<p>Congrats to the OP’s son for having done so well.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>I knew from talking to friends that we wouldn’t qualify for merit based financial aid. the piece we missed in considering schools until close the end was how to maximize merit aid by looking at schools where her stats were at or above the mean. FOr example, had she gone to one school that she did not choose, she would have money left at the end of her four years. I don’t think she regrets her choice at all, but with our second child, I plan to discuss this with her, especially as she is one who likely will go to grad school. DD1 will graduate with less than 10k of debt from a wonderful school after having a fabulous experience. However, she will have spent her entire education budget, which she had control over. with DD2, We will talk to her more about the importance of considering whether to choose a school where she won’t spend the whole “pot.”</p>
<p>Not sure my post above made sense… Seattle University gave 18k more merit aid based on her stats, and was a good choice. Because she was not above the mean at Boston University, her aid didn’t approach that.</p>
<p>Regardless of how much Merit Aid you are after don’t have your student apply to too many schools. DS applied and was accepted at 18 schools… I shouldn’t have made him write all those essays. Plus it was very overwhelming for him to make his choice. With my next one I’m going to weed the list way down.</p>
<p>MichiganGeorgia,</p>
<p>That is really impressive that 1) your son applied to so many schools error free and 2) that he got into all of them! </p>
<p>I’m kind of curious what the schools were and which one he finally chose. Was it an obvious favorite from the start? Finally, how many schools do you think is a reasonable number?</p>
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<p>How about if you have the KID weed the list down (within your parameters)? What the heck, 18 schools? Poor kid… My kids both applied to eight, and that was plenty. D1 got into five of her eight, D2 got into all of hers. That was a ton of work as it was (not just the apps, but the financial aid applications as well because every school wants different stuff in different formats on different dates!). Help your kids carefully evaluate schools BEFORE they go through the work and cost of applying.</p>