1° Now is NOT the time for your mom to be making big money :). Your FA will be in part based on what she makes in 2015, so either what she makes is socked away into her retirement fund or she sets it aside for your college education. OR she makes very little and you qualify for more financial aid at 100% Need colleges.
2° Run the NPCs with possible numbers: once with your father making 100K and your mother making what she earned last year, then making 20K less, then making 20K more. Look at the results. Talk with your parents and target schools that meet need OR offer merit (or both).
3° Don’t retake the SAT. Completely pointless with a 35 ACT. Submit that ACT and that’s it.
4° Take the SAT Subjects in a variety of subjects if you can, not just math2 + science. How good are you at English literature, Foreign language…?
5° Denison and Kenyon are TOPS for swimming. Both are considered moderate politically (and certainly not liberal). I’d recommend Wellesley, since it’s the most conservative SevenSister college (all things being equal), but I have a feeling your dad may not go for Hillary Clinton’s alma mater, no matter how conservative it is compared to other colleges - note I didn’t say it’s a conservative college. Do check it out just in case, though.
6° Being from OK and a girl in STEM, you get two boosts: one for geographical diversity if you apply to the Pacific Northwest, East Coast,Midatlantic, Midwest, and South (East of Louisiana), with a smaller boost for CA; one for choosing a major in which girls are less represented. Use that to your advantage. Check out HarveyMudd and Olin, too. Both would certainly stretch you more than CSM, even if CSM is good for stem.
7° You’d receive an automatic full tuition scholarship, plus Honors Dorm and Honors College and opportunity to compete for special programs within Honors, at University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa. You’d be competitive for Pitt’s full tuition and full ride scholarships, too (along with Honors College and Honors Dorm).
8° Check out Florida colleges for swimming, as well as UCSD, beside the two swimming powerhouses (Kenyon and Denison) in the Midwest.
The problem is that families within a certain income range do pay the sticker price or close to it. You need to ask your parents for help. Tell them you don’t want any terrible financial surprises next May1.
There is a link to scholarships for NMSF. Check out the financial aid tab in College Confidential. OU and TxTech offer great scholarships; although these schools might not be of interest to you. Trinity and Tulane are also generous with merit aid. Your hard work gives you many possibilities and opportunites.
Another post to encourage you to look at finances FIRST. Play around with several income level scenarios to see what how that plays out. Take your mom’s income from last year and run numbers with that, as if the income would stay the same. Then use a percentage increase (20% maybe, or 30%) and run the numbers. Then decrease last year’s income by that same percentage. Then you’ll have 3 sets of data to give you a range of possible financial aid.
The time and effort to apply to schools does catch up with you, and it would be easier and less expensive to only apply to schools that:
- you can afford if accepted
- your stats match the admissions data for that college
- your swim times are within range for college
- your parents are willing to allow you to attend
Don’t put off this crucial aspect. Read through recent posts about financial disasters and upset students who won’t be able to attend the great schools they were accepted to.
First school that came to my mind was Denison. 2500 kids, smart kids, good merit aid, and terrific swim program. They have won DIII in the past, and have great facilities for the swim team.
Good luck!
You said you’re talking linear algebra, are you taking it via concurrent enrollment or OSSM?
I’m asking because I believe OSSM has excellent college counseling.
Awesome swimming and great academics and I think not yet mentioned–Univ Chicago and Emory.
@ReckoSkirata, You need to figure out a way to draw your parents into an open and factual discussion of finances. Sometimes parents find it difficult to discuss money with our children. We know you’ve worked hard and we want the best for you. But the fact remains that colleges have established procedures for handing out money and the sooner the whole family understands the rules the better to avoid disappointment later.
So sit down with your parents and run a few net price calculators for different types of schools – big/small, private/public – that you may be interested in.
The resulting estimated family contribution may not be 100% accurate but it will give you a guideline of what to expect. For example if a need-only school tells you your EFC is $40,000 you will have to cross it off the list because no matter how accomplished you are, a need-only school doesn’t give merit aid. Period. On the other hand if your EFC is $5 to 10,000 maybe you can work it out.
If your EFCs are consistently coming up unworkable, then you should limit (or abandon) need-only schools and concentrate on schools that give merit scholarships. With the combination of your academic achievements and swimming you should be in line for some excellent merit money, but having access to need-based aid will widen your choices.
@whenhen: I’m taking it via my high school… They started an advanced math program in 5th grade and I got in. Pre-Algebra in 5th grade, through Linear Algebra in 12th grade… and we’ll be working with 3D printers in Linear Algebra. I have an awesome teacher who pretty much covers all maths past Calc AB-- Calc II, Calc III, Differential Equations, and, like I said, Linear Algebra.
@powercropper /all others telling me about financial aid: I’ve asked my parents, we’re starting the talk on affordability, and we’re finally going to pull out the old tax forms and find out what we can get on the NPC. This won’t happen right away, as I have a ton of APs going around (including Chem tomorrow), but we’ll get there, especially with my friend’s financial situation coming to light.
Also, on ACT/SAT… don’t colleges weigh one over the other, and will they count it as a negative if I withhold my SAT and don’t take it again? I’ve only taken it twice, and my best score was a 2040 with a 2070 superscore. Compared to a 35 ACT and the schools I want to get into, that’s not great.
Maybe someone more knowledgeable can answer your test scores question with more authority than I can. I know my D took the SAT once, then took the ACT and scored much better. We only sent the ACT test scores to her colleges, and no one even asked her if she took SAT. So in our case her lower SAT score did not even get mentioned.
A few (very few) colleges require you to submit all tests taken across the SAT1, SAT2, and ACT, although most allow you to choose.
As many others have suggested, consider Denison. A DIII swimming powerhouse, gorgeous athletic facilities. Great academics. You likely would get a substantial merit scholarship there. And Columbus is pretty close, a very underrated city IMO.
Williams is another DIII swimming powerhouse. It also has an outstanding math department. Need-only but very generous. Politically middle-road.
http://ephsports.williams.edu/sports/mswimdive/index
I’d also suggest you look at Smith and Mt. Holyoke which both offer substantial scholarships for high achieving young women.
It’s act OR sat. NoT both.
Some colleges won’t even request sat subject tests from acts takers, although it’s always good to have a couple subject tests to show intellectual versatility.
So, submit your act and stop taking the sat. Focus on sat subject tests for the schools that will need them. For the schools that won’t and have acceptance rates in the 40’s or 50’s, send your act only.
Texas A&M?