Safety Schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Living in Virginia means, for me, that my kids’ safety schools are state schools. I see no reason to pay for private when there’s likely a comparable public option in our home state. FWIW we would not get financial aid and could afford the privates. I honestly just think it’s a waste once you get below the top 20.

So 20 is worth it but 21 isn’t. Gotcha.

NP: I'm a professor at a research university and I know faculty at nearly all of the top 75 or so liberal arts colleges. I would say the colleges typically ranked in the top 10ish are qualitatively different in terms of academic excellence--primarily because of the strength of the students and the capacity of the endowments, but that after that point to somewhere roughly in the 80s all are all excellent schools without meaningful distinctions in the academic value they offer students among them (though some have relative areas of strength--e.g., sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts etc.). I wouldn't hesitate sending my kids to any that were a reasonable financial fit (and many often are through merit aid offers). Many of these private schools end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M.

Are you in the humanities? I'm just curious how you think an education at a SLAC compares to a research universities. It was my impression that faculty at SLACs are not involved in active research to the degree that university professors are (they simply don't have time since they teach so many more classes). And that this may influence what and how they teach in the respective types of schools and also affect the power of letters to open doors to grad school. It doesn't sound like this is your impression. I kind of thought that faculty in SLAC and research universities didn't intersect/cross paths all that much so the contacts might not be there. I know there is more personal attention at SLACs but having only been around research universities I really don't know what they're like (and the people I know who teach at research universities in STEM fields do not know many faculty at SLACs and feel the contacts and who writes letters are important). My DC is strong in humanities and we struggle with which type of school would be best for continuing with grad school if that's what DC wants to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Living in Virginia means, for me, that my kids’ safety schools are state schools. I see no reason to pay for private when there’s likely a comparable public option in our home state. FWIW we would not get financial aid and could afford the privates. I honestly just think it’s a waste once you get below the top 20.

So 20 is worth it but 21 isn’t. Gotcha.

NP: I'm a professor at a research university and I know faculty at nearly all of the top 75 or so liberal arts colleges. I would say the colleges typically ranked in the top 10ish are qualitatively different in terms of academic excellence--primarily because of the strength of the students and the capacity of the endowments, but that after that point to somewhere roughly in the 80s all are all excellent schools without meaningful distinctions in the academic value they offer students among them (though some have relative areas of strength--e.g., sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts etc.). I wouldn't hesitate sending my kids to any that were a reasonable financial fit (and many often are through merit aid offers). Many of these private schools end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M.

Are you in the humanities? I'm just curious how you think an education at a SLAC compares to a research universities. It was my impression that faculty at SLACs are not involved in active research to the degree that university professors are (they simply don't have time since they teach so many more classes). And that this may influence what and how they teach in the respective types of schools and also affect the power of letters to open doors to grad school. It doesn't sound like this is your impression. I kind of thought that faculty in SLAC and research universities didn't intersect/cross paths all that much so the contacts might not be there. I know there is more personal attention at SLACs but having only been around research universities I really don't know what they're like (and the people I know who teach at research universities in STEM fields do not know many faculty at SLACs and feel the contacts and who writes letters are important). My DC is strong in humanities and we struggle with which type of school would be best for continuing with grad school if that's what DC wants to do.

I'm in biology/bioinformatics (and do research that intersects with social, health, environmental sciences and policy)--so not as much in the humanities though I value humanities education highly. Faculty at SLACs still present at conferences and interact in broader social academic circles. They also tend to write far more detailed letters about their undergrad students and support their growth. I also am involved in an NSF-REU undergraduate research grant that supports students from other colleges/universities work in our labs for summer internships so I end up knowing a lot of faculty at SLACs and their students through that. That is something I advise SLAC STEM students who ask--look for NSF REU sites in your field (they are all over the country) and you can get some additional funded lab experience in a new town/city. I would say the downside of SLACs is just there are often fewer faculty so there will be gaps in specialities sometimes, or if you don't click with a particular faculty there's not as many other options. But for undergrad, I don't think specialization is the right route yet anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Living in Virginia means, for me, that my kids’ safety schools are state schools. I see no reason to pay for private when there’s likely a comparable public option in our home state. FWIW we would not get financial aid and could afford the privates. I honestly just think it’s a waste once you get below the top 20.

So 20 is worth it but 21 isn’t. Gotcha.

NP: I'm a professor at a research university and I know faculty at nearly all of the top 75 or so liberal arts colleges. I would say the colleges typically ranked in the top 10ish are qualitatively different in terms of academic excellence--primarily because of the strength of the students and the capacity of the endowments, but that after that point to somewhere roughly in the 80s all are all excellent schools without meaningful distinctions in the academic value they offer students among them (though some have relative areas of strength--e.g., sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts etc.). I wouldn't hesitate sending my kids to any that were a reasonable financial fit (and many often are through merit aid offers). Many of these private schools end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M.

