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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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![/quote]

We did the same for our DS. We told him what what we could afford, and that to go out of state he would need signficant merit aid. We knew we wouldn't qualify for enough need based aid to make any private school and many OOS publics doable. So we took all schools that offer only financial aid off the table. That removed most of the top schools from the list. We focused on small schools (his preference) that offer significant merit aid to top students. In the end,  DS was offered merit aid at 5 schools ranging from $20-30k. He also applied to and was accepted at 2 small publics that have affordable OOS tuition-- SUNY-Geneseo and UNC Asheville, plus an instate safety. The only "reach" school on his list was our instate flagship; he was accepted but chose not to attend.

Like PP's DD, he ended up a big fish in a small pond and absolutely thrived. He got to know several professors well, worked closely with one on a research project, served as a TA for another, helped a club to a national ranking, made Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude in May. He had several good summer internships and is now employed in a job in his desired field.

We're now taking the same approach with DC2, a HS senior. [/quote]

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