My daughter has a 32 ACT and a 4.11 GPA. She will graduate in 2017. She is interested in going to college “not too far from home,” which means LA, TX, MO, TN or MS. While her grades and ACT scores are good, they won’t stand out in a giant applicant pool at competitive schools like Vandy and Rice. And if she were accepted to a school like those, even with scholarships, we can’t afford a 30K annual expense. What are good options for affordable, quality education in the states listed above. Not sure yet what she will major in. Math and art are her two primary interests.
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ lists a bunch of automatic full tuition or better scholarships from schools in those states. Note: some may use unweighted GPA.
Thank you. Great information!
Keep in mind that Texas is huge. Here’s a [map[/url] showing places in North America closer to Texas than other parts of Texas. A college in Amarillo is much farther away from where you presumably are than a college in Georgia.
There are a number of schools that will give your daughter substantial merit aid, but I would be concerned that your daughter is far above the average abilities of the students. For instance, Southeastern Missouri State is almost certainly affordable, but in most majors it is not particularly challenging.
Right now, I would be extremely cautious about recommending Louisiana public colleges and universities. The budget situation has become so dire that my department has flat out told current undergraduate students not to do grad work at LSU (the flagship) because of the potential for lost funding, extreme cuts, etc. This is especially true for a student potentially majoring in art which is an area that is more susceptible than STEM fields thanks to the lack of federal grants for humanities.
The University of Mississippi should give your daughter about $21,600 in aid from a base price of $36,000/year. Keep in mind that this price will likely go down if your daughter lives off campus after freshman year and opts to not spend a huge amount of money.
Rhodes College may offer some money, but I don’t know if it will be enough to bring the cost of attendance down to an affordable level.
St. Louis University is the same with Rhodes College. Your daughter will almost assuredly get merit money, but I again, I doubt it will be enough to make it competitive with Ole Miss.
Truman State University could be a possibility. It is one of the cheaper regional colleges and provides good merit scholarships for students with above average credentials. Your daughter will be one of the strongest students and Kirksville, MO is not a happening place by any measure. Missouri makes [url=<a href=“http://registrar.missouri.edu/residency/residency-requirements.php%5Dit”>http://registrar.missouri.edu/residency/residency-requirements.php]it rather easy to become a resident](Redirect Notice) which will mean reduced tuition for sophomore, junior, and senior years of college.
Austin College (not Austin Community College) has rather limited math faculty so it may not be a great choice if your daughter is advanced in math, but if your daughter has only taken Calc, it should be an acceptable choice.
St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX may be a good option and Austin is certainly a vibrant place for a student passionate about art.
Other possibilities:
Texas Christian University
Texas State University
Baylor University (quite conservative)
Wow! Thank you @whenhen. This is most helpful and very informative. I appreciate your candor. Regarding Austin College, I’m not familiar with it. Nor St. Edward’s University - although I do love Austin, TX. So I will have to look those schools up. One thing important to my daughter is a school that is ethnically diverse and definitely NO conversative schools. She also wants a school that is not too tiny, so that there are decent club/student activity options. But no to Greek life.
Oddly enough, Austin College is NOT in Austin, TX. It’s in a small town called Sherman which is north of Dallas. It is also a tiny school. Rhodes College is also small, but it is in Memphis which means there are vastly more social opportunities.
I would have to agree that Louisiana schools are not the route to choose at this time unless you go with a smaller private school such as Centenary or one of the large ones such as Loyola, Tulane, or Xavier. Tulane from what I understand usually offers some pretty good FA packages and there would be more sporting events to attend.