Shrinkrap

"Cal is pretty close to San Francisco, and will probably be a bit cheaper than a full pay at a private school. "

I think more than 50K this year, at least living on campus..

http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/...uates/cost.htm

P.S. Good luck to your friend! She should have some good options.

hollow

Ahh, I apologize for the misinformation then. I'm a CA resident as well, and I'm not as familiar with the out of state costs as I should be.

entomom

NHRP is based on PSAT scores and with a 222 (and a 3.5 gpa), she's easily over the threshold (which varies by state and year and is not well publicized). The problem is that students have already been notified of the designation; however, there are several students on the Hispanic forum that called in and got the award late. It doesn't hurt to try, have her call:

National Hispanic Recognition Program (NHRP)

NMS is a higher level award, but there may be some merit opportunities that are aimed specifically at NHRP, check these threads out:

Colleges offering scholarships to National Hispanic Scholars

College emails/letters that Refer to NHRP: A List

This last is based on the NHRP list that is sent out to participating colleges. While it's too late for your friend to get on the list, if she could get NHRP designation, she would qualify for scholarships and could contact schools interested in recruiting Hispanic students.

p.s. while they aren't all in the NE, several of the merit scholarships at the schools I listed earlier are targeted at Hispanic or URM students, so your friend might have a higher chance of getting those compared to open scholarships.

juillet

I think UC-Berkeley is sort of an outrageously bad deal for an OOS student. Non-resident tuition and fees is around $32K and room and board is $14K, so we're looking at $46K per *year* for a public university (however fantastic) and that's not even including other living expenses, books, transportation, etc.

National Hispanic Recognition Program is sponsored by the same program as National Merit. If she's designated herself as a Hispanic student on her PSAT, then she's eligible for National Hispanic and National Merit. I was a National Merit Commended Student, but a National Achievement Finalist (which is the African American version). However, that depends on how she identifies herself - if she identified herself as Asian or "other" she may not have been counted at eligible.

Honestly, UGA's deal is going to be hard to beat - free tuition, fees, and a book allowance; room and board is only ~$8,000 a year there. So she'd either have to find a school that's lower and/or equal to UGA that costs her parents less than $8,000 a year out of pocket, OR she'd have to find a school that's acceptably more prestigious in her parents' eyes to warrant shelling out the big bucks. There are some schools (a lot actually) that I've seen suggested that are worth the extra bux, but I don't know if I'd pay full pay at Tulane or Brandeis instead of going to UGA with essentially no student debt and very little yearly burden on my parents, you know what I mean? I can sort of see her parents' point.

Keilexandra

^I wouldn't choose full-pay at Tulane or Brandeis, either, but she'd certainly get merit money from Tulane and perhaps Brandeis. What I'm not sure about is whether her parents will pay >8k/year but <full-pay for middle-top schools.

entomom

As I stated previously, several students on the Hispanic subforum failed to identify as Hispanic/Latino on their PSAT but later contacted NHRP and were designated as scholars. It may be too late at this time for the OPs friend, but it is possible.

Please reread post #25 carefully. I suggested, among other schools, Brandeis and Tulane in response to the OPs request for schools with substantial merit aid for her friend, NOT as full pay alternatives to UGA for 8k/yr.

Knights09

Tulane could be a big merit aid opportunity, but honestly if I was your friend's parents UGA would look very very good unless you're comparing it to Top 15 or 20 schools. She would probably get into the Honors program at UGA, and I know a lot of people that aren't willing to pay for UNC, UVA, etc. if their child gets into UGA Honors. If I was your friend I would concentrate on her reaches and maybe one or two merit opportunities, while knowing UGA is a more than acceptable safety.

chemusic

Bard is a strong school for writing. Check out the EEC scholarship.