Upcoming tours [English & Diplomacy/4.0 GPA, no parent contribution besides parent loans]

Parents Forum
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We are planning a western mass trip over April break. I am hoping that traveling there during a prettier time of year will make her amenable to those schools. I’ve got tours lined up for Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, Hampshire.

I’m very familiar with Smith and Mount Holyoke and Amherst but not as familiar with Hampshire. A quick Google search tells me they may be in financial trouble? Does anyone have any insight into this? I don’t want her falling in love with a school only to find out that it’s not going to work out because they’re facing closure. But I do like the fact that it may be a safety school for her. She really has no safety schools on her list and I’m afraid she is going to be very disappointed next year if she doesn’t find one she likes.

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Hampshire has had some financial issues, about 5 years ago they were considering closing or selling/merging. Things had seemingly improved, but this past summer they did announce some budget cuts. Hampshire College cuts staff benefits citing financial problems | GBH

The school is very much a fit school. It’s small (around 700 students or so) where students customize their major and receive narrative evaluations (not grades.) Historically Hampshire students have done fine in grad school placement, but I haven’t looked at placement data for awhile. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if the school were absorbed by UMass Amherst or one of the other consortium partners. As a group, they did not seem interested in subsidizing the college five years ago.

What schools/types of schools is your D interested in?

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We took our kids to see colleges during the times that were less lovely. We wanted them to understand that lovely weather wasn’t the norm year round at northern colleges. Things like that.

I think Hampshire is an outlier from the rest of your tour list. Would you like some other suggestions to consider?

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I would love additional suggestions.

For a quick run down of what she might be looking for or good suggestion for schools: We live in Maine and she just does not want to stay in Maine. She wants to spread her wings and I am not super comfortable with her being on the West Coast, the only family that I have out there is an estranged brother who hasn’t spoken to me in many years, but seems to think that if my daughter moves out there, he’ll suddenly be her best friend. So I’m trying to keep her on the East Coast but ultimately, I will support her if she finds a school elsewhere. She is a very high achieving student (top 5% of her class, hard to calculate her GPA because the school does it really weird) with mid to low ECs. Competitive dancer for many years, but quit competitive dancing and only does recreational now. She is the paid editor in chief of the school literary magazine and part of the creative writing club. She spends all of her free time writing and studying. She works outside school during the summer only at an overnight girls camp, and in childcare during the shoulder season. She is taking the hardest classes her school offers, but her school is not a great school, unfortunately. Poor selection of AP classes. Not a ton of resources for high achieving students. Most of her classmates will end up at University of Maine, community colleges, maybe a few will venture out of state, small liberal art schools but not many.

She wants to study English, potentially get into the publishing industry. She also is interested in international relations, but I think she’s done enough research to know that it would be a difficult field to get into and make any money and she is an introvert so I think she’s worried that any job she got in international relations would require her to be so far out of her comfort zone. She’s very interested in Korean, but has been rejected twice from NSLIY. She will be applying again for a gap year, but we are definitely not holding out hope for that. It would be a fun thing for her to do, but obviously will not have any bearing on college applications because her acceptance to the program would come very late in the year.

As for the type of school she is into, she seems to gravitate towards smaller schools, but has also expressed an interest in NYU. She thought she wanted Urban but Boston University was way too much for her. She knew within 10 minutes of the tour starting that it wasn’t for her.

I need her to find a school where she can get some merit aid. We qualify for some financial aid, but not a lot so I’m hoping to fill the gap with some merit.

When we watch videos of Smith College, she loved it. They are definitely not a safety school though.

This whole thing has me a little bit stressed, I just am seeing dollar signs and her falling in love with a school that is going to put her into debt the rest of her life. I am the poster child for what not to do lol. I am still paying for my undergrad (I went back to school later in life for another degree because decisions were hard when I was young) and I will pay my loans off two months before she leaves for college.

After reading all that it appears, I am more than a little bit stressed lol. Any guidance on schools to look at would be great. I have family in Western mass and it’s only about a 4 hour drive for us, which is why I was kind of hoping she would land there. Close enough for my mama heart and far enough for her wings.

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University of Delaware might be a good compromise. The weather is milder than Maine. The school does not have the “feel” of a large school.

Is that too far away?

I’m trying to think of places that are away from Maine but not SOOOO far away.

Has she considered University of New Hampshire?

Look at the Colleges That Change Lives list. Something there might be interesting to her.

Re: this western Massachusetts trip…could you drive back through NY state and see Marist? Or Skidmore?

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We would need her stats to give you a better list of possible merit schools. GPA and SAT or ACT scores.

Would she and you be willing to send her to college in the southeast? It seems that there are more options for merit aid there than in the northeast. What about the Midwest?

I would suggest you run the net price calculator for the colleges on your current list. You might be surprised about need based aid at some. But just be alerted that the NPCs are currently set for students starting college in 2025…and that isn’t your daughter.

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It sounds like the budget may drive her college list. Can you share what that budget is?

