I know this is a parents thread so please excuse that I am the older sibling of this 15 year old as I am writing on behalf of my parents.
Little background info: Soph in hs (current GPA is 3.9), has not taken her §SAT yet, in a cappella and softball, plans to take the SAT Subject Test for Hebrew. She is a CA resident (her hs requires that all students take the minimum courses needed for UC admission), college budget is maybe 20K a year if she’s lucky (which is a lot of money, thankful to have hard working parents).
My parents and I are looking for some advice/guidance to help make her competitive for colleges and scholarships. We’ve recommended that she get involved in clubs at school but she is so stressed with homework and softball that she feels unable to handle anything else.
Are there any CA schools known for giving out great scholarships? I found the UC regents’ scholarship but could not find much criteria regarding who actually receives the scholarship. She’s open to schools outside of CA, just nice to have in state tuition. I know some schools take your GPA and SAT/ACT and give you a scholarship based on that - any good schools yall know of that do that?
We’re really just looking for any advice here… I did not go the normal route for college so we’re wading in foreign waters here.
Thanks so much for reading this! Good luck to everyone else going through this process!
Not sure about your sister’s interests etc. A lot of midwestern schools offer generous merit aid: Kalamazoo College, College of Wooster, Denison University. Here a link to a nice easy grid from Miami of Ohio that shows the range of merit aid students might expect.
Would your sister consider international study? There are several University Colleges in the Netherlands. They are often affiliated with larger, globally recognized universities like Amsterdam and Utrecht. Schools there are more professional than in the U.S. The university colleges (UCs) are patterned after U.S. LACs. They are small, internationally focused and attract top students from NE and Europe. Many go on to grad schools. All classes at all the UCs are taught in English, so language is not a barrier. They cost U.S. students approximately 12K per year and students graduate in 3 years. So much cheaper than U.S. schools. Not for everyone for sure, but a cool, affordable alternative. Here are links to University College Utrecht and a couple of others.
Most importantly, high school is important as high school not pre-college. It is a time of important development when students learn who they are, what they like, what’s important to them, what relationships are most beneficial. May I offer some gentle advice to keep college on the back burner, just something to think about a little during relaxed times. Toward the end of junior year, it becomes something that needs to be engaged more actively. Good luck to her!
How does she do on standardized tests? She should study for the PSAT in October. If she qualifies for National Merit Semi/Finalist, there are a lot of scholarships offered with that. Prep materials can be found at Khan Academy.
Keep doing well in classes and continue meaningful extracurricluars. Take the PSAT then the other standardized tests when appropriate. How much study/prep depends on her abilities. She needs to at least do free practice tests. How much other prep she feels she needs depends on her. Gifted kids can do top work without those extra courses. Hardworking good students may find them helpful.
With her abilities she needs to aim for academically appropriate colleges, not just the ones she can get the most money from. She also needs to consider all facets of who she is, her academic subjects and others. There will be dozens of schools to consider. Travel costs can be huge and time consuming so looking at the many excellent options (including the CA public U’s) closer to home may work best. Look at where scholarships can be found through her school and other options. Being Jewish she should look into those available to her. Likewise your parents’ workplace, occupations may have scholarships available.
Checking on scholarships outside of her school can be something your parents can research so she is not being enveloped into the college application world too soon (post #1).
Her junior year of HS is the most recent one seen by colleges so she should continue to do her best work. It is also important for her to enjoy being her age- the here and now is just as important as preparing for the future. Do not try to game the system with manipulating classes and activities. She needs to do what she wants for her education and fun, not what you think might help with admissions.
It is useful to visit campuses informally as your family travels on vacations/weekends to give her an idea of how they are the same and different. These are not schools she may consider but all sorts of different ones- large/small, urban/rural, public/private… Then when she seriously begins to research colleges one year from now she will have ideas as to what she likes/dislikes.
