<p>Thank you, cormom15! I have her working on a spreadsheet right now. She loves spreadsheets. :)</p>
<p>Thanks, hoosiermom, for your info about the Peace Corps!</p>
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<p>Thanks, NJSue, for your help. My daughter has a few friends who are seniors at her school and indeed, from what she says, ALL of them were offered money by Rutgers, even one kid with SATs about 100 points below her (projected) score. Of course I can’t take that to the bank but it does make me feel somewhat relieved!</p>
<p>sugarski–just be aware of the costs to apply to 15 schools, not only are there application fees but you have to send test scores too. Most of the schools our kids applied to waived the application fee if they applied online/common app. All but 3 schools would actually accept a PDF of their score report from ACT/SAT via email from us, I just asked because I thought that our school sent test scores on transcripts and they did not so I checked with the colleges and they said sure. We had sent scores to the few that did not. (We have twins so between the 2 they applied to 20 schools). As long as you have a good list, no reason not to apply to 15 schools if you are searching for merit money. So far the kids have gotten their final numbers from about 1/2 their schools. D committed (athlete) in the fall so she only got numbers from one school. S has heard from 6 out of 10 now. Of those 6, four have added extra merit awards, small $1000-1500, on top of the automatic merit he got. The rest came over as expected. We are a full pay family so no financial aid. The net price calculators have been right on for the schools that included the automatic merit aid in their calculator. Every school on the list has come in under the NPC price.</p>
<p>Again, my thanks to all who have replied. I wanted to go through the thread and reply to everyone individually but I need to pick up my daughter from work now so I won’t have time today… if anyone is interested, I have been using [one of the college websites that offers info such as Scattergrams, estimated net COAs, etc.] and I have come up with a list of about 25 schools, which I can post if anyone wants me to! We will be able to take her to most of them to visit over spring break and summer vacation. By the way, yesterday she went on a tour of SUNY Binghamton and she absolutely LOVED it. This school is always on the lists of “best value colleges for OOS”… any thoughts on it?</p>
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<p>SteveMA, thank you again for the help!!</p>
<p>Binghamton is a great school and has really been picking up a lot of applicants in the last few years. A great deal as are any of the SUNYs and CUNYs for NY state residents. But is it worth it for someone from NJ? Do the numbers, but bear in mind that getting any merit from Bing is not likely, just about zilch chance for your DD, and they do not guarantee to meet 100% need and don’t. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect NYers are first in line for the aid. We do have a lot of need in our state. The way many OOS schools work, is that they will give merit money for the top picks OOS, but as far as financial aid, the pickings are slim. </p>
<p>I suggest talking to the school GC who can probably tell what schools have been “good” to grads from your DD’s high school in terms of merit/financial aid. </p>
<p>I’ve had very little luck, just a few instances, where instate public prices could be beat, and that is the case for most people I know. If you have a kid with high stats, and you have high need, or if your kid with high stats is looking for merit money, that’s when the nice packages usually come into play. For those kids whose stats put them under the top 25% in test scores for a school, getting a sizable merit award is usually a pipe dream.</p>
<p>While SUNYs are relatively low cost for out-of-state students, they are unlikely to be significantly cheaper than in-state Rutgers and other NJ publics, and probably less generous with financial aid (but you can run the net price calculators on each to see).</p>
<p>I don’t recall you mentioning your actual price limit, but note that South Dakota State is about $16,000 list price for out-of-state, and South Dakota Mines is about $21,000 list price for out-of-state; both have a decent selection of ABET-accredited engineering majors.</p>
<p>But if your price limit is lower, you are probably back to the schools like those listed in post #4 with automatic big merit for stats to be candidates for safeties.</p>