Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering

[Anonymous]

11th grader was planning on attending our good but not great state flagship. Admissions is basically guaranteed, and it's nothing like NoVA kids fighting to get into UVA. We're a donut hole family and would need very generous aid to attend anything else, but...
In the course of 11th, kid got a 224 PSAT NMSF index, meaning they're almost guaranteed to be a NMSF. And they just recently got a 36 on the ACT. They didn't really study for either PSAT or ACT. So, which T20 or T50 schools are likely to give exceptionally generous aid or scholarships to a kid with the following stats:

Planned major: biochemistry
-GPA: 3.98 uw with one A- in 9th grade honors English
-APs: 5s in Calc, Chemistry, US Government, Euro History. 4 in English Lit. Will finish high school with 10 APs and another 5 post-APs.
-NMSF
-ACT 36
-EC: okay, but not related at all to the major. Performance in 3 school plays, with a lead role in 1. DM for school Dungeons and Dragons club. 3 years of mock trial.
-community service: okay, but nothing special.

Kid is perfectly content to do the honors college at the state flagship, but we'd like a few other options on the table. Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

My suggestion is to get a life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:11th grader was planning on attending our good but not great state flagship. Admissions is basically guaranteed, and it's nothing like NoVA kids fighting to get into UVA. We're a donut hole family and would need very generous aid to attend anything else, but...
In the course of 11th, kid got a 224 PSAT NMSF index, meaning they're almost guaranteed to be a NMSF. And they just recently got a 36 on the ACT. They didn't really study for either PSAT or ACT. So, which T20 or T50 schools are likely to give exceptionally generous aid or scholarships to a kid with the following stats:

Planned major: biochemistry
-GPA: 3.98 uw with one A- in 9th grade honors English
-APs: 5s in Calc, Chemistry, US Government, Euro History. 4 in English Lit. Will finish high school with 10 APs and another 5 post-APs.
-NMSF
-ACT 36
-EC: okay, but not related at all to the major. Performance in 3 school plays, with a lead role in 1. DM for school Dungeons and Dragons club. 3 years of mock trial.
-community service: okay, but nothing special.

Kid is perfectly content to do the honors college at the state flagship, but we'd like a few other options on the table. Any suggestions?

Latest troll.

[Anonymous]

Troll

[Anonymous]

seriously not a troll. We went into the process assuming that we couldn't afford anything other than the state flagship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:seriously not a troll. We went into the process assuming that we couldn't afford anything other than the state flagship.

Okay, so then do what all other college bound parents do.

[Anonymous]

Your kid has a college counselor at their school and you know this already.

[Anonymous]

As you may be aware, few T20-T50s offer big merit. They are reaches without the financial aspect. The big merit scholarships are super reaches. The lower you look in ranking, the more big merit becomes a possibility.

For T20s, there are big scholarships offered to a few students at Duke, Vandy, WashU. Not sure about others. When you expand to T50, there are big scholarships of varying sizes at places like BC (full tuition, very hard to get), full or half tuition at BU, etc. So, you need to be clear to your student about what would be affordable if a top scholarship came through - can you afford the 20k room and board if there was a full tuition scholarship on the table.

It makes sense to give these merit scholarships a shot, though I'd be planning on one of the NMF full rides, and booking a trip to Tuscaloosa at this point, sell the Alabama experience. I have relatives who attended for the big money and loved it.

[Anonymous]

Use your counselor. All high schools have one.

[Anonymous]

They’d be a good candidate for a full-ride NMSF scholarship at a state school like Alabama. But that may or may not be any better than your state flagship.

There are some privates that might offer enough merit to bring the price close to your state flagship costs, but they won’t be top 25, or even top-50 schools. But it would give them some other options, and may even turn out to be a school they love and can do well at.

They should working on those essays and recommendations.

[Anonymous]

It's great that he's got a solid option he's happy with. From there, I'd just start exploring. Some avenues to go down...

Look up what schools give big scholarships for National Merit. Read about them in the Fiske Guide.

Has he seen an liberal arts college? Maybe that might be appealing. This list of colleges where chemistry PhDs went to undergrad highlights a bunch of LACs and some of those are generous with merit.
https://www.collegexpress.com/lists/list/where-chemistry-phds-received-their-undergraduate-degrees/130/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As you may be aware, few T20-T50s offer big merit. They are reaches without the financial aspect. The big merit scholarships are super reaches. The lower you look in ranking, the more big merit becomes a possibility.

For T20s, there are big scholarships offered to a few students at Duke, Vandy, WashU. Not sure about others. When you expand to T50, there are big scholarships of varying sizes at places like BC (full tuition, very hard to get), full or half tuition at BU, etc. So, you need to be clear to your student about what would be affordable if a top scholarship came through - can you afford the 20k room and board if there was a full tuition scholarship on the table.

It makes sense to give these merit scholarships a shot, though I'd be planning on one of the NMF full rides, and booking a trip to Tuscaloosa at this point, sell the Alabama experience. I have relatives who attended for the big money and loved it.

Thanks for being the one person willing to give a helpful response. We 100% assumed that we would not be able to afford any top schools, and that the state flagship would be our only affordable and decent enough option. I didn't want to sell my kid short, so I wanted to see what else might be on the table. At least for us, there's no point in applying at all if we're unlikely to be able to afford attending.

I'll still probably ask the moderator to delete this thread. This forum is rough.

[Anonymous]

What’s with all the rude responses?

Anyway, it will help if you can give some indications of preferences with respect to class size, geography, and career ambitions beyond the biochem major. Any other color you can lend makes it easier to narrow down potential matches.

[Anonymous]

Kid with similar stats. Whats your budget? We had an annual budget of $50k. CS student from NOVA had the following 8 schools to decide from. Estimated COA per yea after merit or if none was offered:
WM: $40k
UMD: $45K
Ohio St: $45k
UMN: $30K
Pitt: $55k
BU: $60K
CWRU: $55K
Lehigh: $50k

[Anonymous]

So, what actually is your income and what savings or how much do you want to spend. When people call themselves donut hole is usually because they choose a nicer lifestyle over saving.