Do I nudge DS towards safe school and better chance of Merit Aid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi All,

We have a Junior and he's our oldest, so we're learning our way through the college process. We met with a college advisor, and she suggested a few safe, target, and reach schools to consider. We are a Fed family and so finances are a concern. DS isn't interested in large schools like VA Tech, Pitt, Michigan, etc, and instead wants the smaller schools. The advisor suggested that merit aid is unlikely for any target or reach school, but that DS could likely receive merit aid for his supposed safety schools, based on his ACT 33 score and 4.6 GPA. She suggested Richmond and Case Western (and UMD, which even though it's large, she said it has a place for everyone and he has the grades and score to likely get in).

I'm torn about how strongly to nudge DS towards a school where he'll have a better chance to get aid (which seems to mean going to a less highly vaulted school), or that's more reasonably priced. I'm curious how other parents navigate these discussions and decisions. Thank you.

OP. What does DS want to study? The list of colleges that give out aid may vary depending on that. Also, has he taken the PSAT? If he qualifies as a National merit finalist (based on his ACT, there's no reason he shouldn't), he gets full or partial scholarship to a few schools. Again, subject area of interest will impact college choice.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Good advice so far. DS isn’t sure what he wants to study. That said, schools with tuition starting at $50k/year are going to be a non starter unless we’ll get merit aid around $10-20k/year, and it seems like there’s no way to know unless he applies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Good advice so far. DS isn’t sure what he wants to study. That said, schools with tuition starting at $50k/year are going to be a non starter unless we’ll get merit aid around $10-20k/year, and it seems like there’s no way to know unless he applies.

So stop with the nudging and start being direct.

[Anonymous]

Why is he being pushed towards big schools (if he does not want one?)

Many small schools give very generous aid (such as College of Wooster, Juniata, Ursinus, etc). YOu can do your homework on which ones, but I would not listen to an consultant saying that he has to go large to get merit aid.

[Anonymous]

My oldest "underapplied" and racked up significant merit aid at smaller schools. (As a fed/teacher family, we needed that help and she did not want to run up significant loan debt for undergrad) She is thriving as big fish in a small pond. For her that is a significant self-esteem boost and she will likely graduate double major/double minor, summa cum laude, with many leadership positions and faculty connections. The school name may not buy her access to a job as easily, but this kid will make it in life. And she is happy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest "underapplied" and racked up significant merit aid at smaller schools. (As a fed/teacher family, we needed that help and she did not want to run up significant loan debt for undergrad) She is thriving as big fish in a small pond. For her that is a significant self-esteem boost and she will likely graduate double major/double minor, summa cum laude, with many leadership positions and faculty connections. The school name may not buy her access to a job as easily, but this kid will make it in life. And she is happy!

NP. We need something like this! Can you name some of these schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest "underapplied" and racked up significant merit aid at smaller schools. (As a fed/teacher family, we needed that help and she did not want to run up significant loan debt for undergrad) She is thriving as big fish in a small pond. For her that is a significant self-esteem boost and she will likely graduate double major/double minor, summa cum laude, with many leadership positions and faculty connections. The school name may not buy her access to a job as easily, but this kid will make it in life. And she is happy!

A Fed/Teacher family can do very well financially - $160-300K.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am concerned about the effect of the pandemic on schools and their ability to offer merit or financial aid.

I think many schools are in deep financial trouble. And are likely to offer a lot less in aid next year. I think they also will prioritize full pay students in admission.

I think the conversation you need to have with your child is going to be even harder. Where he gets in might not have anything to do with him as a student, but with your ability to pay.

The entire admission process is about to be upended and your high school counselor probably isn't even aware.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest "underapplied" and racked up significant merit aid at smaller schools. (As a fed/teacher family, we needed that help and she did not want to run up significant loan debt for undergrad) She is thriving as big fish in a small pond. For her that is a significant self-esteem boost and she will likely graduate double major/double minor, summa cum laude, with many leadership positions and faculty connections. The school name may not buy her access to a job as easily, but this kid will make it in life. And she is happy!

NP. We need something like this! Can you name some of these schools?

Our kids did this as well, for the same reasons. The standard advice to apply to “reach” schools does not apply if you need merit scholarship money, because by definition reach schools will not award it to your student. Your student needs to be in the top quarter of applicants in order to get significant merit scholarship money.

For PP, look at colleges that change lives schools.

[Anonymous]

One of the appropriate ways for parents to help is to research financial aid & merit scholarships at schools under consideration. It’s time consuming and may change from year to year but can help focus the list. Check the school websites and college confidential specific school forums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am concerned about the effect of the pandemic on schools and their ability to offer merit or financial aid.

