Chance/match me, Asian female from NY. ChemE, first gen, low income [FAFSA SAI 0], 97/100 GPA, 1570 SAT

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: NY
  • Type of high school: large very competitive urban magnet public school, one of the top schools in the country iirc
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: chinese female
  • Other special factors: first gen college student, low income

Intended Major(s)

  • chem E major
  • linguistics minor (or applied math but probably linguistics)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 97/100 (school only does 100 pt scale)
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): school doesn’t do weighted gpa
  • Class Rank: school doesn’t do class rank
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1570 SAT

Coursework
freshman year:

  • ap bio 5

sophomore year:

  • ap chem 5
  • ap euro 5

junior year (current, with predictions)

  • ap spanish 4 or 5
  • ap gov 4 or 5
  • ap psych 5
  • chem lab
  • honors precalc
  • honors physics

senior year

  • ap calc bc(100% taking)
  • ap csa (100% taking)
  • ap physics 1&2 or orgo (idk which one is better for major but both are hard to get)

Awards

  • ap scholar
  • state history day third place
  • random sci oly invitational medals in chem events
  • regional gold key scholastic art & writing

Extracurriculars

  • sci oly chem div captain
  • chem club leader
  • founder of 2 cultural clubs with many members(almost 200)
  • part of admin team of a large nonprofit tutoring organization
  • writer for student newspaper
  • tutored for schoolhouse.world
  • self studied russian (maybe like novice low-immediate ish)
    i dont have anything to do over this summer unfortunately

Essays/LORs/Other

  • have a pretty decent personal statement planned out
  • LORs: precalc & ap spanish teacher, probably decent (known for good recs)
  • was hospitalized for a month first semester junior year and very barely passed ap gov (grade was put under credit received— without CR my gpa wld probs be high 95/low 96) + iffy grades in other subjects. major improvement this semester(back to pre hospitalization grades)

Cost Constraints / Budget
SAI from online calculator: 0
no budget really (but wld prefer <50k)

Schools (EAing all unless they dont have EA, wld appreciate strong co-op program suggestions in colder climate, open to international)

  • Safety *
  • i have safeties but i dont want to dox myself lol
    *Target *
  • SUNYs (stonybrook & bing)
  • purdue
  • university of illinois
  • UWM
  • RIT
  • UMich
  • georgia tech(???)
  • northeastern
    reach
  • cornell ED
  • MIT
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im also part of spanish honor society for ECs (i dont know how to edit the post on mobile)

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If your parents can contribute $0, then your price limit is probably around $8-10k based on federal direct loan and some part time and summer work earnings.

Use the net price calculator on each college’s website.

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Are you applying to Questbridge? This could be your best way in to your top reach schools, i.e. MIT and Cornell, plus quite a few more top-tier ChemE programs at QB partner schools. (Stanford, Caltech, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice, UPenn, CWRU, BU, Tufts, Notre Dame, USC,UPenn, Vanderbilt, WashU, Yale…)

Does the budget statement mean that you’re actually able to pay up to 50K/year, in spite of the $0 SAI?

Have you run the Net Price Calculators for the schools on your list?

Presumably you’d be eligible for the Excelsior Scholarship at the SUNY’s, yes? I’d include SUNY Buffalo in addition to Bing and Stony Brook; its engineering programs are very strong. (Plus they have linguistics and even an undergrad computational linguistics major, should your secondary interest become primary.)

In terms of OOS publics, Delaware is well-known for ChemE (ranks #4, above UIUC, for undergrad programs), and they have some large merit awards that you’d have a chance at. They have a great Honors College, with some interesting Scholars programs including a Grand Challenges Scholars program for engineers.

Goergia Tech is, of course, excellent, but the only large scholarship for OOS is the Stamps full ride, which is possible but highly, highly competitive.

Given your high SAT, any chance you’re also a National Merit Semifinalist?

Carnegie Mellon is another strong ChemE school that meets need, but is not a Questbridge partner.

Run the NPC for UMich. I believe they used to give some need-based aid for OOS low-income students, but I’m not sure what the current policy is.

