<p>Have you looked at UND or NDSU? I’m in MN, and both of those will be financial safeties for D15. Both schools have student bodies of about 14-15K. With MN reciprocity, both are about $1000 more than the U of MN at about 15K per year, including tuition, room/board & $800 in books. While at the U of MN, it would cost about $14K for tuition alone for D15. We actually will spend LESS than our EFC at both of the North Dakota schools. </p>
<p>Also, they do have a few scholarships. They are not much at 3K or less per year, but when you take into consideration the tuition is less than 10K, I think the scholarships are decent. </p>
<p>If my D15 gets 1 more point on the ACT, she can earn $2500 towards tuition. I agree with the poster regarding Truman State U, too. We also have U of Kansas–main campus on our financial Safety list. Do you know about the Midwest Student Exchange Program? Here is the link to see which schools are available with a discount for Michigan residents:
<a href=“http://www.mhec.org/MSEPAccessNavigator[/url]”>http://www.mhec.org/MSEPAccessNavigator</a></p>
<p>BunHeadMom: I have heard about this mythical midwest student exchange program & now thank you for reminding me to check it out. I did look at a few schools that have reciprocity for S15 and was pleasantly surprised. However, I did notice that some of the schools have limited seats available for the MSEP applicants. I will still encourage him to look at this list when he applies.</p>
<p>@1214mom: Pitt has a great program, cool campus and decent merit aid. Excellent choice. We also found that Miami of Ohio has a surprisingly interesting engineering program & the best merit aid we received. They must have used S13’s weighted GPA (since his gpa is 3.6 & their published merit $$ require 3.7 for aid) & ACT score (35) to determine his $$. they were very generous. It is currently 3rd on S13’s list but 2nd on mine!</p>
<p>Magnetboy, 3.5 GPA and 1710 SAT, admitted to Western Washington University, to go with his earlier admit to WSU. Going to wait for Fin Aid and do another tour of each before deciding.</p>
<p>Hi!
New to CC although I’ve been actively researching college options for my S14 for about a year.</p>
<p>His stats: GPA 3.4 but rising (3.0 freshman year, 3.3 sophomore, working on a 3.8 or 3.9 for junior year)… no AP or honors classes until his senior year, he’s been recommended for 4. It’s like the light just turned on late last year. I’m hoping the trend will be our friend…
ACT: 28, taking again in april so we’ll see. His ACTs are much stronger than his SATs.
Highly competitive suburban New Jersey high school. That’s one of the reasons we are looking further away from New Jersey… less local competition.
Strong EC’s including 4 years in Drama, Community Service club, church youth group w/ significant leadership, and a job at the YMCA.</p>
<p>Schools we’ve visited and that he liked a lot:
Loyola Maryland, Xavier, Miami(Ohio), Purdue, JMU, GMU, U. Dayton, Northeastern
Schools we’ve visited that he kinda liked:
Penn State, UMass Amherst (but on most recent trip decided that he likes smaller vs. bigger); SJU in Philadelphia
Schools he didn’t like at all: Boston U., American, U. Maryland</p>
<p>We would like to add a few safeties to the list. I think Dayton is kind of a safety. U. Tampa has been recommended, along with Hofstra and St. Joe’s in Philadelphia. We’'ve got a visit to Fairfield scheduled in April. He likes Catholic/Jesuit schools but this is not a 100% requirement. He seems to like the small and mid sized schools best. Preppy and better-dressed student body and a pretty campus also influences him, as do cute female tour guides (LOL). </p>
<p>Can anyone recommend a good safety for him? </p>
<p>kmurph22, have you run the Super Match search on the main page of collegeconfidential? You can enter his stats, and check a box for safety schools. (It says something like “schools where I am significantly above average to increase chances for admission and merit scholarships.”) You can also select for size, Catholic affiliation, region, etc. Good luck.</p>
<p>Kmurph22, how far away does he (you) want to go? My D13 was accepted at U. San Francisco and Seattle U, both Jesuits. She liked the small classes and great urban settings. She’s also in at U. Pitt. ( didn’t apply or look at Duquesne but it’s near Pitt and would probably be a safety for you) and waiting to hear from her first choice. Goucher might be something for you to look at, since they’re enthusiastic about boys and have a good arts program. My D’s academic stats aren’t as strong as your son’s but she also showed a strong upward trend. Her SATs were 2050. And we got very good feedback about her essays. Figuring out the right safeties is one of the most important things any student can do. Including one or two in your EA applications will get things off to positive start next winter.</p>
<p>Tootiredtocare - thanks for the suggestion.
Jobenny - congratulations. Gotta use our kid’s assets as much as possible, and it’s great he got in.
He got his SAT scores back. He got over 1300 on SAT CR/Math, and apparently weighted he has close to 4.0, so he thinks he will get in at UMD. It will be close, but I hope he’s right.</p>
<p>kmurph22–Wheeling Jesuit in WV and Seton Hill in PA (Catholic, not Jesuit). Seton Hill has a nicer campus and is more preppy. He would qualify for merit aid with his ACT score too.</p>
<p>I don’t know that it would be a safety, but kmurph22 you might want to look at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Not a private school like it sounds but rather a very nice small public college here in Maryland, very popular with kids we know who sound similar to your son.</p>
<p>kmurph22: if you want to stay east ¶ Duquesne is a good choice. If you want to venture to the midwest, Marquette (WI) is a good option for safety with merit $$.</p>
<p>kmurph22, if he likes small/medium schools, I’m surprised to not see TCNJ on your list. Elon seems to meet his criteria. U. Del also makes a lot of sense, as a smaller state flagship. Do you know his class rank? It is hard to put a GPA in perspective. A lot of schools with higher female populations will give admissions advantages to males, so keep that in mind as you search, and specifically look for male vs female acceptance rates. College Navigator has them.
[College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)</p>
<p>This the the list of schools where my D has been accepted to, with a 29 ACT and ~3.4 UW GPA, but with a lot of honors and AP classes and a Top ~15% class rank (weighted) at a good NJ public school. Pretty much all of them seem like they might be worth considering for your S. Listed roughly in order of more selective to less selective: Dickinson, Marist, TCNJ, Elon, Allegheny, Delaware, Rutgers, Susquehanna, Ramapo. </p>
<p>I also got a lot of other good suggestions of slightly less selective schools on a thread I had made last year (before she had her ACT score, which was better than her SAT scores), which might be good places to look for safeties. </p>
<p>It’s been a long wait, as DS has been waiting on 8 RD decisions. Received two rolling admissions last year U of Illinois-Champaign (accepted to Honors) and Ohio State, so have been waiting 3+ months for some answers. Wait finally ended today with acceptance to Lehigh today. He’s very happy as Lehigh is at the top of his list with a couple others. 7 more to go :)</p>
<p>I have a 3.4 GPA and 31 ACT, here’s what I’ve heard so far. </p>
<p>Accepted: Brooklyn College (Macaulay Honors College), Evergreen State College ($4000 merit), CCNY, Hunter College
Waitlisted: UChicago
Rejected: Bard</p>
<p>Hearing from Bard today was discouraging, but considering my stats, being waitlisted rather than flat out rejected by UChicago was honestly kind of an ego boost (I fully expected rejection). And I’m really happy about Macaulay. I’m still waiting to hear from my top choices so we’ll see.</p>