I had to look up what a “video game orchestra” was, but I can totally see my S27 being intrigued by something like that! Thanks for sharing!
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What I did with D24 & D26 is this:
Step 1:
- For each college the kid got/gets accepted to, look up the graduation requirements for the specific major at each specific college. INCLUDING GE requirements.
- list out any prequisite classes, too
- Doing this is important because it allows the student to truly compare apples to apples, instead of apples to oranges. For example, an Art major at 1 college might require one set of classes, but the Art major at a different college is handled in a totally different way.
Step 2:
- for each college, list out what course credit(s) the student will get based on their AP/IB/CLEP test scores. Make sure to look this up directly on the college’s website, not on the College Board site. Make note of whether the test score gets them out of a GE requirement.
Step 3:
- review the student’s original list (that you ideally would have made with them earlier in the school year) of what are the “must have’s” for the college and what are the “nice to have’s”
- Revise/update the list of those decision factors if anything has moved up or down in importance. Add anything that is now important but maybe wasn’t on the list at all earlier in the school year.
Step 4:
- For all of your kid’s decision factors, have the student give a High, Medium, or Low priority to it. For example, something like “Has my major” or “Affordable” might be High. Or something like “Good food” might be High. It totally varies from 1 student to another. I think you should have no more than 10 items on the decision factors list.
Step 5:
- For each decision factor, have your student give the college a rating on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is highest and 1 is lowest. So let’s say the decision factors is “Affordable” and the financial aid package came in way higher than you expected and maybe now the college really isn’t affordable like you thought it would be. Maybe you’d give that college a score of 1 for that decision factor/criterion.
Step 6:
- Now you do some multiplication. Here’s how it works…
- Decision Factor score x Decision Factor priority (high = 5, medium = 3, low = 1) = combined score for that indiv. college for that decision factor.
- So for my kid, one of her criteria/decision factors was “cybersecurity major that doesn’t require 1.5 yr of Calculus + Linear Algebra.” Pretty specific, right? Right. But that’s really really important to her, so that factor got a priority of “High.”
- …colleges that required 1.5 yr of Calculus + Linear Algebra for their cybersecurity major got crossed off the list before she even applied.
- for example, the specific major she applied to at U of A (Arizona) was Cyber Operations in their College of Information Science. It requires 2 math classes, neither of which are Calculus, Differential Equations, or Linear Algebra. So this college for THAT particular decision factor scored like: Decision Factor score of 5 x Decision Factor priority of 5 = 25.
- Repeat that process for each of your kid’s decision factors for each college they got admitted to. You’ll end up with a total score for each college. Do this process for a couple of the college they got into and then do a pulse check…ask your kid if the score seems ‘about right’ or if some of the priorities need to shift/change around.
- it’s easiest to do this on a spreadsheet so you & your student can see the numbers on one screen right in front of you.
- don’t discount the importance of some nebulous thing like “campus vibe.” Campus vibe is super important to lots of students. The student will know what type of campus vibe it is that they want, even if they can’t really explain it to somebody else in words. So that decision factor could be just something like “campus vibe.” If they really liked the vibe on campus for College A, then give that college a 5 for that score and a 1 for College B (that had the vibe they hated).
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Wow, thank you so much!!
So very helpful 
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So far, none of them are out of the question for to money. The closest is Florida Tech, which will probably push $50k all in, but doable given their merit aid.
Essentially, any college over $30k tuition (after any merit aid) will get some serious scrutiny.
Hope that answers? Lmk, if I can provide other details. We are applying somewhat ‘blind’ to the sticker cost and expecting merit aid. So far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised!
Amazing. I’m trying to put together this spreadsheet framework. Your steps make a lot of sense. Thanks so much for sharing!
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Is that $30k tuition (meaning more like up to $45-55k all-in residential or maybe $35-40k all-in commuter) or all-in that is the limit?
Remember that admission but unaffordable is functionally equivalent to rejection.
You definitely have some you can’t attend even if get in - U Wash, NC State,USD, Northeastern, Clemson, Santa Clara but if you have need the privates could work.
I think FIT and UCF is a good trip. Very small (they have good eats so go to the dining hall) and enormous although the UCF campus itself isn’t as enormous as the population would make you think.
That will add a lot of- it could be large is out and then you could apply to smaller that are attainable if you want.
When is the Florida trip ? You don’t want to miss deadlines. You have no other small schools so if FOT is more desirous but you want more you will be limited bcuz the 3 Cal privates, unless you have need, won’t work. They’re larger than FIT but not large.
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Good question:
So I’m assuming kid will be living on campus. Max tuition after aid = $30k, housing cost = $20k. Total max per year $50k a year.
Luckily 529s should cover this 
I haven’t thought about it this way, but you are correct I think!
I think you are saying the colleges above have a sticker price which is sky high, plus no likely merit aid, so we are priced out. Correct?
If so, wouldn’t LMU also fall into this category?
Florida trip is planned in mid March during our HS spring break
Where the list price is over your $50k limit, then the chance should be assessed as the chance of getting the needed financial aid / scholarship to bring the net price down to $50k or less, not just the chance of admission.
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Very close to correct! So impressed!
The list is only missing:
- Rutgers (accepted for 2nd choice Physics, with some merit $).
- CSU San Francisco (accepted)
Thank you so much for putting this together!!
Makes sense. Thanks
Was the net price under $50k after the scholarships?
We didn’t go the totally numeric multiplication route. What my S23 did was assign letter grades (yes, A-F grades) to each college for each category. For example, college X might get an A+ on academics and a C- on orchestra. Then he simply looked at the grades and that helped him choose. It was very much like making a “report card” for each college and then he judged them “holistically.” It seemed to be satisfying for him to do that to them, after they did it to him. 
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It was. Just. Although our son is not really interested in Physics. Dead set on ME/Auto
Just to help set expectations with UW Seattle…in conjunction with prioritizing in-state applicants, they don’t offer much in OOS merit. I think the range for their Purple & Gold scholarship is about $3k to 8k per year…and a majority of those offered are in the lower half of that range.
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UW also has secondary admission to the ME major, which is one of their more competitive engineering majors. It would be a bummer for a person who is dead set on ME to attend the school and then not be accepted to ME.
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If you have need it could work - even if they had merit. Merit alone won’t get you there at the privates. The publics won’t give merit but I’d be surprised if you got into UW, NC State or Clemson (which didn’t appear to reject anyone) anyway.
To me you set a budget and don’t apply anywhere that will meet. Now some of these schools may have enough merit for someone off the charts but that’s not yours. So I would have picked differently.
But you can only go to one - and you’ve gotten into many more than one !! So you’re in great shape.
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Yes, I consider that another challenging aspect of UW as well. For me personally, being offered direct admit to major (especially with engineering) carries a significant weight when comparing schools.
My D22 was a direct admit to UW’s business school, and she wouldn’t have gone there if she hadn’t been offered direct admission.
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