What are the best schools that I can get into by paying the least amount of money?

Naperville Runner wrote:

I’m the author of a book on selective college admissions and a parent who paid $270k for their child’s undergraduate education and I went to a service academy and do admissions work on their behalf. One question any college would want to understand is what courses you’ve taken and will take in high school. 6 to 8 APs is common with top students, more doesn’t buy you much unless you want to double major in college or graduate from a state school in 3 years or less which may not be possible anyway in a technical discipline. Your family income will be a huge factor in the cost of college. Better understand both how much your family can contribute and how their income and assets will impact financial aid. Sit down with whichever parent manages the money and Google the Net Price Calculator for a college you are interested. This will give you a good idea what financial aid will be available. Than look up the schools “common data set” which you can use to get some idea of merit money. Your running success will definitely make admissions easier but may not lead to money. Generally speaking the more selective a college is and the greater the endowment is per enrolled student the more generous the financial aid might be. This leads to goofy math where your $30k/year state school is more expensive than the $70k/year private in some cases. You definitely fit the profile that service academies are looking for if that is of interest

Do you have Indian-Jamaican ancestry? wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

1) As of now, you are a D3 runner. 4:25, 9:30, and 15:40 are still not GOOD D1 program times, so, my advice, given your strong academic record is to continue to think about D3.

2) If you get down to 9:15 or 4:12 or so or 15:20 on a course that is not known to be short, then you can consider D1. Yes you can find guys on D1 teams slower than that, but most of them are there because they have a full ride academically or some other such thing. Coaches aren't really too happy about having lots of guys who have no chance to score. Besides, it's good to be wanted. You should go somewhere where the team needs you and you get top-rate attention from the coach.

3) So, where to go? If your family isn't overly wealthy, you can go to elite colleges for a reasonable amount of money. I know, because my daughter went to what would be called an "elite" private college, and we even do alright moneywise, and we STILL got great financial aid for her to go there.

4) You didn't tell us anything about what you want to study or where, but here are some very good D3 colleges (and one D1) that give great financial aid and would be happy to have you on their teams (meaning a coach might help you get admitted if that's necessary):

Amherst College (CC but not track)

Bowdoin College

Davidson College (D1, but if you run 9:30 they would be interested)

Emory University

Grinnell College

Haverford College

Johns Hopkins University

Kenyon College

Pomona College

Swarthmore College

University of Chicago

Vassar College

Washington University in St. Louis (super strong D3 team)

Wesleyan University

Williams College

Good luck!

This is a good list, but it just isn’t true for a kid coming from a home that makes $180-200k plus. Those kids get very little, if any financial aid or scholarships, unless they can claim minority status. The athletics will help, particularly if this kid can drop his running times. But, believe it or not, 4.0 (unweighted) kids with multiple AP classes and perfect or near perfect SAT/ACT scores are a dime a dozen and aren’t just given merit money, particularly if they come from wealthier (not wealthy, just two full income earning households) families.

I mean, just look up the President’s scholarship at Montana State. Look at the profile of the kids who get it. All extremely high achievers in multiple facets of life. We are talking Montana State, not an Ivy League, though they do have a decent honors college.

OP, if you are married to engineering/STEM and want to run, look at Colorado School of Mines in CO. It has a very good reputation and is probably the top D2 school. Maybe also look at Trinity University in San Antonio as they actually do give pretty good “need-blind” merit money. Both excellent schools and places you could likely run.

Flagpole, I am not asking you to reveal your income while having a child in college, but I doubt it was north of $150k or maybe even $125k.

Flagpole wrote:

Do you have Indian-Jamaican ancestry? wrote:

This is a good list, but it just isn’t true for a kid coming from a home that makes $180-200k plus. Those kids get very little, if any financial aid or scholarships, unless they can claim minority status. The athletics will help, particularly if this kid can drop his running times. But, believe it or not, 4.0 (unweighted) kids with multiple AP classes and perfect or near perfect SAT/ACT scores are a dime a dozen and aren’t just given merit money, particularly if they come from wealthier (not wealthy, just two full income earning households) families.

I mean, just look up the President’s scholarship at Montana State. Look at the profile of the kids who get it. All extremely high achievers in multiple facets of life. We are talking Montana State, not an Ivy League, though they do have a decent honors college.

OP, if you are married to engineering/STEM and want to run, look at Colorado School of Mines in CO. It has a very good reputation and is probably the top D2 school. Maybe also look at Trinity University in San Antonio as they actually do give pretty good “need-blind” merit money. Both excellent schools and places you could likely run.

Flagpole, I am not asking you to reveal your income while having a child in college, but I doubt it was north of $150k or maybe even $125k.

My daughter has graduated now, and when she began college, our household income was around $150,000. We made sure to have NO liquid extra money when she applied there, so we spent a LOT of money on home improvements in the few years leading up to her college years. They don't consider retirement accounts when determining how much you can afford.

A lot of elite colleges do not give academic scholarship money at all (see ALL Ivy League schools). The elite college my daughter went to did not give academic scholarship money, because, as you correctly said, almost all of them have near perfect SAT scores and all A's in high school along with lots of AP classes, etc....that was my daughter in HS.

I have a younger son who went to college after my daughter did. While he could have gone to an elite college (offered an athletic scholarship to Davidson among others), he opted not to do that and instead took a combination of academic and athletic scholarships to go to another D1 college that wasn't as rigorous academically as he wanted to focus more on athletics.

A good rule of thumb is that unless you have a LOT of saved money outside of retirement accounts, if you make about $130,000 per year, you will get full tuition at most of of those full financial need colleges. If you can send your kid to a great college for just the cost of room and board or that plus a little more, I say that's a good deal.

One thing that seems unfair to me (but benefitted me) is that $150,000 family income in many parts of the US is barely keeping your head above water for a family of 4, but for a family living in Central Ohio, that's pretty good...yet this is hardly considered by these elite colleges giving aid based on financial need.