I disagree with @TTG - the end of junior year is really late to start a college list. Building a list of schools can take all of junior year. By starting early, you can register on the websites off colleges so you know when there is a representative in your area, and you can do a little at a time and not be rushed. Many kids start their college essays the summer before senior year, and you won’t be able to get all the prompts if you don’t have a school list finished. Some state schools have earlier deadlines for scholarship applications than general admissions as well. Having test scores will help finalize the list, but it’s not a requirement to start.
Summer before junior year is a great time to start practicing for SAT and/or ACT as well as the PSAT.
There are two ways to get money for school: one is need based aid and the other is merit aid. All colleges are required to have a net price calculator to show you the net price after any need based aid. Many of these will show merit aid as well. As soon as you become interested in a school, run the calculator to see if it will be affordable.
Most students have loans these days. Ideally, the student takes only federal direct student loans (limited to a maximum of 5500 for freshmen) and the parents have no loans at all. If neither parent nor student is willing to accept a loan, this may make it harder to find a school. Most schools don’t use “but I don’t want loans” as a reason to give more cash aid. There is rarely as much cash as everyone wants.
If she’s already stressed with the extracurriculars she’s doing now, do NOT push her to take on more. If she does, it might affect her grades or her performance on tests, and those two things are FAR more important for acceptance to UCs than clubs and sports. My own daughter had hardly any extracurriculars but she was admitted to all the UCs.
With $20,000 a year, if she gets a Regents scholarship the cost might be doable. I know a girl whose family has plenty of money (as in, they didn’t even bother to fill out the FAFSA because they knew they’d get nothing) and she was still offered a $10K Regents scholarship to Davis.
Be aware that the UCs look ONLY at 10th and 11th grade GPA, and also that they have their own methods for judging which classes get weighted or not.
As others have said, there are also private colleges that offer merit aid to high achieving students. However, the schools that will offer your sister lots of merit aid will not be the most highly ranked schools she could get admitted to. If that matters to her (or to your parents), a UC might be her best bet.
I’d suggest that if possible, your family might start visiting campuses soon. Choose a couple of schools that are local to you – it doesn’t matter if your sister would ever actually want to go there – and take the tours over the summer. Just get a feel for whether your sister likes big or small campuses, urban vs. suburban, etc. That will help your sister start making her college list.
You’re a kind older sibling to help your sister out!
Step back, and let your sister find her own way. Encourage her to talk to counselors about her future goals and drive her to schools she wants to visit (or fly with her…etc)…but seriously…let the girl live her life. Take your cues from her ideas and plans…don’t saddle her with your ambitions and strategies.
SHE needs to find the right school for her. And she will if you give her time.
Sounds like she’s a responsible kid on a strong college prep track. Trust her to find her way.
Not saying not to be there to support her. You can even get her some books about picking careers and colleges, things to consider, etc. But don’t force the conversation, and certainly don’t force the decisions.
It really is best to step back and follow her lead.
@AroundHere, I totally agree that it is important to give some thought to college prior to the end of junior year and to be thinking about and exploring some possibilities. I was trying to respond gently to the OP’s paragraph that mentioned competitive, stressed, and unable to handle anything else. The college process can become a grind for students if it starts too early and is too intense. It can overwhelm the high school experience, which is an important period developmentally for young people and important for them to navigate well to be intellectually, emotionally, and socially prepared for college, and the rest of life. It’s important for students to explore what they enjoy and what’s important to them. It’s important for them to have ownership of the process.
I think it a great idea to visit a few different kinds of schools (urban/suburban/small town; large/medium/small; etc.). Test prep is great if the student buys into it. Certainly families want to figure out what makes financial sense at an early stage. It’s just great if all of this can be kept pretty chill through sophomore and most of junior year. By spring of junior year, hopefully a student can have the self-confidence to say these are the things that suit me and we can afford, let’s find a school that works for me.
If she is stressed during the school year, she needs to think about what kinds of things she can do during the summer to help take the load off of her during the school year. This summer she should study for either the SAT or ACT and take it as soon into Junior year as she can. If she scores well, then she’s done. If she doesn’t, then she has time to work on pulling the scores up. Next summer she should work on her applications.
