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Celeste Di Muro
We have two sons. The elder is a freshman at Brooklyn College. My younger son is a high school senior. He has a 91% average at a Blue Ribbon High School in Westchester County, NY. He is applying to colleges and wants to major in engineering. I am a New York City Elementary School Teacher, my husband is the owner of a small business in Manhattan. We have put all our funds into giving our sons a good foundation in an excellent high school. Our sons don’t qualify for merit scholarships. They don’t qualify for financial aid. We do not want them to take out high interest loans. We have $28,000 in savings, that will barely pay one year of City or State College for both our sons.
There is something fundamentally wrong with this picture. Both my sons are close but not close enough to qualifying for one of the better universities. I just finished reading David Leonhardt’s column on the American Talent Initiative.
Both my sons have high grades at a very demanding high school, Hastings on Hudson High School both in math and in the sciences. My older son has taught himself film editing, on the tube. He spends every free moment working on his film projects, yet we could not afford to send him to NYU.
I suggested to my younger son, whose ambition, skills and talents together with 21 amazing teammates were instrumental in winning the first ever State Championship a month ago for his high school soccer team…. I suggested that he apply to the engineering program at Princeton, Cooper Union, MIT, Olin College of Engineering, McGill University, Tufts University…. my rationale: who knows, maybe by some strike of good luck they are looking for someone with your qualifications, but he looked at their standards for acceptance and said they would not even consider his 1380 SAT scores or his near perfect high school grades. There most be some exceptions. One would think there should be opportunities for these young aspiring scientists that would level the playing field, as the American Talent Initiative promises…. but how to plug into them?
If you have any answers, please write back and help us out.
Sincerely,
Celeste Di Muro
Linda Simpson
Celeste, have your sons considered test-optional colleges, like Bates? Have you run NPCs to see what your EFC will be? I assume you have. I am surprised that you say they won’t qualify for merit aid anywhere. And with their good grades, there are plenty of colleges where they where they will be accepted. I suggest you focus on the test-optional colleges. They tend to be less selective. And you can request more aid. If a college wants a student, there is some flexibility. In addition, our SUNY schools are great. There are plenty of colleges for your sons, the trick is finding the affordable ones. Good luck.