College 2017-2018

[Edward64]

Just found out that my kid has been accepted to VA Tech. I think this was his and was my top choice so this has the pressure off. He also got accepted to a "safe" school earlier but I really didn't want him to go to that one unless there was no choice.

Waiting game now to hear about financial aid from VA Tech (they said sometime in March) for out-of-state and from the other schools (should hear by Apr 1). Its about a 7 hour drive, not great but not too bad. I prefer small town colleges over in the city.

Anyone else going thru the college process this year?

[CU Tiger]

Congrats!
VT is a great school and Blacksburg is a fantastic college town!

[tarcone]

Congrats!
Next year for me and my daughter.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Congrats to you all, went through this last year.

Relief indeed, I know the moment well.

[heybrad]

We're going through the process with my son this year. He's going to be a music performance major so he has the added layer of not just applying for the university but also auditioning for the music school. So far he's been accepted for both at West Virginia University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania (a small school with a big music reputation). He's accepted to BYU for the school but still going through the audition process and this Monday is the big one. He's auditioning for the Manhattan School of Music. The wild card in his plan is that he's considering the military as well to play in one of the military bands. He auditions for that in a couple of weeks.

We've had scholarship offers from both WVU and IUP but not full at this point. We've been told to wait them out a bit. We have some of his teachers and his private instructor advising him as well. If I can brag for a minute, he's not just a kid who plays music. He's a bit of music prodigy. He received National Honors this year and he's the principal chair for the Capital Youth Symphonic Orchestra plus many other honors that I won't go into detail about it.

[Edward64]

Nice. Care to post some youtube video links?

[heybrad]

Most of the time he's with an orchestra's but here's one where he was asked to play with a local swing band and he did the solos for I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. I've got it on Google drive but this link should work. They'll introduce Sean. That's my son.

sentimental.mp4 - Google Drive

Edit... forgive me for my amateur filming skills.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by heybrad

Edit... forgive me for my amateur filming skills.

Shaky hands indeed!

[tarcone]

Wow. Very impressive.

[GrantDawg]

I was trying to find a thread on this, so I guess this is it. My son is still a sophomore in high school. He has always been my little genius, advanced from 1st grade to 3rd grade (which never happens in this county), high grades and big standardize test scores. He decided he wanted to go ahead and take the SAT and the ACT. So, yeah...

He scored a 1490 on the SAT and 33 on the ACT. That puts him in the 99th percentile in both scores. Does anyone have solid strategies on where to go from here on building on his opportunities on getting a full ride at a top level school? I say top, but really it is going to be a) the best school that offers the highest level of scholarships and b) not a huge drive from Atlanta. He will only be 17 entering school, and think my wife will die if he ends up more than a car drive away.

[tarcone]

Wow. Impressive.

Ivy league schools are based on need. I looked into Harvard because my daughter wants to play basketball in college in the Boston area. Harvard has a calculator which tells you what you would pay based on your income.

We would pay $8500 tuition and room and board a year.

I know it is much farther than you want. But it sounds like your kid would fit in there academically. And it would give him some fantastic opportunities, obviously.

[Edward64]

With scores like that, he'll be a contender for most top tier schools. Just some thoughts ...

• Do you know what he is interested in majoring in? This is a key criteria, its not just getting accepted, its also making sure he is happy there.
• If for one of the more "harder" majors, instead of a top 10 school, consider a top 20 or top 50? It definitely gets harder in college and do you want your son under that pressure? If you are confident he can handle it great
• Its not all about scores getting in, its also about what extracurricular he has done and experiences he's had.
• Check out this forum for alot of good info. Its pointed go GA Tech but you'll find others college forums there Georgia Institute of Technology — College Confidential

If its engineering, then GA Tech is a top 5 engineering school, if its Veterinary then UGA etc. Being in GA is a bonus with Hope/Zell Milner scholarships.

FWIW, I'm not as smart as your son but I entered college at early 17 by skipping 12th and, in retrospect, it would have been better for me to have waited and matured more. Its not fun being one of the youngest and scrawniest freshman kids around.

[cuervo72]

Dang, GrantDawg - nice.