I’m not sure what the path to affordability would be at UIUC, UW-Madison, and Purdue.

With such strong options in the SUNY system, I don’t see why you should go out of state for much less than a full ride, even if you do have a source of funds to pay more. There are definitely possibilities for full-ride need-based aid or merit. But among the schools where your costs will be significant even with merit, I would think very hard before giving up an essentially-free education either via Excelsior, or from a full-need-met school.

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I am confused that you say low income but have a budget up to $50,000 a year. I would use the NPCs and see if your family is ok with the cost. Based on what you are saying you should be eligible for FA.

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i meant $50k for all 4 years in total. my bad i am new to this

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thank you for the suggestions. i believe i dont qualify for questbridge due to assets even though we are low income since my parents have a good amount in savings + we do own a house. i dont particularly wish to stay in state or be indebted to my parents since i want to go low contact with them. i will look into buffalo and delaware.

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Seconding Questbridge -it’s like having 12 ED shots at the best universities in the nation, with a guaranteed full ride. Even if your parents own their house I think it’s worth trying.

Generally speaking, you should focus on “meet need” colleges.
Beside colleges already listed, you can run the NPC on Lafayette, Lehigh, Smith, and Trinity CT.

If you’re a national merit finalist and don’t mind going to the Deep South some universities in AL, FL, or OK have full rides for NMFs.

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Your parents SAI is $0 but you prefer anything under $50K (for ChemE, hello UDEL). OK - scratch that - I just read $50K total.

But that makes no sense.

Can you clarify?

Your SAI doesn’t mean schools will say - that’s what you can afford.

You might have your parents fill out a net price calculator - to see what you truly qualify for. If it’s everything, then yes to Questbridge.

You should also look at SUNYs that are ABET accredited - given the TAP program, etc. Buffalo, Stony Brook, ESF, City College, and Stony Brook.

Now we know the budget - so your list should consist of SUNY + meet need schools - Ivy schools, Vandy, WUSTL, Johns Hopkins, UVA, Lafayette, Rice, etc.

Welcome | Net Price Calculator (collegeboard.org)

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The savings and home equity make it all the more important to run NPC’s on every school, since each school sets its own formula for how assets and/or home equity are handled when calculating aid eligibility. If you run the numbers for a range of needs-met schools like MIT, Cornell, Northeastern, CMU, CWRU, URochester, UMiami…that should show a range of outcomes that you could expect.

Understood, about the preference to go out of state. NY is a big state, so worst-case, there should be an in-state option that isn’t close to home.

Again, if you’re a National Merit Semifinalist, more options open up. For example, U of Tulsa, which has ChemE, would be a full ride just for NMSF status, even if you didn’t become a finalist. Even without national merit, your stats would qualify you for huge merit at U of Alabama and and UA-Huntsville, for example. A merit-based full ride is the brass ring if the priority is financial freedom from your family.

If you give some feedback on how the NPC’s look, I’m sure people will be able to make more suggestions.

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my parents and relatives are willing to contribute to pay for my college regardless of cost since i will be the first to attend college in my entire (quite large) extended family. in theory i might be able to go to a college that’s over $10k/year because of this??

however, i do not want to stay in too much contact with my family and would prefer going out of state (northeast or midwest) or more upstate like cornell (i live in southeast ny).

admittedly i don’t know too much about student loans but i think 50k would probably be the maximum i want to take out. although now that i think about it it’s still a really large amount of money so i don’t know-- ill do more research in any case.

the most realistic choice for me from all the feedback here is probably the SUNYs-- thank you all!! i did NPCs for all my hard target and reach schools and they were all around 5k-10k. not sure if this means i can still do questbridge

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It does - Questbridge prefers SAI 0 applicants but it doesn’t mean all NPCs will return full rides. Most will “package” the 5.5k federal loan and 2.5-3.5k work study for a SAI 0, which matches what you say.
Some colleges have “no loans” offers -Rice, Vanderbilt, MIT, Duke - but may expect your parents to pay 5k or so from their assets.
Have you run the NPC on Cornell and URochester? What about Tufts? What were the results?
Would Olin be of interest?