I think many schools are in deep financial trouble. And are likely to offer a lot less in aid next year. I think they also will prioritize full pay students in admission.

I think the conversation you need to have with your child is going to be even harder. Where he gets in might not have anything to do with him as a student, but with your ability to pay.

The entire admission process is about to be upended and your high school counselor probably isn't even aware.

There aren’t enough full pay families to go around, so schools may try and end up with really disappointing yields

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi All,

We have a Junior and he's our oldest, so we're learning our way through the college process. We met with a college advisor, and she suggested a few safe, target, and reach schools to consider. We are a Fed family and so finances are a concern. DS isn't interested in large schools like VA Tech, Pitt, Michigan, etc, and instead wants the smaller schools. The advisor suggested that merit aid is unlikely for any target or reach school, but that DS could likely receive merit aid for his supposed safety schools, based on his ACT 33 score and 4.6 GPA. She suggested Richmond and Case Western (and UMD, which even though it's large, she said it has a place for everyone and he has the grades and score to likely get in).

I'm torn about how strongly to nudge DS towards a school where he'll have a better chance to get aid (which seems to mean going to a less highly vaulted school), or that's more reasonably priced. I'm curious how other parents navigate these discussions and decisions. Thank you.

Your DS stats are better than Case and Richmond. I think Emory and Brown are similar schools but more prestigious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi All,

We have a Junior and he's our oldest, so we're learning our way through the college process. We met with a college advisor, and she suggested a few safe, target, and reach schools to consider. We are a Fed family and so finances are a concern. DS isn't interested in large schools like VA Tech, Pitt, Michigan, etc, and instead wants the smaller schools. The advisor suggested that merit aid is unlikely for any target or reach school, but that DS could likely receive merit aid for his supposed safety schools, based on his ACT 33 score and 4.6 GPA. She suggested Richmond and Case Western (and UMD, which even though it's large, she said it has a place for everyone and he has the grades and score to likely get in).

I'm torn about how strongly to nudge DS towards a school where he'll have a better chance to get aid (which seems to mean going to a less highly vaulted school), or that's more reasonably priced. I'm curious how other parents navigate these discussions and decisions. Thank you.

Your DS stats are better than Case and Richmond. I think Emory and Brown are similar schools but more prestigious.

Did you miss the part about OP needing aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest "underapplied" and racked up significant merit aid at smaller schools. (As a fed/teacher family, we needed that help and she did not want to run up significant loan debt for undergrad) She is thriving as big fish in a small pond. For her that is a significant self-esteem boost and she will likely graduate double major/double minor, summa cum laude, with many leadership positions and faculty connections. The school name may not buy her access to a job as easily, but this kid will make it in life. And she is happy!

This sounds like our situation exactly.

Search this archive for the MANY threads about LAC's that give generous merit aid.

My kid had a 3.7 (4.2 weighted) with low SAT, and got more than ~20K per year, at 6 private schools (ranked 30 to 80 for SLAC's). Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the appropriate ways for parents to help is to research financial aid & merit scholarships at schools under consideration. It’s time consuming and may change from year to year but can help focus the list. Check the school websites and college confidential specific school forums.

This
I saw this as my main role as the parent
OP we had a decent amount saved for ds but not enough for $80k a year.
DS had good stats (1560 SAT and 4.0 UW) but focused more on schools outside the top 20 where he was more likely to get merit aid.
With lower stats you would need to focus outside the top 30 or even lower.
I started with the Fiske guide.
I focused on geographic regions - Northeast and MidAtlantic
Ruled out places with a big Greek culture and ruled out big OOS schools
With the remaining schools I looked up the Common Data Set for each and looked at how many students they gave merit aid to and how much and for these schools I looked at the SAT scores for the 75th percentile to see if ds had a shot
This took a long time but at the end I had a list of maybe 20 schools for ds to research to see if the schools were a match given his personal preferences . He identified 3 schools from this list that offered merit aid and received aid from all three.
In the end though he decided to attend UMD honors college which was much cheaper. The stock market gods willing his 529 will remain largely intact to pay for graduate school
I was very honest with him all through high school about how much he had in the 529 and how much we could afford to pay out of pocket each year. He also knew we were unlikely to get much financial aid
This is the first adult decision they make but they don’t have all the relevant information about the financial aspect - we need to help them with that.
We did not tell him where to apply (except we did insist on him applying to UMD) but we did insist on no loans.