I unfortunately don't have any advice on how to get merit aid from a school -- though I wish I did. We don't really have anything saved up, have various debts, but also make more than FAFSA/colleges might want us to. I'm sure we're still in a better position than some, but may or may not be rough for a few years. Such is paying for college.

My son may be in a good position though. Basically all straight-A's, 1570 SAT, National Merit Semifinalist. Decent extracurriculars. I would think that schools would want to entice him to attend, but really don't know. Staying in-state at UMD may not be a bad option, especially if he might be considered for their Banneker/Key or President's scholarships.

His top choices are Purdue and Maryland. Michigan is probably next, and then VT, GT, Texas A&M (really these last three are more me telling him "hey, you can't just apply to three schools, because you never know"; though my wife was just remarking that it would be nice to not have to pay application fees for schools he really doesn't plan to go to). I was a little disappointed at first that he wasn't applying to any Ivies or MIT, but they really didn't seem to fit what he wanted -- top aerospace engineering program and...a marching band.

One thing a speaker did stress at an aid seminar at our school was to look for as many scholarships as possible -- there's a lot of money out there for things you wouldn't think of. We still need to do this. Seems true though - saw a story on the news about a woman who has paid for FIVE degrees just by piecing together all sorts of random scholarships.

[Edward64]

Oh one more thing. If the school he really wants to go to have early admissions (typically Dec of prior year), recommend he does that as I believe that increases his odds of getting accepted.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I was trying to find a thread on this, so I guess this is it. My son is still a sophomore in high school. He has always been my little genius, advanced from 1st grade to 3rd grade (which never happens in this county), high grades and big standardize test scores. He decided he wanted to go ahead and take the SAT and the ACT. So, yeah...

He scored a 1490 on the SAT and 33 on the ACT. That puts him in the 99th percentile in both scores. Does anyone have solid strategies on where to go from here on building on his opportunities on getting a full ride at a top level school? I say top, but really it is going to be a) the best school that offers the highest level of scholarships and b) not a huge drive from Atlanta. He will only be 17 entering school, and think my wife will die if he ends up more than a car drive away.

With those scores, the offers will come. My advice - broadly - would be to have some engagement with the schools he's most interested in. Go to the official visits (some schools even have, IIRC, "sophomore day" now along with junior days and senior days), meet the recruitment coordinator he'll be assigned.

Will had personal contacts at most of the schools he was most interested in, and those are the people you're able to ... well, "play against each other" sounds kinda mercenary doesn't it? But those are the people you can say "hey, X is offering me $Y, I'd love to keep you in the mix but that's pretty hard to turn down".

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Dang, GrantDawg - nice.

I unfortunately don't have any advice on how to get merit aid from a school -- though I wish I did. We don't really have anything saved up, have various debts, but also make more than FAFSA/colleges might want us to. I'm sure we're still in a better position than some, but may or may not be rough for a few years. Such is paying for college.

My son may be in a good position though. Basically all straight-A's, 1570 SAT, National Merit Semifinalist. Decent extracurriculars. I would think that schools would want to entice him to attend, but really don't know. Staying in-state at UMD may not be a bad option, especially if he might be considered for their Banneker/Key or President's scholarships.

His top choices are Purdue and Maryland. Michigan is probably next, and then VT, GT, Texas A&M (really these last three are more me telling him "hey, you can't just apply to three schools, because you never know"; though my wife was just remarking that it would be nice to not have to pay application fees for schools he really doesn't plan to go to). I was a little disappointed at first that he wasn't applying to any Ivies or MIT, but they really didn't seem to fit what he wanted -- top aerospace engineering program and...a marching band.

One thing a speaker did stress at an aid seminar at our school was to look for as many scholarships as possible -- there's a lot of money out there for things you wouldn't think of. We still need to do this. Seems true though - saw a story on the news about a woman who has paid for FIVE degrees just by piecing together all sorts of random scholarships.

Wow, 1570. I would think that would put you up there for some big scholarships. I would imagine staying state will help, and UMD is like UGA, there are lots of good scholarship/full ride type deals for instate students. I think was Auburn that you automatically for full ride type deal if you instate and had the right SAT/ACT/GPA combo. He's a senior?

