<p>My S (class of 2014) wants to stay in/near New England (within about 4 hours driving radius from Southern VT) He wants to study engineering, probably mechanical, and we expect him to have strong stats. For now all he has is SAT 2 Math 800. Possible NMF but not a shoe-in. (PSAT score 200 with no prep sophomore year). Just qualified for AIME based on AMC-10 (not sure of the score, just heard he qualified). </p>
<p>Looking for some financial safeties: where should he be looking for automatic or very likely merit of at least full tuition, assuming a likely eventual SAT of about 2200 or ACT Equivalent?</p>
<p>In terms of fit, smaller would be better than bigger, and geekier would be better than a heavy party culture. Probably not interested in Greek life, but willing to ignore it </p>
<p>UVM will give him full tuition if he makes NMF, otherwise it doesn’t look like they’d give him much – $4500 which is less than half of in-state tuition. :-/</p>
<p>yeah, that’s why I’m looking for what may be available closer to home. </p>
<p>The Drake is looking for outstanding extracurriculars also, so probably not a possibility. Robertson sounds similarly unlikely. You did say they were huge reaches ;-)</p>
<p>To consider . . . I have no personal experience with this, but remember reading about it in another thread. People have brought up the concern of merit scholarships with fairly high GPA requirements for engineering students because with the difficult course load it can be harder to keep the GPA up in the range for continued support. Some students were forced to drop the engineering major or transfer to a lower price school. These stories could be apocryphal, but it’s worth considering. The advice was to be very clear about what it would take to hold on to the scholarship once the student was in school.</p>
<p>Olin College of Engineering, which is a fantastic but small school in Massachusetts (adjacent to Babson College) grants all students an automatic half tuition merit scholarship. Beyond that, FA is need based.</p>
<p>At Johns Hopkins (in Baltimore so more than 4 hours drive–more like 7), there is a full tuition scholarship called the Westgate, but very few areawarded.</p>
<p>Thanks, all. Happymom, I have basically been trying the map method, although I certainly don’t know of all schools that offer Mech Eng when looking at the map.</p>
<p>1/2 tuition does not bring a school into financial safety range for us, and we’re in a position where we can’t afford our FAFSA EFC, so we’d need a school particularly generous with financial aid for that to make a difference. </p>
<p>With NMF Northeastern will give him full tuition. Without NMF, I don’t know that there is a safety within reasonable driving distance of here. </p>
<p>Does anyone know how competitive BU’s Alexander Graham Bell scholarships for engineers are? Or Rutgers Presidential Scholarship?</p>
<p>I love Olin and think it could be a great match for him, but half tuition is unfortunately not going to do it unless their need-based aid is also generous. And I it’s a reach for admissions in any case, I think.</p>
<p>Maybe look into Manhattan College - good engineering program and your S’s stats are very high for that school.<br>
I believe that Cooper Union gives everyone free tuition but it is very very competitive and not a traditional college experience (small school in Manhattan).</p>
<p>Check out Hofstra University. Their Trustee’s Scholarship offers full tuition for the top of the applicant pool and they have an ABET accredited ME program.</p>
Understood … I’d modify this a bit. With my second we basically did this … we got an old fashion college guide with listing of all colleges (think as thick as big city phone book) … and then slug through all the colleges in all the states that might be 4 hours from southern Vermont looking for schools with the right majors … this list will be not be minimal but probably short enough that all the schools on the list can be quickly researched further … and adding things like schools size and student stats the list got manageable very quickly. In my son’s case after starting with the New England states he eventually spread out to the Mid-Atlantic states also to increase the number of target schools. It took my son about a 2-3 nights to slug through the guidebook at night while watching TV.</p>
<p>(PS - the first school I thought of for your son was WPI … I believe they use merit to attract top candidates and is an excellent school)</p>
<p>I would really strongly recommend looking into Cooper Union. It’s a very highly ranked engineering school and offers full tuition to ALL admitted students. It’s quite competitive to get into, but your son sounds like he might have a good shot there.</p>
<p>How hard a limit is the 4 hour driving distance? I.e. does it rank as high as net cost and offering of an ABET-accredited mechanical engineering major in importance?</p>
<p>The 4 hours is not a super-hard limit in that he would go up to 5 or 6 hours possibly, but we’re still aiming for reasonable driving distance and not a plane ride. At this point I would say that “reasonable driving distance” is a firm requirement, but that “reasonable” is open to some flexibility. </p>
<p>We have a long list of possible good fits, with possibilities for decent merit, but still nothing for a financial safety unless he makes NMF. </p>
<p>3toto that’s a good suggestion about just going through a book. We have one, but haven’t gone through it in a thorough manner like that yet.</p>
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