All the advice given out so far is great, but what are her interests?
If she wants to pursue engineering, or anything in STEM, there are LOTS of great scholarship options out there for her…Society of Women Engineers is a big one…some companies actually will sponsor a female to pursue STEM, and give her paid internship opportunities in the summer that leads to a full time job upon graduation, etc.
I know this because I am doing engineering and have used a lot of these resources.
Thank you all for the replies! We appreciate everyone’s help. I definitely agree that we shouldn’t push her too hard, we definitely are letting her navigate her own life.
To answer some questions:
She has not taken the SAT or ACT so she doesn’t have any scores yet. Don’t think she’s taken practice tests either…
She is definitely math/science inclined so I think anything STEM would be great for her but she is not convinced that she’d succeed in that field. Like I mentioned earlier, we’re letting her decide her own future.
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She doesn’t have much leadership experience, could that be a hindrance to her? Anything else yall see that could impact her chances?
Think outside the box for leadership. It’s not founding a club, or being president of one. It’s getting things done. And really not everyone has to be a leader. Being a good team player is worth a lot too.
If you can swing it I think the summer engineering camps for girls are a great way to find out if you will like engineering as opposed to something else that still might be math or science oriented.
I’m not a big believer in overstudying for the SATs, but perhaps I had the luxury of saying that as my kids naturally did well on standardized tests.
Junior year winter and spring breaks are a great time to start visiting colleges. Summer before junior year is still too early for most kids.
Softball and acapella are good extracurriculars.
She should prep for the PSAT, SAT, and ACT and maybe subject tests and plan out when to take them, allowing for a retake in the plan. High GPA+high test scores are important for merit scholarships.
She should think about what she might like in a college (big? small? rural? city? sports?etc) and begin to think about potential majors, but not to the point of anxiety. She still has the rest of high school to enjoy. For majors, someone suggested to us to have our kids pull up the list of majors from one of the large state universities and cross off all the ones that did not sound interesting. It helped our kids narrow down their interests at least.
Consider the Western Undergraduate Exchange for potential scholarships for schools in neighboring states to California.
It will be more helpful to suggest schools when she has some test scores to go with the gpa. Does she take honors or AP classes? How does she rank within her high school class?
^^^ good advice above re the importance of maintaining high GPA and test scores for chasing merit scholarships. With that said, on a budget of $20k/yr, the instate CSU’s are an obvious choice. The CSU’s are also very generous with AP credit and if she takes 4 AP classes (or approved honors) by end of junior year to max her UC GPA/CSU GPA, and additional AP classes senior year she can possible complete her undergrad at a CSU in 3 years. On your budget this could be very important.
Having a 4 (or more) year commitment to an activity is meaningful - whether it be sports, community service, or academic/social clubs. My eldest DD swam competitively (ended up with a D1 scholarship to swim in college), so her time was limited for school extra-curriculars. She focused instead on being a volunteer coach for the swim club from the age of 13 to 19, and got her life guarding certification, working 2 summers in high school and 2 in college. These things were pointed out as being impressive by her college admissions office and, believe it or not, played a part in her getting her first two jobs - her future bosses understood the time commitment and work ethic required by competitive swimming, and liked her leadership development as a coach and her customer service experience under stress as a lifeguard. No one has ever commented on her NHS membership or her volunteer efforts outside the pool (although they were significant). Your sister should focus on the things that are meaningful to her, even if there are only one or two. Keeping up her grades and testing well are obviously important too.
Any way she can live at home for the first two years, attend a less expensive college, and then transfer to a more, expensive “brand” college? Also, would she consider a less well known college and then a great graduate school? I attended Indiana University Northwest in Gary, IN (my parents worked in the steel mills…I was the first in my family to attend college.) I then when to Indiana University in Bloomington, IN for my graduate degree. By living at home, I was able to attend grad school and graduate debt free.
For a student with high scores, going to community college or a branch campus first may end up more expensive than applying to flagships with good merit aid for scores, not to mention all the Questbridge /meet full need/super aid colleges if the family makes 75k or less.