Are you in the humanities? I'm just curious how you think an education at a SLAC compares to a research universities. It was my impression that faculty at SLACs are not involved in active research to the degree that university professors are (they simply don't have time since they teach so many more classes). And that this may influence what and how they teach in the respective types of schools and also affect the power of letters to open doors to grad school. It doesn't sound like this is your impression. I kind of thought that faculty in SLAC and research universities didn't intersect/cross paths all that much so the contacts might not be there. I know there is more personal attention at SLACs but having only been around research universities I really don't know what they're like (and the people I know who teach at research universities in STEM fields do not know many faculty at SLACs and feel the contacts and who writes letters are important). My DC is strong in humanities and we struggle with which type of school would be best for continuing with grad school if that's what DC wants to do.

I'm in biology/bioinformatics (and do research that intersects with social, health, environmental sciences and policy)--so not as much in the humanities though I value humanities education highly. Faculty at SLACs still present at conferences and interact in broader social academic circles. They also tend to write far more detailed letters about their undergrad students and support their growth. I also am involved in an NSF-REU undergraduate research grant that supports students from other colleges/universities work in our labs for summer internships so I end up knowing a lot of faculty at SLACs and their students through that. That is something I advise SLAC STEM students who ask--look for NSF REU sites in your field (they are all over the country) and you can get some additional funded lab experience in a new town/city. I would say the downside of SLACs is just there are often fewer faculty so there will be gaps in specialities sometimes, or if you don't click with a particular faculty there's not as many other options. But for undergrad, I don't think specialization is the right route yet anyway.

Following up: here's the link to NSF REU sites in the biological sciences: https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.jsp?unitid=5047
You can get similar listing for all STEM specialties. The wide availability of programs like these, and the willingness of SLACs to accommodate students extending this work through various flexible arrangements are why I think people who discount research opportunities at SLACs are misinformed. I've had SLAC undergrads who have had 3-4 research internships over their years--and they have typically been students who are really enjoyable to work with and who are usually stronger in critical reading/writing than my students. They sometimes are a tad naive/overconfident --they haven't internalized lab hierarchies and processes and aren't modeling themselves on the grad students the way research university students naturally learn to do--but I haven't had one yet I didn't offer a wholehearted recommendation when they applied to grad programs (I do handpick applications, so it's not unsurprising).

[Anonymous]

Agree to look at Smith and Mount Holyoke. My daughter had a similar list and those were safeties for her. She visited and liked more than she expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Above a certain GPA/SAT/ACT Case Western is a safety at the 2 high schools I'm familiar with - you can see it very clearly on the Naviance scattergram. Look at your school's Naviance instagrams and you'll see the same pattern for other schools.

In my view, that makes it a match. What is obvious on the static Naviance scattergram may be creeping to the right and up a bit each year.

Well, in that case neither of my kids ever applied to a "safety," because the schools they used as their "safeties" were UVA, W&M, CWU, Wisconsin. Their stats put in them in the part of the Naviance scattergram where everyone had been admitted to those schools. They had no desire to go to a school with a 70% acceptance rate and we weren't going to pay for that, so what's the point of applying to a school like that for a kid who needs more of a challenge?

What schools are good safeties for the 4.0/1560+ kid?

When did your kids start college?

My 4.0/1560 DC(graduates HS in 2019) safeties were St Mary's of MD, Wooster and Pitt. Applied EA for each, in w/merit at all.

Also applied RD to Haverford, Kenyon, Middlebury. Assumes all are reaches and college counselor concurred. Perhaps could have increased chances if ED were feasible, but with our financial situation it wasn't.

Haverford and Middlebury do not give merit money - only FA. Given that, applying ED would have been fine if you are either full-pay or need aid. I'm guessing it's the latter - in which case, your "out" would have been insufficient FA.

What do you mean by, "your 'out' would have been insufficient FA." Are you saying you can get out of an ED commitment if there is not enough FA?

Yes.

There have been long threads on this point — it seems that the trick is that your idea of what sufficient financial aid is may not be the same as the school’s, and you may find another school that will give you a better deal with merit aid (if you’re in ED, they have no incentive to lure you in with merit aid, even if they give it.) It basically prevents bargain shopping. If you get in ED and they give you what THEY think you need and then you still can’t afford it, you’re stuck. The recent thread on financial aid shows that there are a lot of “donut hole” families who are struggling to meet their expected contribution.