Here is Smith College’s NPC which will give you a cost estimate, you should run the NPCs at all the schools on her list to see which may be affordable. Note that some schools’ NPCs do not include merit aid estimates, which make it tough to gauge affordability. Net Price Calculator

Your D will be able to borrow a total of$27K in student loans during undergrad, $5.5K in the first year. Loans beyond that would be on the parents, either directly or as a co-signer.

You don’t have to share all the financial details with posters here, but it is really hard to suggest schools without this info (as well as her stats.)

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There will be schools with better merit than smith and mt Holyoke.

Maine to the Amherst region isn’t very far. Are you trying to keep her that close?

Stats will help . But Smith gives less than 10% merit which is a bit misleading because many get need aid. The average merit is about $20k. My Holyoke about $25k.

Of course YMMV because some get full tuition.

But you need a budget - how much are you willing to spend. Bcuz even with merit Smoth might not be enoough.

You need a budget so you can find assured schools or more aggressive like Kalamazoo, DePauw, or some in the NE similar.

So you need to go beyond merit and state a specific budget before you look at any school.

This is because some schools, even full price, cost less than others with merit.

As for gpa, if you know an A or B, give an A a 4, a B a 3, etc for core classes. Add up and divide by # of classes to get an unweighted gpa.

How is her rigor (highest math level, how many APs, years of language, how many lab sciences ??)

Thanks

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I guess that makes her a 4.0 then… nothing below a 93 thus far, and usually closer to 98. She’s taken all the AP classes offered. Not a lot. Lang, physics, us history. Planning to do calc (AB I assume) and physics 2 and lit and whatever history they offer next year (is it world?)

Her school does not offer AP freshman or sophomore year. Anything available in honors she took. So not the highest rigor around but the highest available to her at her school.

She’s taken a college class last summer. And planning another this coming summer.

SATs taken once. Had a math issue with her calculator and got in her head. But her English score was 700. She was incredibly nervous going into it. It was unusual for her. She thinks the next time will go better. Shes studying a bit and her precalc teacher is a former SAT prep tutor so she’s staying after a few times with him to calm her nerves. Fingers crossed on that! Retaking in March right at her school. That alone might be all she needs to perform better.

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Has she visited NYU? We found it is noticeably more urban than BU.

Has Brandeis been suggested?

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Thanks. What was the math ??

What’s the amount you are comfortable spending - ie budget ?

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Her math score was I think a 560? Honestly, I’m not even looking at her math because I know that it was a huge issue. She had her cal history in radians instead of degrees, was freaking out that none of her answers seem to make sense, and by the time she fixed it, she was halfway through the test and was completely in her own head and kind of freaked out. Got into the car afterwards and burst into tears.

The budget issue is interesting one. I’m probably going to catch ■■■■ from my husband, but I think we would be willing to cosign for quite a bit a year, I just do not want her to end up with 60,000 a year out-of-pocket like it would be for Boston College. When I ran the numbers, it was not pretty. Everything will be financed because we are in that pocket of people who make decent money on paper, but it goes towards a lot of things, we don’t have significant savings and we do not have investments. We have our home equity which is significant, but I couldn’t pay back an equity loan of that size. Our equity is also part of our imaginary retirement plan and I’m very hesitant to tap into it, we are not exactly stellar with money. I’m hoping to find something that’s around 30,000 a year or less financed.

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There are colleges that will come close to your budget, or meet it. But they likely won’t be in the northeast.

But run a couple of net price calculators before you assume you won’t get need based aid. You might.

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She has not visited NYU. And you make an excellent point. I think she was mostly looking at the study abroad options and how big they are for English and publishing and being in the heart of New York and access to The publishing industry there. On paper, it checks all the boxes, but you are absolutely correct that the vibe may not be what she’s looking for

I will take a look at Brandeis, thank you!

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So she is considering women’s colleges. There are a number of fine women’s colleges…where she might get enough merit aid to be cost competitive…but they are south of the Mason Dixon line. Is that OK with you?

If she would be willing to look at Jesuit schools, I would suggest Loyola Chicago, and Loyola Maryland…both fine schools. Not sure if they will get to your price point but they might.

@Mwfan1921 what are the women’s colleges located further south that could work for this student?

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If she likes LACs look at some of the “Colleges That Change Lives”. I know people who received large merit scholarships at schools like Wooster and Goucher. https://ctcl.org/

And as an aside, the idea we went with the opposite of “I am hoping that traveling there during a prettier time of year will make her amenable to those schools”, preferring our kids to understand challenging weather situations of potential schools.

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Agnes Scott comes to mind. But closer to home also Bryn Mawr. Also Wellesley, although that would be a reach. I have no idea if these schools would meet what OP is thinking wrt budget.

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Wellesley doesn’t give merit aid…but the OP needs to get an estimate using the NPC to see. It’s a pretty generous school in terms of need based aid.

Agnes Scott was what I was thinking of.

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Wheaton (Norton, Ma) gives good merit. Other schools my son did not apply to but gave good merit to his friends are Clark and UVM (OOS).

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Then 30k is your # and there’s no reason to go significantly above. You certainly don’t want to strangle her or yourself with significant loans when you don’t need to. I’ll be back with thoughts in a few hours.

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