Take a look ahead - college

[doctorwho]

Aug 27, 2010 8:11:03 GMT -6 casey said:

Last night was Senior College Application Information Night at Neuqua. Things went great and the information they gave out was well received. The counselors and staff all did a great job. I felt like I was relatively informed and knew most of what they were saying and that was a surprise.

Some interesting information did come out. There are 1159 students in the NV graduation class of 2011. It is the largest one in history (gee, lucky us, eh?).

Top 10% = 4.09!!!!
Top 25% = 3.73
Top 50% = 3.23

I won't say too much but how sad is it that a 3.73 GPA only puts you in the top quarter.

NV Class of 2010 top college choices:
COD - ? I didn't get the exact number but it was #1
U of I - 75
ISU - 71
UIC - 50
Iowa - 40

274 students applied to U of I. 164 accepted (almost 60%) and 75 attending. I was surprised by the high rate of acceptance as I would have thought it would be worse.

I am sure all the horror stories about getting into U of I are true, however I agree that is a huge acceptance rate and good news for those students there. I was surprised to see that from a graduating class likely 1/3 the size of Neuqua's Benet had 21 going to U of I also.

for comparison keeping i mindapprox 320 grads only

Notre Dame 23 *
Illinois 21
Marquette 21 *
Miami Ohio 16
Indiana 15
SLU 14 *
Purdue 11


asterisked schools are Catholic Universities

[macrockett]

FYI: Fidelity has a good article on "paying for college."

guidance.fidelity.com/stages/getting-real-about-paying-for-college-sv-2 (i couldn't get this link to work without copying and pasting).

From my personal experience of sending my oldest to Columbia College in Chicago, it is very accurate. A few things I want to point out:

College Illinois 529 plan will pay about 1/2 of private tuition costs, so you will have the other half of tuition + room and board + books in out of pocket costs unless you qualify for financial aid or grants, etc.

Room and board will cost you just about as much as tuition in public schools and close to half in private schools, on average.

Finally, I would review carefully a decision to join the College Illinois 529 plan, as their actuaries seem might be the same as those at the public pension funds...

[casey]

Great information, mac. Your posting encouraged me to take another look at my College Illinois plan. Thankfully we had purchased tuition units in the past and not left it as a lump sum to take a big hit when the market tanked. When we bought our tuition program from College Illinois way back when, we bought tuition hours and those hours will cover all IL public schools (including U of I) for the semesters. By no means does this mean my child has to go to an IL public school but it means IF she did her tuition would be covered. I'm pretty sure that they've changed the rules and now there are different costs of premier IL school tuition (U of I) vs. the others. I guess they decided a U of I tuition is more "costly" than the other IL public schools.

As of right now the semester rate per hour (which is transferable to any public/private school) is $379.53 but I'd think that would go up some for the 2011-2012 school year. I don't know how to determine that amount (mac, any guess? according to the info you just posted they said college tuition costs rose 5.8% yearly - I think) Pretty sure that we came out ahead since tuition costs rose way higher than investment benefits. Just like everyone, we've taken some major financial hits but I do think we did ok this time around.

Does anyone else have any 529 stories/advice?

[asmodeus]

Personally, I would avoid College Illinois or any prepaid tuition program. Regular 529 plans are better in my opinion, as there are tax benefits.

A prepaid tuition program is a potential lose-lose scenario. If your investments grow at a tremendous rate (above the rising cost of tuition), you do not capture the upside (for example, if your investments grew to 200k but tuition is only 100k, you don't get the excess). But wait, if your investments underperform the costs of tuition, the state has to make up the shortfall, right? Wrong.

The state may make up minor shortfalls, but if the gap is significant, you can bet they will cancel the plan and issue refunds. It's happened in other states. Look at the College Illinois statement regarding the "pledge":

"Neither the taxing power nor the full faith and credit of the State of Illinois is pledged to the payment of program contract benefits.

However, your contract and Illinois law provides additional safeguards to enhance the security of your investment. Illinois law and the program contract provides that in the unlikely event that the College Illinois! 529 Prepaid Tuition Program ever faces a funding shortfall, the College Illinois! 529 Prepaid Tuition Program will go to the governor of the State of Illinois and ask him or her to go to the State legislature to request enough money to cover the costs of either paying out your benefits or paying a refund of all your contributions plus the appropriate amount of interest. Under Illinois law, the Governor is required to make that request on behalf of the program."