[Anonymous]

Not within a 10 hour drive, but a quick flight (to Chicago): Beloit. Great science program in a brand new science building, and lots of hands on research opportunities (and great merit aid).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Living in Virginia means, for me, that my kids’ safety schools are state schools. I see no reason to pay for private when there’s likely a comparable public option in our home state. FWIW we would not get financial aid and could afford the privates. I honestly just think it’s a waste once you get below the top 20.

So 20 is worth it but 21 isn’t. Gotcha.

NP: I'm a professor at a research university and I know faculty at nearly all of the top 75 or so liberal arts colleges. I would say the colleges typically ranked in the top 10ish are qualitatively different in terms of academic excellence--primarily because of the strength of the students and the capacity of the endowments, but that after that point to somewhere roughly in the 80s all are all excellent schools without meaningful distinctions in the academic value they offer students among them (though some have relative areas of strength--e.g., sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts etc.). I wouldn't hesitate sending my kids to any that were a reasonable financial fit (and many often are through merit aid offers). Many of these private schools end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M.

I don't think this is case anymore for most private school packages. It used to be, but now that privates are 72K-80K and climbing, the packages offered no longer "end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M". In our experience of running the college admissions gauntlet three times, we learned a) schools that claim they meet 100% of "demonstrable need" don't mean our kind of real need. This is obvious but I'm writing for parents new to this forum who may get sucked in by those claims. All three times we applied for FAFSA or other types of aid we were given zero financial aid even though on paper we clearly needed it We have expensive care issues involving parents; special need kid expenses; retirement to worry about (typical sandwich generation family) and our children's funds that we set up for college when they were born (no 529s back then) were decimated by the 2008 crash and never recovered. In fact, we had to raid one to pay for a special needs school and tutoring. FAFSA doesn't care that you are spending a fortune taking care of your parents. So we received no financial aid for any child, but gladly took the minimum loan package offered ($5500). 2) as to merit aid, the better schools don't give it because they don't have to. One child had a record for Ivies and very top schools but received no aid offers. However, she received two unsolicited offers from small LACs you've never heard of simply because they bought the ACT list and wanted DC's ACT score so they could include it in the range sent to USN&WR. However, when we subtracted that $26,000 from the LAC's total cost of attendance, in-state was still, by far, a better option. 3) most parents don't realize they are paying the delta between a private and in-state with after-tax dollars. So if Northwestern is $76,000 and you receive a merit scholarship of $26,000, you still owe $50,000 and that means going out and making $60-75K to pay the $50K in after-tax dollars. Multiply that by three kids and by five years (most kids are now taking morethan five years to graduate) and you find you are spending more than you can afford. At the time we applied, UVA was $16,000 in tuition a year and we locked that in. DD is now off campus in inexpensie housing, no car, and makes her own meals. The other two children also went in-state. I thank my lucky stars every day that we live in a state with such wonderful choices as UVA, W&M, Virginia Tech and others.

[Anonymous]

^^^
Good for you PP.

UVA for an engineering school student will cost about $40K beginning next year. https://sfs.virginia.edu/cost/19-20

Our D was admitted, but we are very happy that she applied to OOS privates that gave generous merit aid. One will cost $42K all in, another $39 all in, and one at $43 (due to merit aid “discount”).

We feel lucky to live in VA too, but $40K for an in-state ain’t cheap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Living in Virginia means, for me, that my kids’ safety schools are state schools. I see no reason to pay for private when there’s likely a comparable public option in our home state. FWIW we would not get financial aid and could afford the privates. I honestly just think it’s a waste once you get below the top 20.

So 20 is worth it but 21 isn’t. Gotcha.

NP: I'm a professor at a research university and I know faculty at nearly all of the top 75 or so liberal arts colleges. I would say the colleges typically ranked in the top 10ish are qualitatively different in terms of academic excellence--primarily because of the strength of the students and the capacity of the endowments, but that after that point to somewhere roughly in the 80s all are all excellent schools without meaningful distinctions in the academic value they offer students among them (though some have relative areas of strength--e.g., sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts etc.). I wouldn't hesitate sending my kids to any that were a reasonable financial fit (and many often are through merit aid offers). Many of these private schools end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M.