[cuervo72]

Yes, he's a senior, just finished off his applications last night. He's heard from Michigan Early Action (deferred) and is waiting on EA for UMD/Purdue. PSATs as a soph (1440) then jr (1520), then the real thing spring Jr year. I think if your son already has a 1490...yikes.

I would think he'd be in the running for scholarships, but have no idea how much of a crapshoot these things are. Especially with the OOS schools (UMD is already going to be relatively inexpensive). I think he does like the idea of staying close to home, and going to school with some of his friends. Then again, he seemed to fall in love with Purdue and its campus.

I think Jon makes some great points. We made the trek out to Purdue, and my son has been in their system. We hadn't done the same with Michigan. I think visits and regional counselors do carry some weight, and I wish we had involved them more (visits were tough, both with my wife's schedule, the kids being busy, and not having a job for 2.5 mos over the summer :| ).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

His top choices are Purdue and Maryland. Michigan is probably next, and then VT, GT, Texas A&M (really these last three are more me telling him "hey, you can't just apply to three schools, because you never know"; though my wife was just remarking that it would be nice to not have to pay application fees for schools he really doesn't plan to go to). I was a little disappointed at first that he wasn't applying to any Ivies or MIT, but they really didn't seem to fit what he wanted -- top aerospace engineering program and...a marching band.

One thing a speaker did stress at an aid seminar at our school was to look for as many scholarships as possible -- there's a lot of money out there for things you wouldn't think of. We still need to do this. Seems true though - saw a story on the news about a woman who has paid for FIVE degrees just by piecing together all sorts of random scholarships.

The last part of your quote first. Yes, yes, a million times YES. My wife dedicated a big chunk of two years to that process. Some you get, some you don't, but I figure we must have gone through essays & other application stuff at least a couple dozen times. (yes, a lot of the prompts are similar, and a lot of those essays can be carved up & repurposed to fit the need).

Profession-based scholarships, location-based scholarships, legacy-based scholarships (some requiring even a great-grandparent distant connection to qualify), the list seems almost endless at times.

And that doesn't include the school specific ones -- the good schools at this will help point you at those, but always dig around yourself too.

And there are cases where money doesn't get claimed because of a lack of applicants for some lower profile ones. (One organization that gave a scholarship to Will's best friend had not issued the $5k one he got in three years ... because nobody applied ! . It was for students with a particular connection to their organization attending a specific school ). The majority that we found had minimal or no application fee either.

On the how many applications point, those are leverage. You can play these offers against each other somewhat frequently in our experience, you want the offers in hand. I think we ended up going through around a dozen applications in the end (some of which he knew he wasn't going to attend). Also you can pad that list by taking advantage of those who use the "common app" process, as well as the occasional one that has no-fee (or will gladly waive the fee for an outstanding scholar).

[JonInMiddleGA]

The other general thing I'll mention is this: the out-of-state stuff varies from place to place.

In our experience, for example, the SAT/ACT scores were good enough that the majority of schools being considered almost immediately offered to reduce or even waive entirely the out-of-state surcharge. Among the finalists, none had any out-of-state charges left by the time he had to make a final decision.

[Ksyrup]

Definitely agree on the out of state. Caitlin is at an out of state school and was able to get an OOS waiver based on her ACT and additional aid based on a combo of ACT and GPA.

The hard part for us was that because she got an athletic scholarship and committed midway through sophomore year, she was working toward the OOS waiver based on criteria 3 years before she enrolled. In that time, the criteria changed and she took the ACT 7 times to try to get a 25 for the OOS waiver (worth about $10K at the time). She got a 24 4 straight times, then got a 27 on her 7th try. Then we found out the OOS waiver criteria dropped to a 23 halfway through her senior year - needless to say, she was not happy. But then we found out the 27 qualified her for an additional $3K so it worked out great.

Looking at other schools, the OOS stuff varied depending on the school's enrollment and whether they were focusing on trying to bring more OOS students in, what their general enrollment trends were, etc. That's what changed for Caitlin at UTM - they were trying to bring enrollment up and dropped the criteria big-time.

[tarcone]

F Fasfa. Feds tracking me a little more. Bastards