AROTC School Selection

[brandons]

Hi my son has completed his Army ROTC scholarship application. Quick question - he has listed Mizzou (home state) and 6 other out of state public schools. With 1-2 exceptiond most of his schools are in his academic range. Is there any advantage or disadvantage to deleting one public school and adding a private school? Example - Valparaiso and Baylor offer his Engineering curriculum but are very expensive obviously. However I would imagine they would be expensive for anyone including in state students since it is private.

My son is a solid student 3.6 unweighted 30 superscore
ACT Eagle Scout Marching Band no sports letters.

He seems to be competitive academically with the Valpo and Baylor student bodies. It seems like these two on a cost basis would not be much different from out of state public schools (OK State for example).

Is there any reason not to add a private school and delete an out of statecpublic school?

 

[dunninla]

Baylor is one of those rare highly rated Privates whose full tuition+fees is under $40,000 -- $36,000 to be exact. Buy comparison, SMU, just 90 minutes away, is $43,800. Of course that doesn't include room and board. Now, subtract from Baylor's $36,000 the automatic scholarship merit money of $14,000 given to students with SAT scores over 1270 and good grades, that would make full tuition for your son about $22,000. That's 50% of SMU's tuition+fees. (snide remark warning) And SMU hasn't had a good football team since James and Dickerson carried the Pigskin there three decades ago on the payroll of some of Dallas' finest boosters. I think that might almost make Baylor cheaper than most Out of State Publics.

Now, I don't think that Baylor discount is relevant to the ROTC Scholarship Board b/c the Army pays every school full tuition+fees, but in the event your student wants to be in ROTC without a scholarship, Baylor might be one Private that could be the same affordability as most OOS Publics, given the SAT merit money.