at all. While I wouldn’t call our situation “unique”, it’s probably not all that common. I’m a single parent, my son was conceived via artificial donor insemination. I have all of the documentation (and the receipts) to request a waiver, and I’ve never been married, so there is literally no “other parent” in any sense of the imagination.
Seems unlikely that your situation would result in a financial aid denial at colleges that require non-custodial parent information, but it obviously does make sense to contact the relevant colleges’ financial aid offices early to avoid delays and related issues in handling financial aid.
I think that it would be helpful to know his two sports & which schools have expressed interest in his athletic skills.
Rice has been on his radar (so far, that’s his #1 reach school, and it’s quite a reach, because their average SAT scores are 1500+), but I think if he applies himself to SAT prep, he can get there. Rice is one of the only well known schools in Texas that hasn’t contacted him about his sport, and I think that makes him love it, and want to reach for it even more. 
To provide some additional context: It seems, from our discussions, that my son definitely tilts more towards LACs, but wants the size of a mid-sized national. I’ve really been giving a lot of thought and will propose to him that he shouldn’t discount schools based on geographic area/region, size, or diversity levels without first considering additional factors. Stepping out of his comfort zone, I think, should at least be an option, and I’ll see if that’s something he’s willing to consider. Thank you for proposing it.
I hadn’t heard of Davidson before today, and I don’t know if my son has (probably not), so we’ll add it to the list of schools to investigate, along with Washington U, and the list of schools that were recommended yesterday. We’re also going to give a second look at some of the schools that we’d previously discounted, because we thought they were out of reach. I’m going to take the time today to start running the NPC at a wider range of schools.
I want you all to know that I’ve read, and will continue to read every post to this thread. Every single comment has been truly helpful. I’ll keep you all updated on where we are and hope to get even more great insights.
If your son is basketball fan of any degree, than he knows Davidson - it’s were Steph Curry played. Some other schools that come to mind to me (some previous stated):
Tufts
Vassar
Hopkins
all the UAA schools…
Carnegie Mellon
Emory
Rochester
Brandeis
Case Western
Chicago
Washington U
He sounds like a terrific student and a perfect fit for Rice. Rice has about 4000 undergrads and is located in a great part of Houston. Rice has excellent financial aid. Rice is very focused on diversity. Rice also awards some merit scholarships, especially to underrepresented minorities, such as African American and Hispanic students. The published SAT ranges for all of the applicants to Rice may not apply as strictly to underrepresented minorities, recruited athletes, or walk ons. If he can do so under eligibility rules, he should reach out to the coaching staff in his sport. He may be pleasantly surprised at the response.
If he’s interested in continuing to play his sport in college it’s worth heading over to the Athletic Recruits section of this site to learn how things work. ( http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/ ) Recruiting schedules, roster sizes, financial aid and a host of other topics vary widely depending on the sport and which NCAA division he’s looking at, so get over there and get educated. If his sport is something odd (pistol or sailing or rodeo) then the list of places to continue could be quite short. If it’s football or basketball then he’ll almost certainly never see the field at Auburn or Duke. Really consider how much he wants to play so he can focus on appropriate schools earlier. And he has to honestly establish what level he should be competing at, both in terms of earning paying time and how much of his life he wants to sign away to be in a D1 program. (It can be a lot.) There’s very good competition in D3 if you pick the right program, and it won’t cost you a chance to study abroad or choose some majors or whatever.
@nomatter aw, so young. Has he thought about a gap year since he’s not sure what her wants to study?
Although a gap year seems appropriate, it may not be for a recruited athlete. Missing a year of active competition can adversely affect one’s readiness for collegiate sports.
Neither of my kids were sure what they wanted to major in when they were in high school. I don’t think that’s unusual.
At Rice, a student does not have to declare a major until the end of sophomore year. Students can take classes in any subject and choose any major (aside from music and architecture which require a portfolio or audition for entry). Many students double major and pursue diverse interests.
Your son’s academic profile is similar to my D’s. If your son can slightly improve his SAT and GPA and add more leadership then he will have plenty of good options. My D was interested in continuing one or both of her sports in college as well as majoring in a STEM field. She also desired a small to mid-sized college that was either in an urban location or in a suburb with easy city access. We initially focused on NESCAC schools because of their excellence in academics and athletics and quickly culled the list to schools she would be happy at even if she were unable to play her sport. Some suggestions from her college list: Tufts, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Williams (isolated but excellent), UChicago, Bowdoin, Wake Forest, and Penn (where she was admitted ED). She also considered Rice and Amherst.
There are a lot of suggestions here which are geared to need-based aid and offer little or no merit aid. If you really do have an unaffordable EFC (e.g. $50K+ when you say you can only afford $25K-$30K) then you want a very different list (but do run the NPC on the most generous schools of interest first).
