Match me/list with marching band, medium-small school not urban, fall ‘27 [MO resident, 3.6 GPA, 25 ACT, <$40k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Trying to make a list of schools with my rising senior D27. Have what I’d think might be a few safeties below. Must haves: Marching band (that’s her ‘thing’), roughly no more than 15,000 undergrads (Mizzou and Missouri State’s number of students are too many for her, so most B12/B10 schools out), Midwest or East and preferably no further south than TN or NC, in the suburbs of a city or being in a medium/small town or rural (Chicago would overwhelm her for eg.) but further west is fine if in the budget. Would be nice to not be a commuter school. Ideally, the school would have a variety of majors to expose her to since she’s an undecided major. She’s not interested In Greek life or the party scene, wants school without a particularly socially conservative campus. If it matters, she’s mildly on the spectrum and an introvert, likes music, art, role playing games, trivia. Will live on campus Freshman year. Her ACT composite at 25 after 2 times is her Achilles’ heel; she may try 1 last time. Thank you.

Demographics

  • US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: Missouri
  • Type of High School: Public

Cost Constraints / Budget Limit out the door cost < $40,000/ year after any merit aid (tuition, room & board, on campus). Don’t expect any need based aid.

Intended Major(s) Undecided. She’s talked of German, music ed, education, but she really doesn’t know.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.6
  • Weighted HS GPA: 3.81
  • Class Rank: n/a
  • ACT Scores: ACT 25 composite

List your HS coursework

  • English: AP English 4
  • Math: Precalculus, Algebra 2
  • Science: Chemistry, Environmental Science
  • History and social studies: AP US History
  • Language other than English: German 4
  • Visual or performing arts: Marching Band/ Symphonic Band

Awards

Expect Seal of Biliteracy on HS Diploma (German)

Honor Roll each semester

Some various band awards

Extracurriculars
Marching Band/ Symphonic Band

HS Quiz Bowl Team (Captain) (went to nationals last year)

A+ tutoring program

Schools
Some (what I think would be) safeties with Missouri in state tuition, or no OOS. (Privates or OOS fine within $40k/year out the door budget):

Truman State, SIU Carbondale, Central Michigan, Semo… others?

Targets? Reaches?

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Northern Illinois in DeKalb would check the boxes. Bigger football than SIU (remember when they beat Notre Dame!). 12k undergrads. And you would pay in state tuition. Auto admit with her stats.

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Oh, thank you! Generous with merit aid for GPA, or activities (band)?

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West Chester University in Pennsylvania has an award-winning marching band and excellent programs in music/music education and education programs in general. It offers a minor in German. It has about 14,000 undergraduate students and is in a very nice town. They do offer scholarships but I don’t know whether cost of attendance would be under $40,000.

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University of Louisville and Kansas State University are possible options. Louisville only offers a German minor, no major; and is a bit larger than 15,000 undergraduates.

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University of New Hampshire has a very active marching band and has 10-11K undergrads. Very attractive residential campus near Portmsouth NH (love Portsmouth) and not too far from Boston or Portland ME. They do automatic merit using weighted GPA (I think they do their own recalculation) - it is posted on their website although under $40k might be hard for OOS.

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Thanks. Will check them out. I had it in my head that K-State was the size of Mizzou. Perhaps it’s smaller than I thought!

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Thank you. Will definitely check it out!

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Thanks. We’ll check out. Maybe there’s an OOS tuition break for GPA or band!

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University of Maine. Marching band, should hit budget, has an Exploration Program for undecided majors with dedicated forums and advising. Big enough to find a group that likes what she likes, but small enough to not be overwhelming.

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Here’s the merit page for NIU. Merit Scholarships for Freshmen | Financial Aid and Scholarship Office | Northern Illinois University

Based on GPA, auto-merit would be either $4000 or $6000 a year. Not sure if they’re using weighted or unweighted.

I believe there’s $1000 a year scholarship for doing marching band in addition.

They list COA as around $34k (before any merit), but that includes over $4k for transportation and personal expenses and books, which are very subjective). What Are My Costs? | Financial Aid and Scholarship Office | Northern Illinois University

So I think amount owed to the school, after auto merit would be under $30k.

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You’re awesome! And you liked it well?

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Thank you! Going to google it now!

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My S28 visited recently, that’s how I learned about it. (He’s trombone. He met and liked the brass teachers.) My sister in law attended NIU a few decades ago for elementary education. She loved it.

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Ohio University in Athens Ohio…they have a terrific marching band. Athens is a great college town. OU isn’t a huge state university. Greek life is there but definitely doesn’t dominate the campus at.all. Lots of majors from which to choose. Maybe it will meet your budget with merit aid.

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My daughter will be starting her second year at Central Michigan and loves it!

Carroll University or UWi-Eau Claire may be worth looking at.

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My oldest toured it and liked it (this is #2). Wound up taking a year at a county community college. Does she live in the dorms & like it? Only real negative is to get back for Thanksgiving or a short holiday, it seems like she’d have to drive to Grand Rapids or Detroit to park and fly. Not sure if Lansing is an option? I did tell my senior looking now that the winters are real up there with the lakes. We no longer have real winters in Missouri. Glad to hear a good review from a happy kid!

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Thank you. I’m going to try to get her to be open to it. She may balk on the size which is close to Mizzou. Also, a friend’s kid went to Miami and liked it. Hoping she’ll be flexible enough on the size to include it too!

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Did he play in the marching band? Have a good experience?

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Welcome to College Confidential, @Tuco11!

Although your daughter is undecided, I’m only going to mention schools that offer both German and music teacher education as majors (at least per College Navigator, the feds’ website) and have marching bands.

Medium-Medium Large Colleges

  • Bowling Green State (OH): About 15k undergrads and falls within budget

  • North Dakota State: About 10k undergrads and this definitely falls within budget before any scholarships are considered.

  • South Dakota State: About 11k undergrads and falls well within budget at sticker price.

  • U. of Dayton (OH): About 7700 undergrads; would need merit aid to get this within budget

  • U. of Minnesota - Duluth: About 8400 undergrads and falls within budget by sticker price; is Duluth too big of a city for your D?

  • U. of North Dakota: About 11k undergrads and the sticker price is well within budget.

  • U. of South Dakota: About 7600 undergrads and the sticker price is within budget.

  • U. of Wyoming: About 8100 undergrads and your D would qualify for $5k in merit aid (source) excluding band considerations.

  • Western Michigan: About 13k undergrads and the sticker price falls within budget

Smaller Colleges

  • Albion (MI): About 1300 undergrads

  • Alma (MI): About 1200 undergrads

  • Augustana U. (SD): About 2k undergrads

  • Baldwin Wallace (OH): About 2800 undergrads

  • North Central (IL): About 2500 undergrads

  • Saint Ambrose (IA): About 1900 undergrads

  • The College of Wooster (OH): About 1700 undergrads

  • U. of Mount Union (OH): About 2200 undergrads

The private colleges (U. of Dayton and the smaller colleges) would need merit aid, but I suspect that a number of them would end up falling within budget.

I will say that if she’s seriously interested in German, she should check with each department about the health of its program. If there aren’t enough students majoring/taking classes, it could be at risk of being eliminated. College Navigator lists the number of first majors, so if a student double-majored in German, College Navigator doesn’t show that in its counts. This site lists the number of majors (including first and second majors), but the data are from 2022, so it can be a gauge, but it’s best to get that info from each university. In fact, she may also want to do that with the music ed programs, too.

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