Doesn't inspire much confiedence, does it?

[casey]

Last night was college night for Juniors at Waubonsie. Someone asked a really important question "why does our district not use the National Honor's Society program opting instead for their own Indian Prairie Scholars program." The asst. principal there tried her best to explain but it came across as a non-answer. Do any long-termers or anyone else know why 204 uses their own program?

My senior received the award (along with 350 of her closest friends at NV) but I'm just not buying that it carries the same weight as the National Honor's Society. When I put that accomplishment on her college apps, I'll be honest, it just doesn't seem as impressive and I feel like I really need to explain what it is.

IMO, this is something our SB should be re-exploring. We should go back to the real deal. Don't you think it's a more impressive honor when there's some national standard being used rather than our own self-imposed one? Do both, I don't care but I think the NHS should be put back in place.

[doctorwho]

Oct 5, 2010 6:24:48 GMT -6 casey said:

Last night was college night for Juniors at Waubonsie. Someone asked a really important question "why does our district not use the National Honor's Society program opting instead for their own Indian Prairie Scholars program." The asst. principal there tried her best to explain but it came across as a non-answer. Do any long-termers or anyone else know why 204 uses their own program?

My senior received the award (along with 350 of her closest friends at NV) but I'm just not buying that it carries the same weight as the National Honor's Society. When I put that accomplishment on her college apps, I'll be honest, it just doesn't seem as impressive and I feel like I really need to explain what it is.

IMO, this is something our SB should be re-exploring. We should go back to the real deal. Don't you think it's a more impressive honor when there's some national standard being used rather than our own self-imposed one? Do both, I don't care but I think the NHS should be put back in place.

good question on NHS..don't know the answer but likely someone here might.

as far as the National Merit Scholars, it uses the SAT scores for recognition and since we do not encourage students to take the SAT - in fact some being told they'll never need it, how would they qualify ?
nothing to do with the contract our SD has with ACT ?

[casey]

The other thing I keep forgetting to mention is that at the Indian Prairie Scholars night at Neuqua there was ONE (yes, only one) African American student who was there to accept her award. Now granted there were students who did not attend the induction ceremony but out of the 300+ that did, she was the ONLY black student. I find that surprising and very sad. You're going to tell me that black students are that underserved at Neuqua (no other black students received a 3.6 or above for 6 semesters?) ? What is going on?

I didn't attend the WV IP Scholars night so I can't say if the same is true there. Does anyone know?

[al]

Oct 5, 2010 6:24:48 GMT -6 casey said:

When I put that accomplishment on her college apps, I'll be honest, it just doesn't seem as impressive and I feel like I really need to explain what it is.

I totally agree that Indian Prairie Scholars is confusing at the very least, DS had to put an explanation of what it was on his out-of-state apps. Have to say that, even as her was getting this honor and all, we had no real idea what it compared to, just that it was good to have.

That said, going to call you out on your post you mean when SHE put it on HER college apps, right?

[al]

Oct 5, 2010 6:42:02 GMT -6 doctorwho said:

good question on NHS..don't know the answer but likely someone here might.

as far as the National Merit Scholars, it uses the SAT scores for recognition and since we do not encourage students to take the SAT - in fact some being told they'll never need it, how would they qualify ?
nothing to do with the contract our SD has with ACT ?

National Merit Scholarship Program starts with the PSAT, which we do take as a school. The high scorers on that move on to either NM Commended, or NM Semi-Finalists. Commended stops there, but Semi-Finalists can move to Finalist based on their results on the SAT as well as some other criteria. So, if your child does well on the PSAT they are in contention.
Unfortunately, this is something you are left to finding out on your own. DS was one of 28 NM Commended his year, as were a few of his friends. We received no formal notification of this until graduation awards day, a full nine months later than the official results were announced nationwide. I knew because I looked it up and called NM Corp. on my own. It is entirely possible (in 204) to have moved on to Semi-Finalist not having a clue about needing to take the SAT to continue on.
IMHO the SAT is really overlooked here. Some kids are better suited to SAT vs. ACT or the other way around. The lack of information is staggering. There is a whole world outside the Midwest which I think 204 tends to forget.