I don't think this is case anymore for most private school packages. It used to be, but now that privates are 72K-80K and climbing, the packages offered no longer "end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M". In our experience of running the college admissions gauntlet three times, we learned a) schools that claim they meet 100% of "demonstrable need" don't mean our kind of real need. This is obvious but I'm writing for parents new to this forum who may get sucked in by those claims. All three times we applied for FAFSA or other types of aid we were given zero financial aid even though on paper we clearly needed it We have expensive care issues involving parents; special need kid expenses; retirement to worry about (typical sandwich generation family) and our children's funds that we set up for college when they were born (no 529s back then) were decimated by the 2008 crash and never recovered. In fact, we had to raid one to pay for a special needs school and tutoring. FAFSA doesn't care that you are spending a fortune taking care of your parents. So we received no financial aid for any child, but gladly took the minimum loan package offered ($5500). 2) as to merit aid, the better schools don't give it because they don't have to. One child had a record for Ivies and very top schools but received no aid offers. However, she received two unsolicited offers from small LACs you've never heard of simply because they bought the ACT list and wanted DC's ACT score so they could include it in the range sent to USN&WR. However, when we subtracted that $26,000 from the LAC's total cost of attendance, in-state was still, by far, a better option. 3) most parents don't realize they are paying the delta between a private and in-state with after-tax dollars. So if Northwestern is $76,000 and you receive a merit scholarship of $26,000, you still owe $50,000 and that means going out and making $60-75K to pay the $50K in after-tax dollars. Multiply that by three kids and by five years (most kids are now taking morethan five years to graduate) and you find you are spending more than you can afford. At the time we applied, UVA was $16,000 in tuition a year and we locked that in. DD is now off campus in inexpensie housing, no car, and makes her own meals. The other two children also went in-state. I thank my lucky stars every day that we live in a state with such wonderful choices as UVA, W&M, Virginia Tech and others.

This wasn't our experience last year. Our DC with decent but not out-of-the-world high was offered packages at several solid CTCL schools that brought the total cost of attendance down to 23-30K depending on schools. In state UVA and W&M total cost of attendance was 36-39K. So private was considerably less for us.

[Anonymous]

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Living in Virginia means, for me, that my kids’ safety schools are state schools. I see no reason to pay for private when there’s likely a comparable public option in our home state. FWIW we would not get financial aid and could afford the privates. I honestly just think it’s a waste once you get below the top 20.

So 20 is worth it but 21 isn’t. Gotcha.

NP: I'm a professor at a research university and I know faculty at nearly all of the top 75 or so liberal arts colleges. I would say the colleges typically ranked in the top 10ish are qualitatively different in terms of academic excellence--primarily because of the strength of the students and the capacity of the endowments, but that after that point to somewhere roughly in the 80s all are all excellent schools without meaningful distinctions in the academic value they offer students among them (though some have relative areas of strength--e.g., sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts etc.). I wouldn't hesitate sending my kids to any that were a reasonable financial fit (and many often are through merit aid offers). Many of these private schools end up costing the same or less than UVA or W&M.

Are you in the humanities? I'm just curious how you think an education at a SLAC compares to a research universities. It was my impression that faculty at SLACs are not involved in active research to the degree that university professors are (they simply don't have time since they teach so many more classes). And that this may influence what and how they teach in the respective types of schools and also affect the power of letters to open doors to grad school. It doesn't sound like this is your impression. I kind of thought that faculty in SLAC and research universities didn't intersect/cross paths all that much so the contacts might not be there. I know there is more personal attention at SLACs but having only been around research universities I really don't know what they're like (and the people I know who teach at research universities in STEM fields do not know many faculty at SLACs and feel the contacts and who writes letters are important). My DC is strong in humanities and we struggle with which type of school would be best for continuing with grad school if that's what DC wants to do.

I'm in biology/bioinformatics (and do research that intersects with social, health, environmental sciences and policy)--so not as much in the humanities though I value humanities education highly. Faculty at SLACs still present at conferences and interact in broader social academic circles. They also tend to write far more detailed letters about their undergrad students and support their growth. I also am involved in an NSF-REU undergraduate research grant that supports students from other colleges/universities work in our labs for summer internships so I end up knowing a lot of faculty at SLACs and their students through that. That is something I advise SLAC STEM students who ask--look for NSF REU sites in your field (they are all over the country) and you can get some additional funded lab experience in a new town/city. I would say the downside of SLACs is just there are often fewer faculty so there will be gaps in specialities sometimes, or if you don't click with a particular faculty there's not as many other options. But for undergrad, I don't think specialization is the right route yet anyway.

Following up: here's the link to NSF REU sites in the biological sciences: https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.jsp?unitid=5047
You can get similar listing for all STEM specialties. The wide availability of programs like these, and the willingness of SLACs to accommodate students extending this work through various flexible arrangements are why I think people who discount research opportunities at SLACs are misinformed. I've had SLAC undergrads who have had 3-4 research internships over their years--and they have typically been students who are really enjoyable to work with and who are usually stronger in critical reading/writing than my students. They sometimes are a tad naive/overconfident --they haven't internalized lab hierarchies and processes and aren't modeling themselves on the grad students the way research university students naturally learn to do--but I haven't had one yet I didn't offer a wholehearted recommendation when they applied to grad programs (I do handpick applications, so it's not unsurprising).

Thank you so much for answering my question! Very kind of you to share this info and eye-opening. Great to know.