Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:36
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
At $150,000 you will get significant financial aid from all the private T20 schools. In all likelihood, those schools will cost less than the state flagship. You just need to get in. Alternatively, there are many schools that will give very significant merit for that 36 ACT. Alabama is the most prominent, and that is a free ride entirely with that score. There are a plenty of options if you look around. I'd start by doing the NPC calculator for the private schools you're interested in. You might be surprised. And then look up best merit for a 36.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:28
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
This has to be a troll. This question gets asked every single day on here.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:27
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Hi OP. Our Sr has very similar stats. As PPs said, your budget and desired environment for college will determine your application process.
There are places like Alabama and Auburn that are very clear about the $ amounts for merit that your child could receive and post the information on the web site. We were offered merit (amounts listed are per year) at the list below. We weren't especially merit seeking, but, with the exception of our own state flagship which comes out to under 30k coa, the costs came down to about $55-60k with the merit awards.
Dickinson (45k merit)
W&M (Monroe, OOS 10K merit)
Case Western (37k merit)
Bryn Mawr (37k merit)
UMD-CP (our home state, 5k merit)
U Richmond (22k merit)
Pitt (20 k merit)
American (20 k merit)
There are places like Alabama and Auburn that are very clear about the $ amounts for merit that your child could receive and post the information on the web site. We were offered merit (amounts listed are per year) at the list below. We weren't especially merit seeking, but, with the exception of our own state flagship which comes out to under 30k coa, the costs came down to about $55-60k with the merit awards.
Dickinson (45k merit)
W&M (Monroe, OOS 10K merit)
Case Western (37k merit)
Bryn Mawr (37k merit)
UMD-CP (our home state, 5k merit)
U Richmond (22k merit)
Pitt (20 k merit)
American (20 k merit)
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:20
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Troll fail and/or clueless naive parent post = rude responses on DCUM
OP here, and that's sad. I am a clueless parent. We assumed that my kid would just be attending the state U and didn't look much higher. It was completely unexpected that the kid would end up with such high stats. I'm exactly the type that people should help without being jerks.
OP, please don’t be discouraged by the rude responses. I have a similar NMF - quirky and looking for full rides.
There are several schools that offer full rides or full tuition + packages. Most include Honors College admission as well. My kid pursued all the below and also other schools. Purdue offered him a scholarship that makes COA $30k a year. Arizona and ASU also offered merit bringing costs to $40k+, Case Western also offered merit with COA closer to $45k
Options to look into:
Alabama
Iowa
Missouri (full tuition)
Oklahoma (full tuition)
U South Carolina
UT Dallas
U Tulsa
UCF
USF
Our nigh guaranteed admissions and nearly free state school is one of the schools you mentioned. I'm starting to think that my kid should look into some competitive SLACs and otherwise be happy to just attend the state flagship honors college.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:17
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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
Annual max budget is around $30k. Beyond that, it would be a better ROI to attend the state flagship. HHI is around $150k. Kid is the oldest sibling.
With HHI 150k your kid will qualify for need based financial aid at more than half top20s and definitely ivies, infact will qualify for free tuition at the ivies with the best aid(harvard princeton penn yale). Do the Net price calculator. Now the hard part is getting in.
True Merit to cover all tuition or even full COA for fullpayers is nonexistent at ivies and very rare in the T30. You are not full pay, ie you qualify for need aid at top schools: shoot your shot there.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:11
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Troll fail and/or clueless naive parent post = rude responses on DCUM
OP here, and that's sad. I am a clueless parent. We assumed that my kid would just be attending the state U and didn't look much higher. It was completely unexpected that the kid would end up with such high stats. I'm exactly the type that people should help without being jerks.
OP, please don’t be discouraged by the rude responses. I have a similar NMF - quirky and looking for full rides.
There are several schools that offer full rides or full tuition + packages. Most include Honors College admission as well. My kid pursued all the below and also other schools. Purdue offered him a scholarship that makes COA $30k a year. Arizona and ASU also offered merit bringing costs to $40k+, Case Western also offered merit with COA closer to $45k
Options to look into:
Alabama
Iowa
Missouri (full tuition)
Oklahoma (full tuition)
U South Carolina
UT Dallas
U Tulsa
UCF
USF
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:09
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why aren’t you using your college counselor from school as your resource? This is what they do.
