@michiganGeorgia important numbers for sure. Not many situations I have seen have ‘tiers’ like IS Georgia. It’s either scholarship or full pay. I’m going to discuss those w D17 as part of the acceptances, not to determine whether to apply. We already have too much info!
@itsgettingreal17 We’re also waiting on NMSF. I want to say S has a safe SI, but I am an Eeyore type of person.
@kac425 Cappex might show you something similar to CDS. Input stats once and you can click between schools and see some sort of odds of admission. Not totally sure.
QOTD: School visits have been important to S. He did see many small LACs with D15 and has discounted almost all as too small. The only one to on the list for any length of time is Lewis & Clark because it is beautiful and Portland is cool. Seeing the honors colleges at the schools has turned out to be pretty critical in forming S’s list. His list has gotten shorter as he’s visited. Not longer. He is chasing Big MAC too, probably through National Merit $$. He also tends to like most schools he visited.
Cal Poly SLO - yes
University of Arizona honors college - yes then no
Arizona State honors college - yes
Northern Arizona honors - no
Western Washington honors - yes then no
Oregon Tech - no
Univ Texas Dallas honors - no
Univ of Oklahoma honors - yes
And out of the “yeses”
Cal Poly SLO for computers - stats = match, but reality = reach. Financially a match to slight reach
ASU - academic safety and financial safety even w/o NMF (WUE school)
OU - academic safety, financial match w/o NMF
@MichiganGeorgia I am making a note of the required GPAs, but anything 3.2 or under doesn’t really concern me too much. Unless she has a health crisis, I am confident she can maintain her grades. She is stronger student than all of her siblings and none of them have had any problem maintaining a high GPA (the lowest of any of them has been a 3.65.) The 3.5 GPAs, otoh, I am telling her to eliminate b/c I think that is too much pressure in case she does get sick.
@2muchquan I have seen it at a few other schools. This is from Truman:
Scholarships are renewed for the academic year with this scale:
3.25 and above — Full renewal
3.20 - 3.24 — 90% of original value
3.10 - 3.19 — 80% of original value
3.00 - 3.09 — 70% of original value
Interesting @Mom2aphysicsgeek! Ok, I guess it’s a thing. Still I make note if it’s high, otherwise we’ll review later. We have one Safety where it’s 3.5, but it concerns me much less at this particular school.
Anxiously awaiting NMSF - Us, too! I’m pretty sure D will make NMSF. But the uncertainty is uncomfortable.
@MichiganGeorgia I completely agree with you, especially if the student is majoring in one of the majors known for low GPA’s. Most of D’s schools have 3.0 renewal. I think there are 2 with 3.2. I wasn’t willing to go above that, even though I’m confident she will maintain her grades. But I don’t want her stressing over grades more than she already does.
I will say college visits were vital for me. Visiting a large state school showed me that’s NOT what I wanted even though I thought it was. I was then able to turn my search in a different direction
JOTD: closeby OOS flagship helpfully estimated my payment for my non-merit receiver (high bar)…$4300.
A MONTH.
as in MONTHLY. Every freaking month for 4 year years (well, actually, i think its a 10 month quote, but still)
we laughed and laughed and laughed some more…
JOTD: (Dd told this to me last night and I had forgotten until reading @kac425’s not so funny reality version. 
)
Shout out to all those who don’t know the opposite of in. (It took me twice to get it. 
)
DS is going for pre-med and to get into med school you need 3.75 GPA (for certain ethnic groups), so we are not paying that much attention to GPA requirement. Yes, we are on bubble for NMSF. Humidity is bigger factor than NMSF for DS :))
New QOTD:
What does your kid want to major in? Why? When did they know that’s what they wanted to do? If your kid is undecided, how is that affecting their college search?
I have one of those kids who just says “I don’t know!” when you ask what she wants to major in. Last night we did a little exercise where I went down the list of majors from a typical LAC and asked her, not to choose the ones she liked, but to cross off the ones she knew she DIDN’T like. In this way we eliminated pretty much all of science, math, and engineering, though computer science is still on the table. We also eliminated all the foreign language majors, music, and theater.