In that case I think the idea of an Honors College at a university with full tuition or better merit scholarships may be a better bet. Many of those schools are a bit bigger than 15K students but the Honors College can mitigate that somewhat. Perhaps the competitive scholarships rather than auto-merit for stats (like Alabama) would be more promising given that those colleges may give more consideration to URM and sports hooks? Since you have affordable in-state options as a backup there’s no reason not to aim high with alternatives. Good examples of these (which are not quite as competitive as say UVA and Duke’s full scholarships) are NC State https://park.ncsu.edu and Utah https://honors.utah.edu/admissions/eccles-distinguished-scholarship/ but there are many others.
First school that came to mind is Rice. Seriously look into Princeton. I know of someone with lower SAT scores that got into Princeton. He was bright, went to a good HS, was a URM and was a recruited athlete. He was a very laid back kind of kid, not intense or academically competitive. He was very happy at Princeton.
Two more votes for Rice in Houston and Washington University in St. Louis. The schools have some similarities, so if he is interested in one school he will probably be interested in the other. My daughter is from North Texas and graduated from Rice over a year ago. One thing that is nice about the Rice admission application is that the application is used for merit scholarships, so there is no additional work to apply for merit. Rice does not require an immediate declaration of major.
Your son will definitely have some great options. Congratulations on his achievements so far.
Towson University might work. It is in a northern suburb of Baltimore with ready bus connections into the city, as well as circulating buses during the academic year to the other Baltimore-region colleges and universities. There is an honors program, and some cross-enrollment with other nearby colleges and universities is possible. OOS COA is at the high end of your affordability.
@Publisher, I almost explained this in the very first post, but it was so long already, and I deleted another draft on this very issue. I’ll apologize in advance, because brevity isn’t my strong suit, LOL!
I don’t want to mention his sport, because we’re specifically looking for fit based on where he would be thrilled to be even if he wasn’t an athlete, AND where we could still afford if he received no athletic scholarships, etc…
My son was an outstanding student looooong before he became a standout athlete, or an athlete at all. He’s so much more than a “recruited athlete”, with other talents, abilities, and interests that surpass his athletic abilities. A lot of people who are in his life since high school either never knew, have forgotten, or don’t care who he really is; a math and science nerd who has exceptional writing ability, and autodidactic tendencies (he taught himself two languages, and how to draw - he’s a standout art student as well). He’s a formidable debater, who studies logic religiously, and can even logically dismantle the usually unbreachable maternal, “Because I said so…,” without you even knowing what just happened, LOL! This isn’t about “mommy bragging” (I swear), I just want everyone to understand (because I can promise you that coaches do not) that sports is not this kid’s be all and end all. He’s not some unicorn. He’s just a regular kid, who has goals and dreams, and, as it should happen is a really good athlete.
He has gotten so sick and tired of talking about DI recruitment (me too), and being ‘herded’, that he stopped wanting to talk about college at all. He has very astutely realized that, in some situations, “student athlete” = “Paid with scholarship $$$ to perform athletically and we’ll let you call yourself a student”. He doesn’t want to be “owned” by an athletic program. He has DI ability and output, but a DIII mindset (he wants to compete because he loves it, and nothing more). He wants to be a student with broad academic options, who is also an athlete. We are hyper aware of the NCAA eligibility rules and timelines. He’s met the 10/7 rule, and has met 15 of the 16 rule (he only needs his senior year AP English Lit class, because he started taking high school classes in middle school). The reason why he took the SAT early (with no prep) was so that he could register with the NCAA eligibility center and go on official visits. We will check out the recruited athlete forum (thanks for that link!), but this isn’t the area where we really need help at this time.
We won’t discount any schools based on NCAA or NAIA competition level, they will just have to be the right fit, based on criteria outside of whether or not he’s being recruited/will be offered a scholarship. We’re not discounting any school, unless it is not a fit, is not accredited, has abysmal graduation success rates (I feel very strongly that very low graduation rates speak to institutional deficiencies that we’d like to avoid), or is in a location that is absolutely untenable to him. Or, if there is no chance of me being able to afford it.
@eb23282, my son isn’t much of a basketball fan, but he apparently does know who Steph Curry is. Still, he didn’t know what school he went to, and hadn’t heard of Davidson. I’ve added your list to our list. Thank you!
Davidson College has an incredible lakeside setting. Great school. Many students lean conservative. Definitely worth visiting, but you will see Confederate flags in dorm rooms–unless things have changed in the past few years.
P.S. I ask about your son’s two varsity sports & which schools have recruited him, not to label him simply as an athlete, but to enable me to give context to any comments or recommendations.
Right now, I feel as though I could just hand you a list of the top 200 ranked colleges & universities. Based on info. shared, recommendations have no relevant context, in my opinion.
I spent some time running the NPC calculator for colleges that meet full need (previously, I’d only done this for Rice, after they announced the tuition waiver for annual incomes under $160k), and I am pleasantly shocked! While the numbers are coming back at the very top, and in one case slightly over (Williams College) our budget, it’s doable. Even Williams only went over by $1k, and that’s still doable. His budget of $25 -$30k is what I felt I could ‘comfortably’ pay (thanks to the foresight of his 529), and assumes the full care of an ill parent. If absolutely necessary, I could dip into home equity, and retirement savings, but it appears that I won’t need to.
I feel almost weak with relief!