So many of them are going to not be in “Urban Planning” specifically. You will find many schools with a degree in “Urban Studies”, which covers both urban planning and city administration and related items (housing, economic development, etc.). It is a small major, so as you know not every school offers it.
Other possibilities that may check the other boxes but are a further distance: Miami-Ohio, Florida Atlantic, Iowa State, Texas A&M, Cincinnati, UConn (Major Degree | Urban and Community Studies), UMN-Twin Cities
UVA and Ohio State are the only two that seem to meet those parameters. Michigan State is a little over 9 hours away but not sure you’d consider that far.
We’re struggling with this too. If S25 makes NMF (which I assume he will) he could go to several schools for free, but he has no interest in them. His top choice will likely run us about $50K a year based on the scholarship calculator they have online. It seems ridiculous to pay $200K for college when he could go for free, but I can’t imagine him thriving at a school like Alabama. His goal is to get a PhD in math after undergrad, but he would have to get that funded. We’ve saved about $70K for college, plus we can cash flow what we currently pay for private high school (about $20K a year). I thought we were going to be limited to about $35K or $40K COA for college, but my dad (unfortunately and suddenly) passed away and left us some money back in 2021. It’s enough for us to pay for undergrad, but he will have to figure out getting funding if he wants a PhD.
Are there any that would appeal to him that have good aid for his stats–I know Arizona, Nevada-Reno, and Oklahoma are other big publics that give good aid? Reno is a free rolling application!
I think anyone going to math PhD should get funding with TA or RAs.
He had UVA on the list then took it off. We visited and it’s not the right fit for him. He spent some significant time with kids he knows who are students there now and it just really cemented in his head the idea that he doesn’t want to be at UVA. Which is a shame, because yes, it meets all the parameters and would be in state for us.
He’s got UCONN on his list, but more as a Geography major. He really doesn’t want to do the city administration side of things that falls into Urban Studies, which is why a number of schools that otherwise might fit didn’t end up on his list. He’d look at the courses required under urban studies and a bunch didn’t appeal to him.
I’m going to suggest he consider adding in an application to Ohio State. With his recently developed love for Big Time College Sports, that might be enough to have him at least consider it as an option. I think my worry for him is that what he thinks he wants - in terms of major - right now, in October, may not be the same as what he wants in April, when he has to make a decision, let alone the same as what he wants two or three years from now.
Have you visited any of the free schools? There have been many people on these forums who have been surprised.
My NMF stated that they would never attend USC. She applied and was accepted with a large scholarship plus other perks. She attended the admitted student open house. Once all acceptances were in, she weighed what each school offered (Berkeley, UCLA, Duke, etc.) and where did she end up? At USC.
We are in the same boat. Nearly identical stats, wants a large school, with the difference being they would like to be at least 8 hours away! Also isn’t sure what she wants to do. She’s applied to different colleges for different capped/competitive majors just so that she can buy time and decide in the spring. Hopefully there won’t be a horrible mis-match between wanting to be at a certain school but applied for the other major at that school.
Yeah, that’s our problem here. NMF (likely) or even NMSF (already set) means a great financial break at the Tulsas and Alabamas and so on of the higher-ed sector, but nearly all of those are located in states that, given their current political climates, would be more than happy to legislate the child out of existence. So we have Washington State (full tuition for NMSFs) and Nevada-Reno (⅔rds OOS tuition for NMFs) and Fordham (competitive full tuition for NMSFs) as our financial safeties—but noting that even full tuition isn’t the full ride some of these dangle—and the rest of them we’re just rolling the Big Merit Aid™ dice.
S25 wants out of the south and wants a small school. We visited larger schools, although not the specific schools that offer NMF full ride, and he was completely turned off. We can make the school work that he wants to attend as long as he gets the cost down to about $50K, but it still stings a bit when thinking about the money. He did apply to Alabama, Ole Miss, and Miss State under duress, and I guess we’ll consider those if things don’t work out at his top choice. I’m certainly not complaining, though. I feel lucky that we can afford to pay for so much of his college given how long my husband I had to pay off loans.
$50K/year is still a lot of money. If he likes any private schools, like USC or Duke for example, they might offer you more money in the form of a grant than the OOS state schools.
