Scholarships (1 Viewer)

[LuvNOLA]

This is a great thread......so much good scoop.

Just my humble 2 cents here——- encourage your son to select pharmacy or engineering. Pre med is cut throat down to the bone. Getting selected to one of the medical schools in the US is brutally competitive. If your son is selected & graduates, he will owe at least 100K in student loans, unless he goes the military scholarship route.

Then, it takes a looooooooong time after his internship, residency & fellowship, to start seeing a return on his investment.

Depending on his specialty, he may not even earn as much as a good pharmacist, or engineer with a good company.

And then, if we go to socialized medicine, well then, just forget it. He will be working for peanuts.

 

[RazorOye]

You might be right about Duke, although I thought it was private so no difference between in-state and out of state.

Duke's charter specifically states that the school is to give some priority for its own backyard. How much it actually means, it's not quantitatively available - but it's there. And it's pretty much always been this way.

So let me revise my statement: I wouldn't dismiss a school out of hand because of the price tag. I'd worry about getting accepted first.

Sure, that's fine, as a general rule. In this particular case, the ACT score that OP listed and the preferences for in-state (as I understood them) means that acceptance to a few in-state schools is probably the priority. And the 26 is not going to make the candidate terribly competitive for scholarships at out of state institutions. Accepted - sure. Getting support becomes a different matter.

As for STEM vs Humanties, here's the breakdown by major:

https://www.timeshighereducation.co...egrees-highest-salary-potential#survey-answer

and STEM jobs are facing increasing instability and research has shown - for example, from The Atlantic article, "The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage":

Far from offering expanding attractive career opportunities, it seems that many, but not all, science and engineering careers are headed in the opposite direction: unstable careers, slow-growing wages, and high risk of jobs moving offshore or being filled by temporary workers from abroad.

And other studies, as I showed, indicate that Social Science and Humanities work can be harder to get but ends up with more job stability over time and comparable compensation in terms of pay.

I'm just trying to highlight the complexity and dynamics that might complicate 'conventional wisdom' when it comes to talking about degree programs and viability.

 

[RazorOye]

And then, if we go to socialized medicine, well then, just forget it. He will be working for peanuts.

The average doctor in Louisiana makes around 200k/year acc to self-reporting salary info at glassdoor. In Ontario, the average 'family doctor' makes about 275k/year according to most reports.

A couple of years ago, the province's Health Minister said that the "average doctor salary" in Ontario was $360,000.

Obviously, the taxes are higher and standard of living is higher, especially in/around Toronto and some other metro areas. But there are a lot of medium and smaller places where the standard of living is much lower.

Regardless, this is hardly "peanuts." And the field is very, very competitive to get into medical programs. I work with a lot of students from a very high-achieving school each year who go through the application processes for medical school programs in Canada, the UK, and the US. It's incredibly, incredibly competitive. The application process is arduous, the pressure is high, and I've seen extremely talented kids with superlative scores not get into one program after another. In Canada and the UK, students are not in the least dismayed by becoming a doctor in a socialized system.

I woudn't discourage any kid from considering a medical career based on that particular fear or concern.

 

[RazorOye]

I know I am triple posting, but it seems that there is interest beyond the OP's specific situation, so I wanted to add something.

First, for the OP, I would second earlier recommendations for your son to try the ACT more times. Taking a class or going through a test-prep course might also worth it. Raising the score a couple of points could make a difference and he's still got time to take it another time or two.

For others - schools are moving away from using standardized test scores as the primary measure or weighing it so heavily. Some schools are doing away with them entirely - some really good schools, like University of Chicago, Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence, George Washington - I've had students apply to these schools recently and you can find them, and others, on the list here for example: https://blog.prepscholar.com/the-complete-guide-to-sat-optional-colleges

so, what does that mean? It means that schools are looking for more 'diverse' candidates - and that's not just religious, ethnicity, gender, etc.

That means interesting life experiences, hobbies, initiatives. Things that make a student stand out from another student. Things that will diversify their student body more than the conventional demographics we think of when we hear the word 'diversity.'

They are also looking at soft skills and traits that indicate a student will be successful at their university and beyond. Are there particular life experiences or traits that suggest resilience? Flexibility? Empathy? And so on.

Also, any time you are asked to write an essay or answer a question, the school is trying to gauge something about 'you' - they are not looking for a stock answer. They are looking for authentic and sincere. And admissions officers can be quite keen on picking up a student who comes across as stiff and perfunctory and box-checking as opposed to someone who might be more raw, whose writing might be less refined, and so on - they are looking for you, as an individual, to come across in these things.

Students and parents will ask/consult outside counselors to help with their essays, but that always comes with a risk - the more someone aside from a student contributes to a written response, the less it sounds like them and the more it becomes a conglomeration of the thoughts of others. A discussion with a counsellor recently highlighted this specific thing, and emphasized to me that the student's work be as much his/her own as possible.

Applying to universities - at least in terms of acceptance - is a changing landscape. And the rules that applied to parents of kids applying decades ago are not the same as those applying to their/your/our kids.