[casey]

Oct 5, 2010 7:27:26 GMT -6 al said:

That said, going to call you out on your post you mean when SHE put it on HER college apps, right?

Too funny, al but no, I definitely meant "when I" put it on her application. As I said before there's no way I'm leaving it up to my child to fill these applications out - that's a potential $100,000 plus purchase we're making. Hate to admit it but I'm filling them all out. She's writing essays (that I'm revising in a major way ) but that's about it. That being said so many of the applications require such different standards and to be honest, I doubt my kid would catch them all. The U of I one is the one that stands out as they give you the exact format to use (list the activity, year, number of hours/week, using commas, semicolons, dashes, etc.). It's confusing that's for sure. I kept feeling like they're looking at them and trying to catch those that can't follow the rules and just simply throw them out .


Those of you that have never seen or filled out a college application, take a look. They're quite time consuming and it appears the scholarship forms are even worse. It's a new part time job for me.

[casey]

So, al, here's a dumb question but when do we get results from last year's PSAT? My senior daughter took it and of course wasn't singled out as a NM scholar but I still don't know how she did. Had I seen the results, I might have actually wanted her to take the SAT (rather than just the ACT) for a score. I blew it off and we just took the ACT but as you said, who's to say she might not have done better on the other test?

Hate to say it but when it came time for my junior to take the PSAT this year, I skipped it and opted for her to take the practice ACT instead. There's no way she'd have qualified for the National Merit anyway.

I'd say there's a big glitch here in the system. As a parent, I definitely don't feel that I know enough about the SAT test so we only do the ACT (unless you count the PSAT which I have no idea how my child did anyway).

[doctorwho]

Oct 5, 2010 7:35:59 GMT -6 al said:

Oct 5, 2010 6:42:02 GMT -6 doctorwho said:

good question on NHS..don't know the answer but likely someone here might.

as far as the National Merit Scholars, it uses the SAT scores for recognition and since we do not encourage students to take the SAT - in fact some being told they'll never need it, how would they qualify ?
nothing to do with the contract our SD has with ACT ?

National Merit Scholarship Program starts with the PSAT, which we do take as a school. The high scorers on that move on to either NM Commended, or NM Semi-Finalists. Commended stops there, but Semi-Finalists can move to Finalist based on their results on the SAT as well as some other criteria. So, if your child does well on the PSAT they are in contention.
Unfortunately, this is something you are left to finding out on your own. DS was one of 28 NM Commended his year, as were a few of his friends. We received no formal notification of this until graduation awards day, a full nine months later than the official results were announced nationwide. I knew because I looked it up and called NM Corp. on my own. It is entirely possible (in 204) to have moved on to Semi-Finalist not having a clue about needing to take the SAT to continue on.
IMHO the SAT is really overlooked here. Some kids are better suited to SAT vs. ACT or the other way around. The lack of information is staggering. There is a whole world outside the Midwest which I think 204 tends to forget.

204 tends to forget there is a world outside of 204 -- I would have been beside myself on the lack of commuication regarding SAT accomplishment until graduation day ! You've got to be kidding ? Where are the college counselors on this - is it not their role ? ( 204 has a 90%+ positive communication score you know )


there are also midwestern schools that use the SAT -- I think that is a misconception. Some use it as a tie breaker- some in more consideration for $ etc...Washington University in St Louis is one of the schools we are considering- and don't try and get in there without an SAT score. And Loyola where we are more serious negotiation also uses SAT.


Here are other schools we have talked to more in depth and the SAT ranges we were given- for DIII schools where grants are the norm..SAT plays heavily in many of them..so the myth that this is an East Coast only program is faulty.