Btw, the 5.5k in federal loans is all youre allowed to borrow for your first year - 27k total (which amount to 31k by the time you graduate and grt a job). This is what a college graduate can reasonably pay back over 10 years or, if lucky&living frugally, in less than that (because who wants to be paying college loans in their 30s rather than their mortgage :wink:?)
No bank would let an 18 year old without a job or collateral borrow 50k.

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ohh i see. npc on cornell was $7k. olin doesn’t have a dedicated chemE major so i haven’t really looked into it. i think i will consider questbridge then

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We’ve heard this before and then the person comes back and says - well they will contribute $10K vs. - they’ll pay anything for me to go to such and such a school.

In this type of instance, you need to get all the details down - and ensure they mean what they say. Many folks mean well but don’t realize school can be $400K.

You can, of course, find schools in NY (less than 20K) and elsewhere at $20K with merit but you have to be open to attending a school - which you should - someone willing to throw money at you is awesome.

You can only take out $27K in loans - so that’s not an option - and you don’t want to be hamstrung financially. You’ll do fine with any ABET accredited ChemE program - including Bing and SB or an Alabama, etc or hopefully a school that interests you.

Questbridge is another great possiblity.

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Each college looks at (weighs) assets and equity differently, that’s why you need to run the NPC for each and every college.
They use a financial aid form called CSS to determine your financial aid and each college has their own formula.
The SAI is federal aid only: 5.5k federal loans and any Pell grant ($7,395), which you get no matter what the college decides to give you -only about 85 out of 3,500 colleges “meet need”, meaning the others may “gap” applicants (there’s -an often wide- gap between what they know you can pay and what you would have to pay if you attended their college. It often is a soft rejection.)
If the college is full need with no loans for SAI 0, it means you get a full ride without loans (all is in scholarship/grant and work-study) but you may choose to take the 5.5k and bank them, or use them on top of your FA award.

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I would make sure your SAI is zero then. Use this to get an SAI estimate, get your parents to help because you may not have access to all the info you need:

https://www.collegemoneymethod.com/2024-25-student-aid-index-sai-calculator/

Also run some of the NPCs at your schools, here’s Cornell’s and MIT’s:

https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/cornell

https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/mit

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For your situation, the Honors College at SUNY Buffalo seems like the one to beat. Fully-funded with Excelsior, yet 6 hrs away from the NYC metro area. Very strong in all of your areas of interest. In the burbs of a city, which means more opportunities to stay put over the summer if you don’t want to go home, etc., than something more middle-of-nowhere like Bing or pricey-suburban like Stony Brook. @aunt_bea , whose daughter choose Buffalo for engineering as a CA student, is a good source of info.

So, you’ll have affordable (and high-quality) options in the SUNY’s, and the most generous private U’s will be affordable if you can get in. A Questbridge Match offer would, of course, be affordable, so all of the partner schools are on the table if you can become a QB finalist.

National Merit would be another avenue, but I’m assuming you aren’t a semifinalist since you haven’t responded on that front.

There are OOS publics with merit potential as already discussed - the question is whether there are any that would give enough merit, that you would also prefer to the SUNY’s. It seems as if there may not be auto-merit schools that you’d choose over SUNY, but you can always apply to the competitive-merit schools where the top awards would be enough for you to attend.

And lastly, there are the full-need-met schools that aren’t at MIT levels of endowment, and might ding you more heavily for parent assets and home equity. How do the NPC’s look at Lehigh, CMU, and others that have been suggested?

You’re a strong candidate and should have good options! I hope Questbridge works out for you, as that would expand your options. Good luck!

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I believe @aunt_bea had a daughter who went to Buffalo, not Bing. BUT I’m sure @aunt_bea would be a great source of information about Buffalo!

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i qualify for the 2025 national merit program so i think results for semifinalists will be announced in September this year?? i believe i should be able to get semifinalist with a 1480 (?)

i did the npc’s for the colleges. the only one that didn’t estimate a lot of aid was lehigh (only pell grant for that), the rest were under 12k. thank you for the suggestion of buffalo. it sounds pretty solid.

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Sorry, duh, Buff is what I mean. Will edit.

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