Ok, you didn’t state that. But in that case, you need to start with a budget (not a number you assume but an actual firm budget your parents give you). Without that we can’t really help.
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She feels challenged but she’s in the Charleston Fellows program within Honors. With your stats, I don’t think it’s possible. But you never know. It’s it challenging outside? She is challenged in most classes so I’m guessing so. But given where it is, there’s definitely a large party crowd.
With Pitt, if you apply early, your chances increase.
My concern with many of the schools mentioned - such as Mac and W&M - is that they are high reaches for you and won’t hit budget (Mac, if you have need).
The ones I suggested are easier ins or your stats will drive down costs. So you need a few of them to ensure affordability - while you can still reach for the others.
While you say you don’t want to spend more than $50K though, it doesn’t sound like you’ve had that discussion with mom and dad and as uncomfortable as it is, you need to. Many kids apply to schools worrying about money later - and guess what - they can’t afford where they get into and either can’t go (go to a CC) or strain their parents.
Also, you mentioned $100K in loans. Hmmmm - the feds only allow you to borrow $27K (thank goodness) - and while your parents can borrow $100K, will they have $1225 a month for ten years to pay it back? Especially when you’re in grad school earning nothing?
You don’t want loans but you also don’t want to spend time applying/visiting to schools you have zero chance of attending financially - so you have to ask - if college is $50K a year, can you pay (no loans)? $40K? $30K a year?
That’s over four years - there’s inflation, keeping up with the joneses (going out to eat, maybe spring break, greek if you did - all these things add up).
So please -don’t guess - and don’t think - well I’ll take loans - you’d strangle yourself or your folks financially for many years - find out now, what’s realistically affordable.
I understand that many families don’t want to discuss the extent of their financial resources with their kids. That’s okay. That’s different from saying, we are willing and able to pay $30k or $50k or $whatever per year for four years of college. It’s like if your family gives you $30 to go out with your friends. You have no way of knowing if they only have $30, or if they have $100, or if they have a million dollars. They’re just giving you an amount that you can spend.
If your family does not want you to know more about their financial circumstances, then they will need to run the Net Price Calculators (NPC) at different schools under consideration, especially for those that do not offer merit aid.
Below is a list of schools that I pulled from this post in your other thread:
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
- Seton Hall
- SUNY Albany
- U. of Delaware
- U. of Denver
Likely (60-79%)
- CUNY City College
Toss-Up (40-59%)
- American
- Connecticut College
- Fordham
- George Washington
Lower Probability (20-39%)
- Brandeis
- Dickinson
- Trinity
- U. of Richmond
- U. of Rochester
Low Probability (less than 20%)
- Georgetown
- NYU
- Tufts
Ask your family to run the NPC at the schools in the low probability bucket. If those schools would provide sufficient need-based aid to be affordable, great! If not, then they should be eliminated, as they do not offer merit-based aid.
The other schools on this list do offer merit-based aid. So then you would want to look at the NPCs (if they ask for merit aid info) or their scholarship pages. NPCs, when they ask for merit info, will usually indicate the minimum amount of merit aid that you could expect. (Seton Hall, I believe, is one that asks for academic info.)
When you look at the schools’ scholarship pages, first you want to see if there is a chart that will tell you the specific amount of merit you would receive. If that’s not available, you want to find out what the highest amount of merit aid that they offer. Macalester, I believe, has a maximum merit scholarship amount of about $25k/year. So, if Macalester costs about $80k/year and the maximum amount of merit aid is $25k/year, then you know that Macalester’s costs (before need-based aid) will not go lower than about $55k/year. If the NPC doesn’t come back with an affordable amount and $55k is not affordable, then you would know that Macalester should not be on the list.
Additionally, just because a school offers a high maximum merit award, it doesn’t necessarily mean you would get it. This aggregator is a tool that you may want to become familiar with: Average Merit Aid - College Transitions. For many popular schools it will indicate what percentage of students without need received merit aid and what the average merit award was.
At Macalester, 24% of students without need received merit with an average package of $18,034. That helps give you a sense of the likelihood of getting an award there. For instance, you would probably want to be in the top 25% of applicants if you were hoping to get a merit aid award. At U. of Denver, 53% of undergrads without need receive merit scholarships, averaging $21,438. Thus, to get merit aid here, you would probably want to be in the top half of applicants if looking for a merit award.
If a school is not listed in the aggregator, you can still do a search with “college name” and “Common Data Set” (CDS). If you look at section H2 of the CDS, then you can calculate the percentage of students getting merit and the average merit award. Additionally, for schools you’re very interested in, I would look at the CDS to verify the info in the aggregator, as sometimes there can be mistakes in a third-party tool.
If you let us know the budget and whether the NPCs are indicating the schools on your list (whether the one in this post or a different one) are affordable, then that will help the board to provide better feedback and suggestions.
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Yeah, I think a key point here is you absolutely need to run the NPCs for privates, and that means getting your parents’ information (or they can do it, but someone needs to).
That will tell you which privates would be affordable with need aid, or might be affordable with need + possible merit. Again, either route MIGHT make a private more affordable than an OOS college, but you cannot know that without running the NPCs!
And to be blunt, it is pretty much a waste of time to be filtering for things like IR strength, location/setting, admissions chances, and so on, until you can really nail this down.
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