Took my DS2 to Rutgers Day yesterday. He had a chance to look at their engineering labs and talked with the students doing the various demos of things they’re learning in their research labs. We came away very impressed. DS2 is only a freshman, and so it was a great way for him to be exposed to the different fields and have some ideas of what kinds of things to look for on visits to other universities. He has already asked to go to Maryland Day next year! Told kid that UMD Engrg is not a safety for OOS, but he is a realistic goal to aim for. We will be visiting some reach schools too here and there , but that won’t be the main focus.
Yes, if you cannot afford more than $X for college each year, you need financial safeties You often cannot be sure that even those schools that meet full need are going to meet YOUR need, especially if you have circumstances that are not recognized on NPCs. Also, such schools tend to be selective, and some need aware which makes that category of schools highly selective. Merit money is always iffy and many of the guaranteed scholarships are disappearing. So if parents cannot or will not be able to pay for college, the challenge is finding an affordable school.
Local schools are often the best safeties in such circumstances. I live in an area abound with colleges, including a number of state schools with reasonable tuition costs. A lot of the local private colleges also tend to be generous to home town applicants, often discounting tuitions, especially to good students. It’s especially challenging to find enough money to go away to school. Room and board can be very expensive, more than public college tuition in many cases.
@RayManta Thank you so much for that helpful list.
Third-ing New College of Florida as a fantastic LAC option that doesn’t expect perfect GPA/SAT scores, especially for students with a lot of self-drive. Very independent and intellectual with holistic admissions.
Since almost every high school senior will have significant cost constraints (perhaps only 1-3% will have parents with enough money that paying list price to any college is no problem), the cost constraints are typically the most important factor in college choice for most high school seniors.
So a safety must be selected from those colleges which are known to be affordable. For most high school seniors, the out-of-state public schools and the less selective private schools with poor FA are unlikely to be affordable without competitive merit scholarships (which would make them non-safeties).
It is entirely possible that some students will have no affordable safeties. For example, consider a student from a lower to lower middle income family in a rural area or “education desert” where there is no low tuition minus FA university within reasonable commuting range that is an admission safety, and who does not have the stats to earn any of the few remaining automatic full ride merit scholarships.
I would highly recommend University of Iowa and Iowa State. Both schools use a simple scoring system to determine admission, which is done on a rolling basis. As long as you get a high enough score, you are in. Both schools offered merit, and honestly their cost even without merit were cheaper than our in state flagship school (U of Illinois). Both schools are big and fun and known as powerhouses for various academic interests (engineering, medicine, veterinary science, creative writing). Ames is a smallish town and a little isolated, but Iowa city is really quirky and fun.