Basic College Questions + Liberal Arts College...

BrownParent
Thu, 03 Nov 2011 03:36:10 +0000

Seekinguni, you are getting a lot of information here and seem to be taking it in well. You are just a sophmore now? then maybe wait until next summer to be looking into some of this in detail. You should know that the more money you need (really by being needy), the more is generally available.

A couple of points:

the lower your income, the more you qualify for “need based aid”

the higher your grades and scores, the more you qualify for “merit aid”

Some schools will pledge to meet full need, these are usually the hardest schools to get into, like Brown, where my daughter went. She got her tuition and costs covered by “need based aid” since schools like that do not offer “merit aid”. (She is from CA and never minded the cold.)

Other schools will give large amounts of “merit aid” to attract students at the top of their applicant pool. You would be one of the best students, on paper, there. It’s not a bad thing, it just means you may have been able to go to a better ranked school but you got to go to a good one who really wanted you and showed you the money.

When it is time to apply for financial aid, you will use your parent’s tax forms. If the house if not in your father/step-father’s name, then he pays rent. Period. If your grandfather/step-grandfather own the house it doesn’t matter. Your family pays rent. Grandparents assets don’t matter. For your situation this is a good thing because you don’t want the complication of home ownership messing up your aid.

You will first fill out a FAFSA form, and it sounds like you will qualify for a Federal Pell Grant and work/study , which gives you extra money for 10-15 hours a week. My daughter did all her work study as research with professors, but if she wanted she could have worked in food services and got a free meal a shift, or in the library and got to study during downtime.

If you apply to private colleges, then you will also have to fill out another aid form. The college will send you the aid package with your admission.

Also, are you a URM? Such as Hispanic by chance? That can help at a lot of schools who are looking for more diverse student bodies.

It is normal to increase the psat naturally by 100 points (on equivalent basis) between Jr year and the SAT. Like the other increase was just natrual. Don’t spend too much time studying, if you are a good test taker. You may only need to take it once and then you don’t have to spend anymore time on it. You have enough to do. Get the Blue Official Book from the College Board and work through it. Khan Academy has an online tutorial using it. Khan is a fantastic free resource, esp for students needing self tutoring for math subjects, they don’t have anything for the other sections at this time.
[Khan Academy](Khan Academy)

Finally the liberal arts are generally Literature, Math, Sciences, Philosophy, Languages and History and all the components of those subjects, including, often, the Arts. They include things like Computer Science as a division of Math. But they generally don’t include Engineering, Business, Nursing and more vocational occupations. They promote general knowlege and critical thinking.

So if you graduate from Harvard, you graduate from Harvard College, the liberal arts undergraduate portion. When people say LAC, it usually means a College that does not have University grad school components, or vocational schools, but there are exceptions.

PM me if you want more specifics on anything I’ve said here.