<p>catera, Your D must be a very talented young lady. This is not the case for the average college applicant, IMO (meaning JMU is more expensive than the private schools on the whole). This is quickly changing, however, with each increase that JMU has for their OOS students. We found that other states with higher OOS costs at their public schools were not worth applying to. A 2k merit offer, or similar token amount, did not offset a 30k+ tuition plus 8-10k in room and board. We found the private schools to be more affordable than those OOS publics. I consider my son to have been in about the 75% for most of the private schools he applied to (maybe more in the middle at some, and on the upper end at his safeties). His list was very realistic. 2 years ago, he was offered 2 better offers than JMU out of 10 acceptances, although having a son, I felt it were lures. I did not know if my son could hold onto his merit aid at a gpa of 3.0+ (one crept to up to a 3.2 by sophomore year). We have a younger son, and we will look more to private colleges than public OOS schools, because we see that they will be more affordable for us. At 40-50k/year we do qualify for some financial aid at private schools, LOL. The OOS publics are now exceeding our efc, and they do not offer much in grants to their out of state students. Public Us will need to do something if they want to continue to attract middle income OOS families who qualify for financial aid at private schools.</p>
<p>For all of you currently deciding, this is an interesting article from last year about deciphering offers:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/business/28money.html?pagewanted=1&ref=education[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/business/28money.html?pagewanted=1&ref=education</a></p>