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She got a "Dean Scholarship" for $45k/yr (the Presidential Scholarship would have been $48k/yr). Then they gave her a few smaller grants/scholarships due to various factors. $5k Theater Scholarship because she has done theater tech work (sound and lights) for years - $3k Music Scholarship because she's played the violin (13 years) and viola (4 years). $500/yr because she toured the school prior to applying (i.e. showed interest in the college way before actually getting accepted). Those scholarships (Theater, Music, etc.) are given to try to convince students to choose that school, and even if they don't join the theater or orchestra/band, they still get the money as a way to say that the college also values the same interests as the student. She got smallish ($1k-$3k music scholarships from pretty much every college she applied to - even though she's not going to major in music nor possibly even be involved in orchestra/band.
Drake University, private university that costs roughly $50k/yr, offered her their largest academic scholarship ("Presidential Scholarship") but at only $21k/yr it wasn't enough to make that school a serious contender. Not when she got into her #1 choice and more money (as outlined in my previous post). Hell, she got into a private college close to home that costs $56k/yr and they gave her so much scholarship money she actually would've ended up pocketing money if she'd chosen to go there.
Some of the keys to her getting offered so much money:
- While she's not a 4.0 student (3.65ish) she makes up for that with all the AP classes she's taken, her great writing ability (application/essay/etc.), her drive, and her wealth of activities (community adult and children's theater work (for which she was hired and paid), mock trial captain, school theater work (some of which she was paid for when the school theater was rented out to other organizations/events outside of the school district), orchestra (section leader for years), etc.
- Getting into colleges is somewhat a crap shoot. Most of the schools she applied to have very low acceptance rates (i.e. <30%, the college she's going to is <20%). So just because you meet the criteria for acceptance, doesn't mean you'll get in. Really good colleges get far more qualified applications than they can accept, so she applied to 12 schools (way more than her guidance counselor suggested). The thinking was: 3 schools were public/lower cost schools as "backups". 6 schools were her desired choices, which happened to all be private, expensive schools (some Ivy and/or on par with Ivy league schools). 3 schools were stretch complete longshot schools that she almost certainly wasn't going to go to (and because of her GPA would be borderline to get accepted) but wanted to see if she could get in and what the financial packages looked like. With so many schools now using the Common App, applying to a bunch of schools isn't that much additional work. She also started the application process late summer before her senior year, so that when the application window opened, she was already to submit (she basically applied to 6 schools the first week, then the other 6 over the next 3 weeks - as time allowed). By getting to "roll the dice" 12 times, the likelihood of her getting accepted to school(s) she wanted were increased. I have a friend who's daughter applied to only 2 schools. She didn't get into the selective one (she met the criteria but didn't roll lucky) and therefore has no choice but to go to the other one.
- Students need to be honest with themselves and where they're applying. Some of the schools that she got into have average student GPA/Test Scores significantly lower than hers, which means that they really wanted to get her to come there (thus raising their averages and making the college look better). Other schools have averages closer to her scores and some of those didn't offer her quite as much money. Also, while it didn't help my daughter, we do know of some students that received extra scholarships because the colleges they applied to were trying to grow the departments that those kids wanted to major in (i.e. one school gave out an extra $5k/yr scholarship to any student that wanted to pursue a Psychology major, since the college was looking to grow that department).
FWIW my daughter had the following stats:
3.65 GPA
34 ACT (taken as a sophomore and since that was high enough to qualify for any college, she decided to not take it as a junior to see if she could improve it). On a related note, all my kids have taken the ACT and SAT tests starting as early as 7th grade. By taking it 3-4 times before it "counts" it's allowed them to become less stressed about it. To watch their scores improve year after year, and to learn how to manage the allotted test time. Both my kids saw their ACT scores go up 3-4 points from 7th to 8th grade just because they didn't have time to finish the tests in 7th grade, but in 8th grade they knew better how to manage the time and thus were able to finish the tests.
School Activities: Theater (tech), Orchestra (Section Leader), Mock Trial (Captain), LGBTQ Club, Key Club (went to a couple boring meetings but it was enough to be able to list it on the college apps).
Outside of School: Theater (tech) for both the Community Children's Theater and the cities Adult Theater Programs, Part time employment (12-15 hours per week).
What she lacked: Volunteerism. She did do 1 children's play a year for free (they have a very limited budget) but that's her only volunteering. She didn't participate in any athletics, but that never seemed an issue since she was involved in other group activities. Her GPA was also lower than ideal for the colleges she applied to, but a rough 10th grade was somewhat offset by the fact she improved in 11th and 12th grades.
She's thinking she wants to be a trial lawyer (she loves Mock Trial and public speaking). Nobody in our family is in law, but she somehow is really drawn to it. I could see her doing something along the lines of corporate communications or International Relations, but she's leaning towards wanting to do criminal law, specifically a prosecutor. She shadowed an Assistant District Attorney for a day and LOVED it, so she'd like to pursue that. However, in order to support her parents I'd like to see her in the private sector where the pay is better. Lately with all the talks we've had around the Supreme Court, she says she could see herself some day sitting behind a bench.
My younger daughter is arguably smarter, will definitely end up with a perfect ACT score (she got a 33 in 9th grade), has a 4.0 (it'd be higher if her school weighted grades), plays 4 instruments, competes in Latin Quiz bowls (and does really well), acts in school theater, etc. However, she wants to be a high school teacher (Latin, Music, or English) so even though she'll likely get a free ride to go to a lot of schools, there's no sense racking up college debt to become a teacher. If it was up to me I'd like to see her teach at the college level, not high school. But at this point she's adamant that she doesn't want to teach elementary school or college, just 9-12 graders.
You're a hardcore responsible parent. If you added corporal punishment, you'd be asian.