Any options for financial aid??

Paying for College
21

This OP is a high school junior. Unless he has downloaded the FAFSA formula, and computed by hand, he doesn’t HAVE a FAFSA EFC…yet.

The net price calculators should be viewed as a very rough estimate because they are currently set for students starting college in the fall of 2019. This student won’t start college until the fall of 2020. He will be completing a 2020-2021 FAFSA which will use 2018 income…and assets as of the date of filing.

He doesn’t have a junior end of year GPA, hasn’t taken the PSAT that will count for NM status, and hasn’t taken the ACT or SAT yet.

It’s very good that he is gathering some preliminary information…but he doesn’t have sufficient info to know his admission or financial aid potential…at this point in time.

22

You can get an estimate of your fafsa efc by running the fafsa4caster. You mentioned that you have already run some net price calculators, what did they say about your potential costs?

It is good that you are asking these questions now, but you will likely need to expand your list to find schools will which admit you that are also affordable.

Some schools offer merit, some do not. Some offer big merit scholarships (usually not many), some offer smaller amounts to many students. Very few colleges meet 100% of financial need (as defined by them, may not be the same as what you think you need).

Hopefully you will share some more info about your budget, so you will get suggestions that work for you.

23

Applying to three schools is very few, especially if you need financial aid. It increases you odds of not having any choice in the Spring of senior year, or, worse yet, of being shut out.

3.15, ok rigor, 1130 PSAT: even with the legacy advantage, Valpo isn’t a safety - you’d need 3.75 GPA, 1270 SAT for it to be a safety according to the CDS.

Since you’re Lutheran, you should add a few from the following colleges: Capital Ohio (as the name indicates, located in Ohio’s capital), Muhlenberg (Philadelphia isn’t far), Augsburg (in Minneapolis, a safety for your stats), Concordia-Moorhead (as the name indicates, in Moorhead, which is a major city), Pacific Lutheran (in Tacoma, a major city in Washington State), Wagner College (in NYC).

Not Lutheran, but near Chicago, you’ve got Elmhurst which would be another safety. Lake Forest would be a match.

A good list would have 2 safeties (schools you can afford, like, and are 100% sure you can get into because you’re in their top25% applicants or so), about 3-5 matches (schools you can afford, like, and are pretty sure you can get into but you can’t be absolutely certain) and a couple reaches (you know it’s dicey but you can afford them).
For you, Valpo is an academic match (thanks to the legacy advantage), as is Loyola Chicago (high match there since you don’t have the legacy advantage). Run their Net Price Calculator to see if they’re affordable.
UDel is a big reach since as of now you don’t qualify for either financial aid nor merit. If your score can get to 1350 merit aid is possible.
So, you need to find 2 affordable safeties and at least 2 (probably 3) matches.
Pick from the suggestions above, as all are in/near big cities - explore the websites,run the NPC on the ones that interest you, then request information from each college that’s within budget.

Do you know your EFC?
Can your parents afford their EFC?
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/paying-your-share/expected-family-contribution-calculator

24

@MYOS1634

The GPA is on a 5 Point scale…not four.

How would that convert to a 4 Point scale.

25

I’m guessing it’s out of 5 weighted, out of 4 unweighted?
@emdspace, can you explain?

26

@MYOS1634 and @thumper1 yes, it is a 3.15 Unweighted out of 4 I believe. Our school has a total possible gpa of 5.3, so the calculation conversion rate is like, take your weighted gpa and multiply it by .87 which gets me to 3.15ish, which would be out of 4.