Anonymous wrote:

Happy to share names of colleges if you provide your kid's stats (approximate) and whether you want a large state school, a LAC, or something in between.

Thanks! And thanks to the other PP who mentioned specific colleges. My kid would do better in a place with small class sizes. It seems like smaller colleges are best for that, so ideally it'd be some place with fewer than 10k students.
Mine is just a freshman, so we're a long way away but starting to think about the high prices. UW GPA so far is 3.5 with honors classes. He just got an 1100 on the PSAT as a 9th grader. Involved in some extracurriculars but unfortunately not a standout in anything so far.

PP here.

First off - read the book The College Solution, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy, and look at the blog/website by the same name, before doing anything else. You should follow the author's recommendations to the letter.

Some schools that award merit money (each school will have specific info on its website):

All of the Colleges That Change Lives Schools:

https://ctcl.org/

I've omitted those from the below list because they are listed at the website.

Other schools:

Muhlenberg
Lafayette
Oberlin
Case Western Reserve
U. Rochester
Pitt
Ohio University
Miami University of Ohio
U. South Carolina
Bowling Green
Mississippi State
U. of Dayton
Ball State
Kent State
Webb Institute
Olin College of Engineering
Rice University
Furman
Gonzaga University
Creighton University
Fairfield University
Tulane
Marquette University
WPI
Augustana University
Saint Louis University
New College of Florida
Eckard
St. Lawrence University
Hobart & William Smith
Drexel
Duquesne
U of Vermont

OP - The biggest advantage of the 529 is tax deferred growth so at this point I wouldn't put any more into the 529. Save zealously in a regular investment account and spend down the 529 first so you don't end up caught short with excess funds that have to be transferred out to a different student. You just don't know what will happen during college. Mine is on track to graduate a year early and it's highly possible grad school will be paid for by the employer. Like your household, we are very lucky to be able to pay from earned income.

Anonymous wrote:Would love it if the previous posters could share some hints about which private schools might offer merit aid for high B/low A average students.

Your ability to guess this would be considerably helped by some rough predictions on SAT score (based on practice PSAT percentiles for instance)? And the rigor of the coursework is key--high B/low A in rigorous courses is very different than so-so GPA in easy courses. And if there are any special interests/skills (e.g. arts, athletics).These things make a big difference--and schools pay merit money for different things. For instance a school might be test optional, but then reports its SAT scores for those who have them. Having fairly high scorers can be a draw and some will pay for them even if GPA isn't as competitive. But I would say barring artistic or athletic hooks, look for private schools where your DC would be at the 75th mark or above of the accepted student profile --that's where you're most likely to the largest merit aid. But if you look at the National Liberal Arts Colleges US News report at the schools between 35-100, there's a lot of great schools there and most will offer some aid to strong-ish students who above their 50th percentile and have just a touch of another draw (good essays, community service, desire to play in the pep band etc.). As for larger universities--wow, that field is wide and is really more idiosyncratic--University of Vermont, Tulane, and Villanova offered a good deal of aid to DC, but with a weighted GPA of 4.2 (unweighted 3.8) and mid 1400s SAT. Some of the southern flagships (e.g., University of Alabama and Arkansas) offered extremely good offers to some of DC's friends with lower GPA and scores because they are trying to widen their reach.

Thanks!

Anonymous wrote:Would love it if the previous posters could share some hints about which private schools might offer merit aid for high B/low A average students.

My son is a straight A student and got into Brown, Stanford, and Northwestern. However he ended up going to Villanova because they gave him a lot of academic scholarship money. So in a nutshell, he could have went to a more prestigious school, but he went the route that we (his parents) could 100% pay for without him taking loans. We had always saved for public school and basically told him , free ride from us at UVA or Tech, but he knew if he wanted private or out of state, the delta was on him.

Would love it if the previous posters could share some hints about which private schools might offer merit aid for high B/low A average students.

Yes, I think the problem people run into is when they want a particular high ranking expensive school that doesn't offer merit aid (or very limited merit) and the family and doesn't qualify for need. Then you pay through the nose. It's actually a bit easier when you have a kid who doesn't quite have the marks/scores to get into the "top" schools but is a good fit for the next tier of high quality schools--those schools are often more generous with merit aid for those with good stats (and more flexible with admission with full-pay students who don't have as high marks/scores). Our DC decided to go in-state public (still 40k/yr all expenses--W&M), but was offered out of state at good --but not top 20--private schools that would have brought the price down even lower to 25-30K. I personally loved these schools but W&M had some particular programs of interest and an overall stronger reputation and we can afford it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg this is nuts. College is ridiculously expensive now.

It really isn’t unless you are paying full freight at a really expensive school. My son is senior applying to a combination of public and privates. The publics are about $25k/year all in and the public offered enough merit aid to bring those costs down either below the public schools or within $5-10k of them. He isn’t an incredible student.

My experience too. Sticker price on the privates that my B student applied to are all 65-70K, but he has been offered merit aid at all (no need-based aid). He could be going to a few of them for about 30-35K. As it happens the best fit for him is going to be a bit higher in cost (47K). But we are in a position to pay this without loans or compromising other financial objecives, so we will. It''s good for people who are freaking out about college costs and won't qualify for financial aid to know there is actually a fair amount of money out there.

Happy to share names of colleges if you provide your kid's stats (approximate) and whether you want a large state school, a LAC, or something in between.

Thanks! And thanks to the other PP who mentioned specific colleges. My kid would do better in a place with small class sizes. It seems like smaller colleges are best for that, so ideally it'd be some place with fewer than 10k students.
Mine is just a freshman, so we're a long way away but starting to think about the high prices. UW GPA so far is 3.5 with honors classes. He just got an 1100 on the PSAT as a 9th grader. Involved in some extracurriculars but unfortunately not a standout in anything so far.