Yes. You've repeated this about 4 times. The college counselor is new and not great. So I'm crowdsourcing.
There are college fairs and college tours. Universities also have email, phone numbers to get in touch with. Do you think you’re the first?
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:08
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
I seriously don't know what the deal is with the rude replies.
Kid is at least for now planning on medical research. Western USA. I'm not sure about class size. Kid attends a small school and will probably be shell shocked by a huge college. But kid is also quirky and worried that they won't find friends at a smaller school.
go for a SLAC out west then, below T75. They will probably give decent merit.
+1 it takes some time to visit and get a sense of the personality but the right LAC can be a great place for a quirky kid. It has been for my DD (but far from CA).
I'd look at Lewis & Clark College (less selective LAC but gives merit, strong sciences), Gonzaga University (midsize Jesuit), Reed College (more selective/expensive LAC, check net price calc.).
https://college.lclark.edu/programs/biochemistry_and_molecular_biology/
https://www.gonzaga.edu/college-of-arts-sciences/departments/chemistry-biochemistry
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:05
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
OP, your Q is perfectly reasonable, so just ignore the grumpy troll. Do not feed it. As poster above pointed out, kids with perfect or near perfect stats do get rejected from top schools all the time. However, they sometimes get accepted. It depends on if the colleges happen to need a kid from your area with a particular major or interest or other unique skill or perspective they are lacking. You might as well try your luck at one or two top schools, since they are the most generous with financial aid. If your kid would prefer a smaller school, they can also apply to liberal arts colleges. Besides the top schools, some of the lower ranked schools are generous with merit aid to attract better students. I've had family members attend random out-of-state private institutions on full merit scholarships.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:04
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Why do so many posters assume this is a troll? Seems legit to me. I would apply to a few Ivies, OP, who knows, your kid might win the lottery.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:01
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote: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
Another similar stat kid here (also NMSF), and this was very very similar to our list. I will say given that you said they are interested in medical research, look closely at Pitt. They were $40K COA for us (20K merit), and my kid will be attending there. They are top 10 in the US in biomedical research funding, very good reputation in medical anything because of UPMC system all around the campus, and kids seem super happy there. Their honors program is awesome.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 13:00
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Look into schools like Rochester, Case, Emory, Georgia Tech, Pitt
Anonymous
04/15/2025 12:56
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
PP. Ignore the rude responses - that is very typical for this forum.
Do try the Net Price Calculators at some top schools to see if they'd give enough need-based aid. You might, or might not, be pleasantly surprised. Hard for anyone to guess because your assets also impact the college's need calculation.
Since you may be new to the world of college admissions, just to add something about keeping admission expectations realistic, my kid had 3.98/1570 and was outright rejected from: Brown, Columbia, Vandy, Georgetown, USC, UCLA/UCB/UCSD, and BU. Waitlisted Northwestern, Tufts, Michigan, NYU, Northeastern. We can comfortably afford full pay and did not apply for financial aid anywhere. Planning to attend safety state flagship unless one of the waitlists comes through. What might have made a difference: binding Early Decision (ED), which my kid did not do. If you end up finding that top schools may be affordable with need-based aid, and your kid ends up having a top choice among them, then ED is the way to go.
Ouch. And yes, I am new to college admissions. I'm relieved that my kid is perfectly content with the state flagship. I really just didn't want to sell my kid short by doing a one and done application to the state school without seeing what else might work for us. All of the ivies seem to think that we can afford something in the $30k-$40k neighborhood. To me, that feels like a huge stretch and a bad ROI compared to the expected nearly free ride at the state school. The UC schools are definitely a no go, as they would give minimal or no aid and be more expensive than the ivies. I know almost nothing about SLACs.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 12:50
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:DP. Just to reiterate, OP, have you already used the Net Price Calculators to verify that top schools are not affordable (without merit)?
I did for Stanford, and it was a little out of range.
Definitely try other NPCs. Every college calculates a little differently.
Anonymous
04/15/2025 12:50
Subject: Very high stats kid - which schools should we be considering
Anonymous wrote:At $150k, kid would get substantial financial aid at a top Ivy if they can get in. Worth a flier, but far from a certainty.
Essentially a very low chance for anyone…and even more so with those ECs and service hrs. At least IMO, it would be a throwaway.