DePaul reading 520-630 / writing 530-630 / math 510-620
Loyola R 540-650 / W 550-640 / M 530-650
Bradley R 520-630 W 530-630 / M 510-620
Northwestern R 670-750 W 670-750 M 690-780
Notre Dame R 650-740 W 670-760 M 640-730
U Ill Chicago R 460-630 W 490-630 M 510-660
Washinton U R 680-750 W 660-750 M 680-750
other schools w/ contact and SAt scores were also requested Indiana / Ohio State/ Purdue / Dayton / Cinicnnati / SLU / Wisconsin

[doctorwho]

Oct 5, 2010 7:44:16 GMT -6 casey said:

So, al, here's a dumb question but when do we get results from last year's PSAT? My senior daughter took it and of course wasn't singled out as a NM scholar but I still don't know how she did. Had I seen the results, I might have actually wanted her to take the SAT (rather than just the ACT) for a score. I blew it off and we just took the ACT but as you said, who's to say she might not have done better on the other test?

Hate to say it but when it came time for my junior to take the PSAT this year, I skipped it and opted for her to take the practice ACT instead. There's no way she'd have qualified for the National Merit anyway.

I'd say there's a big glitch here in the system. As a parent, I definitely don't feel that I know enough about the SAT test so we only do the ACT (unless you count the PSAT which I have no idea how my child did anyway).

We got the scores with a few weeks of when we got our ACT PLAN scores- if I remember right we took the PSAT/NMQST in late October and the PLAN very early November and I know we had all scores before Christmas as the kids met with counselors when they got them back. In talking to schools re: scholarships- the attainment on the PSAT has been a plus for us - as has the PLAN results. The more you can have to separate yourself the better

[al]

Oct 5, 2010 7:44:16 GMT -6 casey said:

So, al, here's a dumb question but when do we get results from last year's PSAT? My senior daughter took it and of course wasn't singled out as a NM scholar but I still don't know how she did. Had I seen the results, I might have actually wanted her to take the SAT (rather than just the ACT) for a score. I blew it off and we just took the ACT but as you said, who's to say she might not have done better on the other test?

I'd say there's a big glitch here in the system. As a parent, I definitely don't feel that I know enough about the SAT test so we only do the ACT (unless you count the PSAT which I have no idea how my child did anyway).

Looking in my (yet unfiled) pile here, I see DS took PSAT 10/15/2008 and there were definitely results online first week of December. I believe the mailing came shortly after the holidays, we did not have access online because didn't have his original test number.

I would definitely have a student take the PSAT, not necessarily for the NM aspect, but it is a good indicator of how they would do on the SAT, like the PLAN=ACT.

[al]

Oct 5, 2010 8:06:18 GMT -6 doctorwho said:

In talking to schools re: scholarships- the attainment on the PSAT has been a plus for us - as has the PLAN results. The more you can have to separate yourself the better

we had a totally different experience when it came down to it. Colleges were all over DS when first results came out, but frankly I believe they have our zipcode pegged as a full-pay area, so why not. I mean seriously - MIT, Harvard, Chicago etc... it was just all mailing lists... these schools don't fill their rosters by recruitment - don't need to.

When push came to shove there was no place on any of DSs 10 apps for PLAN, PSAT... especially anything self-reported. Every school would take SAT or ACT and used whichever was higher. Some super-scored (taking the highest of each subject area on the SAT/ACT, then combining for a new super-scored composite), but that is becoming less available. SAT2 areas for some schools were specific, while at others they were optional or not considered.

A few observations -
Most required reports from all sittings of the SAT or ACT. I know some "work their way up" to a better test score, and that is a big thing around here, but seriously, a kid with a 28 first sitting holds more weight than taking three tries to get it. Worth doing for $$ though.

I've said this before so bear with me... "Everyone knows Neuqua so they take that into consideration" LOL! I mean ROTFLMAO!!!
To think that 204 schools are so much better than other schools nationwide? Versus national averages, sure, but there are tons of great schools out there. I dare say the total lack of guidance at Neuqua hampered DSs college search tremendously, thankfully we saw this early and it was literally a part-time job on my part finding the best options for him. I can promise you, Indian Prairie Scholar, Ill. State Scholar, National AP Scholar, NM Commended etc... son's counselor does not know who is is or what college he accepted a full-ride merit scholarship to.

Wow - sorry guys, i could go on and on about this -
I do see some recognition that they are lacking in this area with the new Soph., Jr., Sr. meetings, so maybe things will get better. Going into it with my eyes wide open for DS#2.