Seconding all the recommendations for the spreadsheet on costs… It was hard for S25 to conceptualize the numbers until he saw them in black and white, even when we put it in terms like “just because you can spend it doesn’t mean you should”, especially if he doesn’t really grasp the longer term ramifications. And when my husband included the compound interest on the spreadsheet to show him how his funds could grow or not depending on what he chose, well that really was an eye opener (pending actual options to choose from of course). That all helped, but it’s still a real challenge for him to conceptualize at this point, I think because it feels so far in the future, and I think it will be that way until he has an admittance somewhere and it all becomes more real. We too are going to let him shoot his shot at the reaches that are doable but could mean spending all the funds earmarked for his education, but we’re also making sure he gets as full a financial picture as possible, absent an 8-ball or similar sorcery, when it comes down to his decision.
Speaking of cost and aid, we are pretty certain we won’t qualify for any aid through FAFSA, but I am not sure about still applying for it from schools that also use the CSS profile. I feel strange completing that process when I am not convinced we’ll qualify, but maybe we’ll be surprised?
@MidwestPack - yes exactly that on the directions and mail! Until about 20 years ago, it was the same here, but once they mapped the area for official 911 addresses, some of that charm disappeared. We do still refer to people’s places by geography/landmarks, but now they have real street addresses and it’s not nearly as fun giving directions to visitors anymore.
Great point! Even with just 4 years of moderate growth, the earnings on a $50k pot of savings is really significant. Updating our spreadsheet now
This of course is all predicated on getting in in the first place and landing some decent merit dollars at the oos privates we’ve targeted. We are in Va, where the schools D25 is interested in are pretty pricey for in-state. (Looking at you William and Mary).
We’re struggling with the NMF schools too. D25 is going to apply to U of Tulsa but I’m not sure she (or we) really want to go there. She has no interest in Alabama or any of the other NMF schools either. We have a friend who is going to U of Tulsa now and seems to love it but I just don’t know.
First real college interview this weekend, with Lafayette. It wasn’t supposed to be this soon but we realized when we started looking into scheduling that all the available virtual slots for the foreseeable future were booked…and that the Lafayette rep happened to be in the Bay Area and was booking interviews in a hotel about an hour away from us. So we went. I was not able to schedule a haircut (kid is looking scarily like Shaggy from Scooby Doo these days) but he showered/shaved (in a manner of speaking) and under duress put on a collared shirt and khakis.
There were only four interview questions and the whole thing was over in just under half an hour. Questions included:
–tell me about yourself
–why Lafayette?
–what are some core values that guide you in life?
–how do you exhibit Lafayette’s motto “Cur Non?” (why not)
Those last two we hadn’t prepped for but it sounds like he did okay. He does go splotchy red when he’s put on the spot but I think for most people with a heart, this engenders sympathy. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. Oh, growing up is hard.
Now he’s second-guessing the theme of his main essay, with two weeks to go. I’m not sure he’s wrong to do so – but it’s a bit nerve-wracking. His original topic: doing his exchange program in France helped him break out of his shell, realize he could be friends with people who are superficially different from him, and learn things he wouldn’t otherwise learn. it’s a bog-standard travel-is-broadening essay that is meant to also explain why he has a dearth of structured extracurricular involvement in the first half of his high school career. That said…he doesn’t love it and neither do it. Nothing in his whole application seems to capture his mischievous, adventurous, Hermes-like soul. So he’s trying something different – a description of how his favorite thing to do is go adventuring (tying together favorite books, love of maps, and excitement about unstructured wandering with friends, either through thrift stores, cities, or on their bikes looking for ghost towns.) This last topic is very him. I hope he can pull it off.
With S22, we haven’t yet qualified for any aid on the FAFSA, although we fill it out each year.
Both to practice “find all the info and fill out the form” as an adult, and also because I was looking forward to next year when S22 will be in senior year of college and C25 will be a freshman. Of course, in the interim, they got rid of the “2 kids doing college at the same time” boost to FA needs, but I still think it’s decent practice for our kids to fill out the form and get the understanding of “other people have way less money than we do, and going to college with parents paying is much easier than figuring this all out ourselves” on a more concrete level.
If C25 gets into his “reachiest of reach” schools, they’ll get to learn about the CSS profile along with me, and we’ll figure it out together. Otherwise, they’ll be in FAFSA land. Along with S22.
We got mail today from Ohio State. C25 passed right over it. C31 was engrossed by it-as that is what they are looking for. I reminded the surfer/swimmer/scuba diver/beach bum/want to be marine biologist, that Columbus was a long way from the beach!
Also isn’t sure what she wants to do. She’s applied to different colleges for different capped/competitive majors just so that she can buy time and decide in the spring. Hopefully there won’t be a horrible mis-match between wanting to be at a certain school but applied for the other major at that school.
