Will son qualify for American Aid? Son is 50% First Nations-enrolled (NA) and has US citizenship. Will he qualify for American Indian Aid? DS wants to attend school in US and hopefully play baseball too.
For general FA at US universities, a US citizen will get the usual consideration (of course, state residency affects FA at state universities).
For Native American related stuff, check the specific university or program to see if Canada First Nations are included.
If he is enrolled & is a US citizen, then your son should qualify for financial aid.
If his SAT & GPA are excellent, then consider applying to Dartmouth College which is an Ivy League school in New Hampshire.
As a US citizen he is eligible to apply for federal financial aid using the FAFSA. He also doesn’t need a student visa, and he can get a job without having to go through a whole lot of extra hoops. But that federal aid is likely to just be a student loan, and maybe a work-study job, so don’t get too excited. Lots of good info at www.finaid.org and here in the Financial Aid Forum.
Generally speaking, scholarships that are specifically for Native Americans require formal tribal enrollment. So you will need to investigate each of them separately to find out if Canadian First Nation staus qualifies.
How serious a baseball player is he? Getting recruited as an athlete is a whole thing of its own.
When he contacts colleges and universities for information, he should let them know that he is a US citizen who has been educated in Canada. That way he can find out which application forms he needs to use. Don’t be surprised if each place asks for different things. Just send whatever A wants to A, and what B wants to B.
He’s pretty serious (played about 7 years now) about baseball. He’s attending a pretty good school here in BC with an IB program and is a qualifying mathlete too. We are early on but he’s focused on doing his best so he can get as much help as he can.
He’s only a sophmore, so it’s very early on. I was just worrying because he wants to go to school in the US and I don’t think our Band will help pay for him. As a baseball player, he’s competed at the district and provincial levels and done very well but baseball is not usually played in highschools here, so I am not sure about how to get him ‘out there’ do begin that road. His current GPA is 3.78.
I am hoping to send him to College Horizons to help him with the college application process because it seems to be a whole other “animal” in the US as it is in Canada. Kinda freaking me out right now. So much to learn and I feel like I am behind the ‘eight ball’ on all this!
Not really. He’s not late, but now is the summer for him to get noticed.
Here’s a forum you might want to look through: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/
He will want to study for the SAT or ACT to get the best score possible. Count on him having to take it a couple of times to get the best possible score. His NA status could help him get into some competitive schools, and those are the schools that offer the best aid.
If he is a great student who can access the top Canadian schools, make sure these are given maximum attention. Having a nice fantasy(the sports route) is all well and good but make sure you as the adult keep the eye on the real prize. As he is yet to start real IB classes, make sure he understands that GPA as well as (ACT/SAT) is a really big deal in the USA vs the post graduation known IBD score as in other countries.
Thanks for the help! He’s been about 3.7-3.9 for the last 4 years and it’s been pretty effortless for him so far. He’s been doing SAT/ACT Prep for a bit but not taken the PSAT 10 yet. will look into this! Should have some idea where he stands. He took advanced 9/10 math without breaking a sweat, English is solid and so is science. I was encouraged by his coach to head south of the border to get him evaluated soon, so that we can realistically guide his baseball desires. Has anyone studied SAT through Khan Academy? Is it very helpful?
He’s been about 3.7-3.9 for the last 4 years and it’s been pretty effortles<<<<<<<
While I know it isn’t always translatable, the point is he needs to always get the highest possible GPA. 3.7 cumulative will hurt when you are looking for merit money. My local US four yr for example weights GPA well over ACT and this totally hurts IB kids who are already held to a much higher standard.
Yikes! And I thought that was pretty respectable! I haven’t pushed him at all! Maybe I need to be tougher with things. I thought a B here and there throughout won’t be a big deal! I let things slide because he was doing baseball in Spring, summer and fall with Football thrown in from August to December. What do you all do to motivate your kids? At this point, he couldn’t be bothered with CC. Thinks it’s a “bragging post” and doesn’t want to compare himself to others. Won’t touch the "chance me’ threads either.
Be aware that most chatter on these forums focuses on admission to the most selective universities, and sometimes the largest competitive merit scholarships. That is the context of “3.7 GPA is not good enough”.
But a 3.7 GPA student should still have many choices of universities that will admit him; if need-based financial aid will not be sufficient, there are also universities that will offer merit where a 3.7 GPA is competitive (or sometimes enough, along with test scores, for automatic awards).
Here is a program for Native Americans that explicitly includes Canada First Nations: https://policy.umn.edu/morris/amindianwaiver
Ask his coach where your son should be going this summer so that he can get evaluated.
I’m also a mom with US citizen kids who did high school in Canada. One of them had aspirations for high end US schools. They had the stats for them. I regret not hiring a consultant for their applications. The US application process is waaaay different than in Canada. There are so many components - essays, references, standardized test score, ECs, grades and more. They had very disappointing results. Their sibling has applied to law school this past cycle and for this, we hired a consultant, even though law school applications are more straight forward. The results have been much better.
Don’t expect much help, if any from their guidance counsellor. US guidance counsellors seem to be much more on the ball with college applications than Canadian counsellors, unless you are at a private school which has college counsellors.
The coaches suggested a place just outside Seattle with a former MLB player who now works with HS students. So I am now signing him up for the May 2 day camp. As for extra curriculars He’s involved with our First Nations protectionist group that focuses on protecting our salmon runs. He will be interning with a professor of Kinesiology at a local University this coming summer and fall on a muscle stretching project (Don’t have a clear idea about the project yet). I am hoping that this experience and connections will help with getting closer to understanding what we need to do to prepare him for the college application process. @ucbalumnus, thanks for the tip! @bouders I thought that if he attends the Native American College Horizons this July, he would get some very good advice about the process. They will have a week with SAT people, Essay consultants and a College Fair with about 60 top Colleges where he can talk to their representatives about what “ducks” he need to ‘get in a row’. Is that too ‘soft’ a plan?
If he’s looking to play baseball in college, he’ll need to get the attention of coaches. Baseball is a little different than other sports for recruiting, and I think relies heavily on some camps. Check the baseball threads in the Athletic Recruits forum. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/
One way to get him motivated is through his sports. If a coach tells him he’ll need a 3.8 rather than a 3.7, that will get him to work just a little harder. If he picks out a few schools, or style of school (big D1, small LAC, midwestern, west coast), he’ll know what’s required.
@twoinanddone Thanks, I am just reeling with this forum. So much that I don’t know. I will have him look at that thread. since it is about the recruiting process. I’ll have a chat with his coaches for sure! Recruiting is a whole other ball game in addition to applying to schools. I wonder if they have ‘diversity’ spaces for NA URMs? Is there such a thing? Also is there a way to narrow down the Athletic Recruits thread to baseball? It’s a huge thread!
Search for baseball or just ask a question. Several posters are very knowledgeable in their sports or in their conferences (Ivy, NESCAC, Patriot). Baseball is, of course, very different in Arizonia and Texas than in New Hampshire). They can suggest camps and recruiting tournaments. I do not think there are special diversity spots in sports, but that doesn’t mean the coach doesn’t like presenting a candidate with diversity to admissions.
Some sports do have more Native Americans than others. Albany lacrosse has the Thompsons who are all members of the same tribe (and related). Other coaches are active in recruiting from Canada. Usually it is northern schools, border states.