I finally pulled together a spreadsheet so we could compare costs better. It’s an evolving process because I do believe her mid year grades could offer some negotiation room at some of her schools.
But as a next step we’ve decided that we need her to visit one of the cheaper options she hasn’t visited yet: UMaine, Western Michigan, or one of the instate schools she hasn’t applied to or considered yet (rolling admissions). That way if we go for a more expensive option we will feel better having given due consideration to the others.
I’m going to encourage her to dig deeper and choose one of the following options to visit:
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Western Michigan has an honors admitted students day in Feb. I’ve heard good things about their honors program. And the school checks quite a few of her boxes.
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Or we could visit UMaine when she does URI Admitted students day in April. UMaine doesn’t appear to have admitted students events which is disappointing. In fact she’s never even gotten a letter or anything indicating admission or merit. It’s just in her portal and we had to call to find out the merit. Not impressed with UMaine’s communications or organization so far. And our expectations are not super high IMO.
There are about 6 schools she still needs to hear from and one could certainly surprise us with money still. But I’m taking steps for all of us to truly understand the money portion of this deal (keeping in mind that our original list is by no means crazy money wise - all under 45k COA).