Parents of the HS Class of 2026

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
6294

Re: applying for scholarships -

State of AZ has a big Flinn Foundation scholarship, which pays for full tuition, fees, room & board for 4 yr at NAU, ASU or U of A. Counselors at our high school have said you have to be like Ivy League-level candidate to make it to the finals round. D26 is a good student, but not Ivy League level of student, so she didn’t apply.

D26 also isn’t going to apply for a Coke Foundation, Stamps scholarship or any other national-level scholarships. She doesn’t have high enough stats, doesn’t have leadership stuff in her extracurriculars, and she isn’t the type of student that they would select. So not going to bother.

Any scholarship where it requires you to write a 1500+ word essay is not something that she’s going to apply for.

One word of caution:
Pay attention (and ask about) to what the SPECIFIC guidelines are for financial aid at the colleges that your student gets accepted to. NOT ALL COLLEGES will “stack” outside scholarships on top of the college’s scholarships+financial aid package.

Here’s what I mean by that:
Your kid wins an outside scholarship that will chip in an extra $15,000/yr toward tuition, room & board…

College A:

  • tuition, room & board before any scholarships or fin aid is, let’s say, $70,000/yr.
  • your kid is awarded $34,000/yr merit scholarship
  • this leaves $36,000/yr after that college-based merit scholarship
  • this college DOES stack outside scholarships. That means that the $15,000/yr outside scholarship reduces your tuition, room & board by $15,000/yr.
  • …thus making the T+R+B/yr = $21,000

College B:

  • tuition, room & board before scholarships or fin aid = also $70,000/yr like College A does.
  • College B awards your kid $34,000/yr merit scholarship, leaving $36,000/yr after that.
  • College B does NOT allow outside scholarships to stack on top of college-awarded scholarships or fin aid.
  • THEREFORE, College B reduces your kid’s merit scholarship by $15,000/yr.
  • This means that the $15,000/yr outside scholarship your kid won does not reduce your family’s out of pocket $$ amount per year.

SOMETIMES when you ask a financial aid office or the admissions office if outside scholarships “stack,” you won’t get a clear answer. When that happens, ask the question this way:

“For example, if my student won an outside scholarship of $10,000/yr toward tuition, would that be added on top of my student’s existing merit award/fin aid package from your college? OR would you REDUCE the amount you award by that $10,000/yr, resulting in our family’s required contribution per year to NOT be reduced by the $10,000 outside scholarship?”

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6295

That’s the reaction I’ve gotten when telling this story - geez, I’m glad you found out before it was too late! I’m trying to bear in mind that a visit is a small snapshot of interactions, and there are thousands more people at every campus that you didn’t meet, so it’s very likely that she would find her people and be ok at any of these LACs that are pretty similar in the big picture. But man, the contrast felt so striking at the time.

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6296

No school here today and S26 is working on his honors college app and some scholarship apps. All for Alabama at this point. I’m going through the lists of scholarships my other kids applied for so I remember which ones to look out for as they come up (mostly local ones). I’ll look for others, but I’m not sure if he’ll apply to those that are national level or not.

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6297

D26 has an ED app and 4 EA apps in. She just got an “early aid estimator” from College of Wooster saying they would give her $44k per year in merit aid, which would bring the cost below $40k! If she doesn’t get into her ED or a couple of other favorites, this could be a great option, especially since she plans to go to medical school.

She’s taking a little break before she gets to work on another 9 or 10 apps (ED2 and RD). So not close to done over here …

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6298

My S23 has a good friend who is now a student at Carleton and had a very similar pair of visits. He’s very happy at Carleton now! Anyway, I know a lot of people love St Olaf, but you and your student are also not alone in your experience and feelings. :slight_smile:

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6299

I just read your entry there. I’m so glad for those visits!

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6300

A couple of my younger colleagues are recent Carleton graduates. They both loved it. One was a recruited athlete.

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6301

This is exactly why we are focusing on the college specific scholarships.

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6302

I just read your post in the visits thread. So great that your kid went from disappointment at St Olaf to serendipitous joy at Carlton on that trip. Glad she found a new place she is excited about so quickly.

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6303

Carleton sounds really great. It’s on D26’s RD list because we haven’t had a chance to visit the Midwest schools, but I have a feeling it could have been an ED contender if we’d visited.

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6304

Carlton likely would have been high on D26s list if it weren’t in Minnesota. She had Carlton, Macalester and St. Olaf on exploratory list junior year, then once she saw the winter low temperatures she said “nope,” scratched all of them off the list, and never looked back.

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6305

Mine applied to both Macalester and St Olaf – but she saved most of her ‘reaches’ space for warmer weather - like California! :rofl:

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6306

We’re in California. We ski in Lake Tahoe fairly regularly, but as soon as it starts to snow, like a little bit. Like, even it’s actually sunny but snowing some (which happens a fair amount in Tahoe), D26 heads straight for the lodge and hot chocolate. Minnesota winter is 100% not for her. :joy:

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6307

That’s so funny! Did your daughter apply to a ton of California schools?

6308

Shockingly, no. Her for sure applying list has 4 in CA, then Oregon, the South, mid-Atlantic, Ohio and . . . one in Massachusetts that she loved enough that she wanted to apply despite the location/weather. I suspect Ohio and Massachusetts will get ruled out if she gets into some others she likes. She said she can do “some winter” but is not psyched about it.

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6309

We are from MA and my son went south to escape winter. He is really missing legit seasons and colder weather now. It even snowed down there last year but it is so rare that they have no infrastructure to deal with it and the entire area essentially shut down for 5 days. Funny he was so ready to not have winters anymore and now he misses it.

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6310

Mine didn’t want to venture anywhere cold, but then we toured RIT on a whim, and she loved it so much that she’s been framing it as an opportunity to shop for an awesome winter jacket and boots and accessories – which we do not own, LOL.

I really don’t think she knows what she’s in for – I mean, Rochester of all places! This is a child for whom I purchased a heated vest because she gets cold in the stands during football games. In Georgia. :rofl:

But this is a problem to worry about after we see where she’s headed!

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6311

We are from MA and then winters have been getting more and more mild (I suppose that’s happening everywhere due to climate change). My kids hardly wear jackets all winter and one of them tends to be cold a lot - the other one just never gets cold. Anyway, that’s the long way of saying that MA weather really isn’t as harsh as people think. Having said that, it’ll probably be really cold and snow like 10 ft this winter just to spite me.

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6312

The weather thing is funny because my D26 doesn’t want to go anywhere she’ll sweat! All northeast schools for her (and one midwest). I think the furthest south she’s applying to is Philly and we’re in north Jersey!

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6313

Everything is relative. I grew up in a tropical climate where winter lows were like 60 degrees (14-15C ) and we’d all be in jackets and scarves and boots :rofl:

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