She said she would be open to the midwest 
, as we have visited friends in Omaha, Lincoln, and Overland Park. Although, I’m not too familiar with the LAC’s in midwest I’ve seen St. Olaf and Gustavus Adolphus mentioned. Any other suggestions?
Many posters would like to help you, but you should start your own thread!
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So there are a lot of Midwest LACs well worth considering, not least for premed purposes. So I would also suggest starting up a full Chance Me/Match Me thread of your own, and then people will be able to give you very specific suggestions to match her wants and needs and qualifications.
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Yes, please start your own chance me thread.
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Did you guys hire any private counselors? Any recommendations?
I believe her actual merit award was accurate at one school and higher vs the NPC at another. An inaccurate NPC is totally possible.
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Thank you for sharing. This is all very helpful.
I also noticed that on the NPCs, that merit often seemed to increase if I didn’t plug in the SAT score. Having said that, 27’s score was usually usually on the lower end of that 50 percent of students range that is often noted. It’s still hard to know, some NPCs use a weighted scale but his school’s scale is different than the more common .5 Honors/1.0 AP. Or similarly, if using unweighted, it is unclear how rigor would compare with others.
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Our DD did the opposite…went from the east coast to the west coast for undergrad. She had a fabulous experience, and didn’t feel out of place at all.
DS stayed on the east coast. I don’t think he ever felt there was a “prep school culture” at all, and he was from a plain old public high school in a semi rural area. He loved his experience.
Your daughter will need to work hard and prepare for medical school applications regardless of where she attends undergraduate school. It could be a LAC or university anywhere in this country.
At this point, she needs to do her personal best in her HS courses, and do well on the SAT or ACT (which are required at many places).
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You applied to 33 schools? Was there any thought given to the process?
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No. My daughter did. Explanation is above. Mostly due to last minute, shifting preferences and already having a huge stable of essays that made applying to more schools very easy.
A word of caution to parents whose kids will be going through the college app process soon:
Don’t do what 1 California family did. Their student applied to an OOS public university, but applied late in the application cycle. They assumed that because of the student’s high stats that an OOS merit scholarship worth a lot of $$ was going to be offered.
They paid the enrollment deposit & everything before knowing what the financial aid package would be. Their student enrolled in classes, signed up for housing, is planning on participating in the rush process in Greek life, found a great roommate.
And then they got the financial aid numbers. Guess what? No merit scholarship. They tried to appeal. That went nowhere. The family cannot afford to pay >$60k/yr for the OOS tuition, room, board & Greek life fees. The student WAS going to be moving into the dorms next month and now that’s not going to happen. Student is devastated.
When it comes to the cost of attendance, DON’T ASSUME THAT THE FINANCIAL AID WILL ALL WORK OUT! Use the Net Price Calculator on each college’s website. Have a open & honest conversation within your family about what you can really afford. Do NOT assume that just because your kid has a 4.0 GPA that a lot of free money will waltz in to cover a lot of the OOS tuition at a public university.
PAY ATTENTION to the details. In order for the college to be affordable, if it’ll require your kid to qualify for a specific type of merit scholarship at that college, find out if this means you have to apply by a certain date.
Because guess what? If the “you’ll automatically qualify for merit scholarships” application date is 11/15 and you didn’t apply until, I don’t know, the end of March, then you’re not getting that scholarship. Period.
Don’t assume that your kid’s high school counselor will give them this advice. Some counselors don’t say anything about it at all.
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Wouldn’t the financial aid and scholarships (or lack thereof) be known before the deadline to matriculate, and before when it is possible to enroll in classes and find a roommate?
Of course, there are stories of students and parents not paying attention to cost during the application stage result in getting admissions in April, all of which are too expensive.
I’m familiar with the story. This university has a priority merit deadline of November 1, but an RD deadline of June 1. Apparently the kid had some changes of mind about where they wanted to go for college, and applied toward the end of the RD period. They got an offer of admissions with no aid first, but then were told in some form they were under review for merit. That was the period in which they accepted the no-aid offer and began the matriculation process, but then finally were informed there would not be a merit aid offer.
Thanks for bringing this up. There are lots of people who take a wishful thinking approach to financial aid; this story is just a sad version about a kid’s experience when we all likely know dozens of similar cases.
“Under Review” means exactly that- under review.
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Just to add some details, apparently they were relying on what sorts of kids they read about getting merit in prior years even after applying late. There of course are many problems with that, including reporting bias (like kids/parents happy with offers are more likely to discuss them online), and the fact university budgets, policies, and other circumstances can change year to year in ways that affect discretionary merit programs.
ETA: Also probably worth mentioning the parent really wanted to support their kid going OOS, but apparently the kid also wanted a big public sports university sort of experience. That’s fine if you can easily pay for it, but gets to be a much narrower path if you would need a lot of aid, because those sorts of public colleges tend not to have much aid for OOS students. Obviously if you can get enough auto merit (available some places OOS) to make it work, great. But relying on discretionary merit from OOS publics is really not a great idea.
So while I understand this parent wanting to give their kid exactly what they wanted, sometimes the parent needs to be the voice of reason in explaining why their budget might not support exactly that.
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In general, if discretionary or competitive merit is needed to afford the school, it should be classified as “reach” because of the uncertainty of such.
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