 

[Krodwhodat]

Join the air national guard in Louisiana and they pay for up to 5 years of college tuition and he can do something that will help him learn as he goes like a medic or something

 

[dtc]

No advice on scholarships other than what is already being provided. On ACT though, it's beneficial if he can take a course geared towards ACT prep. My daughter's high school offered one and she took it and ended up with a 31. I also recommend taking it as many times and as soon as you can since colleges take the highest score. So, even if his score drops from one to the next it doesn't hurt him. It also builds experience, time management & confidence taking the test. Individual scholarships are great, but your biggest splash will be if he can get that score into the 30's unless he can get an athletics scholarship.

This is what I was going to say, as well.

Have him take a prep class to bring the score up. If he can get into the 30s with a high GPA it will open up a ton of opportunity that 26 will not.

 

[dtc]

How did/does he like the university of the south? Had some famiky that went there and loved it.

Sewanee is one of the go to schools in my area and I have a dozen or more friends who went. I've never heard anything negative from any of them and many of them are now sending their kids there.

 

[Goatman Saint]

My daughter said the high school usually has the websites and such to help out the search. However, once they decide on a school and get accepted, go tot he financial aid office and ask about scholarships from there. A lot of alumni will have smaller scholarships that are basically unknown to anyone outside of the school. My daughter gets about 3500 a year from alumni scholarships doing exactly that.

 

[LuvNOLA]

The average doctor in Louisiana makes around 200k/year acc to self-reporting salary info at glassdoor. In Ontario, the average 'family doctor' makes about 275k/year according to most reports.

A couple of years ago, the province's Health Minister said that the "average doctor salary" in Ontario was $360,000.

Obviously, the taxes are higher and standard of living is higher, especially in/around Toronto and some other metro areas. But there are a lot of medium and smaller places where the standard of living is much lower.

Regardless, this is hardly "peanuts." And the field is very, very competitive to get into medical programs. I work with a lot of students from a very high-achieving school each year who go through the application processes for medical school programs in Canada, the UK, and the US. It's incredibly, incredibly competitive. The application process is arduous, the pressure is high, and I've seen extremely talented kids with superlative scores not get into one program after another. In Canada and the UK, students are not in the least dismayed by becoming a doctor in a socialized system.

I woudn't discourage any kid from considering a medical career based on that particular fear or concern.

Wow........lots of good info, & thanks for taking the time to post.

The last time I was in Toronto for a convention, I was impressed. The city was spotless clean & there was not one homeless person to be found anywhere on the streets. When I mentioned it, the locals said, “that is why our taxes are sky high.” They also mentioned that because of socialized medicine, their MD’s were only making around 100K/year. Obviously, things must have changed.

 

[Bayouboy]

Well, the good news is my son scored a 30 the last time around (June) so that should help some....the bad news is I had to give him my truck a year early (lost a bet fair in square ). We still haven't really got in gear with scholarships to date though. Time to get moving, right?

He's leaning toward going to LSU, but I think it has everything to do with social scene rather than academics. Lots of moving parts right now. Should be an interesting year.....and football is about to kick off. If I had to guess, this year will be a blur......

 

[Dago]

just don’t blow tops like i did dropping out after 2 weeks because i was bored.

I blew a full ride to LSU back in 1993

had to get in the real world for awhile and then went to SLU on my own dime

 

[mikaloyd]

I dont know what the situation is for Junior Colleges is in Louisiana but two years of JC then transferring to a four year school is the most frugal option here, Especially if the student is not quite sure which direction to take in education yet. It can save you tens of thousands of dollars while the student gets prerequisites out of the way.

 

[JimEverett]

Loved it. . They did so much. Weeks in the Smokies, travel abroad, etc.

He was a math major. Now at Xavier for grad school and since he will be an educator in NO public school system, he gets full ride for grad school tuition along with a $6000/yr bonus for each year he remains in the NOPS system.

I would jut love to hear my oldest wants to attend university OUTSIDE La.

This might be better in a PM, but I am curious if there was a religious component to his education - a necessary religious component?
And - is the school very conservative?

 

[SAINTSFAN]

Do your homework. Many scholarships are very political. When my daughter was visiting schools about a decade ago, the colleges were very open about wanting diversity. Vanderbilt openly said in their presentations that a white female would have a very difficult time getting a full scholarship. Although my daughter was a National Merit Finalist, ACT of 33 and GPA of 4.7, she did not receive any scholarship from Vandy. Same with Duke (who gives many, if not most, of their scholarships to those from out of the country). Natonal Merit is a huge plus though so those with children who have not yet taken PSAT, I would strongly suggest having them take a prep course. I think Alabama currently gives a full ride to NM students and many (Texas A&M and Auburn are 2 that I know of off hand) give significant scholarships for NM Finalists.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Surprised I never saw this. Let me put my old financial aid director cap on...

Your kids needed to create profiles on both FastWeb.com and scholarships.com.

FastWeb is the granddaddy and largest of scholarship databases. In the past, it was the database the state's financial aid office used to send to kids. It got me through my last two years of undergrad at UNO with $15,000 in grants and fellowships.

Scholarships.com is run by Sallie Mae and is probably the closest competitor to FastWeb in terms of size, last I checked.

Any student attending an HBCU (independent of race) has access to the database of the UNCF. They have awards that won't be found anywhere else.

All of these sites will send out notifications of awards that match profiles.