It was helpful for her to see what felt like a vast universe shrink down to a more manageable list of possibilities. Of course, she still has no idea whether she would prefer computer science, art, or something in the social sciences, and those are very different options!
Mine is also “I don’t know” kid as well as “I have one year to apply college” kid. No! He has 8 months to meet the HS grad requirement of unmet service hours of 100 >:) Mostly by not keeping track of nor submitting paperwork :-&
I really don’t think what he majors in matters. I tell people college is where one learns how to read and write and to work with others. He will apply undecided but will have to choose college of arts and science or college of engineering at some places. I anticipate he will major in science or engineering or music or something unexpected but I do not think that matters.
@dustypig my D doesn’t know what she wants to major in as well. For a while she wanted pre med, but now she doesn’t know. I like your idea of crossing off majors, I’ll have to try that with her.
Question of Day:
List down to 4 now.
2 Boston area schools- both 30% accept rates, it will be close for him making the cut
UVM- slam dunk, he likes it there
UNH- another slam dunk, thinks it’s ok there
No Big Macs for us, but he might get some $$ @ UVM and UNH.
collegedata.com seems to capture most of common data set. Took a quick peek.
@kac425 I was actually quite impressed with one calculator that not only spat out merit award but then calculated out the following payment options. It did assume the student loan at $5500 into its calculations but I actually found it refreshing to see the payment options, it was the first time I’ve seen that on a net price calc.
Per semester $11,315
Deferred (8 payments) at $2829-2942 each
Per month $1889
Parent Plus $283 per month for 120 months for one year of tution. LOL.
It then mapped out the cost for all 4 years.
@MichiganGeorgia I agree. When we see what comes in and the requirements to keep we will definitely factor that in. I am not comfortable with anything above a 3.0 to keep. I don’t think any we are looking at are higher but we will be making sure!
@kac425 I use college data for most of those stats. Definitely better than going to the actual CDS.
New question of Day:
Business. Preferably finance. But he also likes digital marketing. He thinks he’ll make more $$ in finance though, so probably just focus on finance.
Majors: D’s first major is accounting. She also wants to double/triple major with a couple of minors (depends on how the areas of study that she wants are offered at the college that she ends up, i.e., major v. minor) in the following - Arabic, international business, finance, Spanish, conflict studies. Ultimately, she wants to work in international business and use Arabic and Spanish in her career. She should be able to, with careful planning, put together a plan that works because she will have the max allowed of AP/college credits wherever she attend.
How did she decide? - This has been a 4 year process as she has matured and come to understand herself, her strengths, and things she cares about. She initially wanted to be a doctor because she’s good at science, high salary potential, and liked the idea of surgery. She also loved math. Summer after sophomore year, she attended a 6-week STEM program that introduced the students to various careers in engineering, computer science, medicine, and math. She realized that engineering, computer science, and medicine were not what she really wanted to do. So she set about looking into careers that use math on a regular basis. She used career fairs at school to discuss possibilities, early college visit discussions with admission officers that gave her ideas, and talked with some of my friends and thought she would like accounting so she applied to summer programs in accounting. She attended an accounting program (also other business school majors) at UT this summer and loved it and it confirmed that she would really enjoy a career in business. (That was fortunate for me as I’d already put together her list based on accounting majors). She’s been studying Spanish since middle school and wants to become fluent. The Arabic came through her exposure to the culture after becoming good friends with a Middle Eastern student. The international business/conflict studies came about because she wants to combine her languages with business and have some involvement in bridging cultural differences.
QOTD(s)
How many applications?
No clue at this point. 14 on the list, unlikely to apply to all 14. I would say 5 are definite applications (2 safeties, 2 matches, 2 financial safeties, 3 financial reaches). The rest is a crap shoot at this point!
Major
Not entirely sure. General area of interest is renewable energy. Looking at engineering programs, policy programs, environmental programs that have enough energy science in them to be interesting, energy resource programs, possibly economics as well. Is interested in environmental law as well. (UGH) Taking a class this week that will hopefully help provide him some direction. Which would really help narrow the list.
That said, we both want a school that has enough overall of interest for if/when he changes his mind.