Chance Me Please: IR major looking for big merit! [IL resident, UW4.0, 1450 SAT]

Can you run the NPC on Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, and Mount Holyoke? on Macalester and St Olaf?
If your orchestra skills are strong enough you can apply to St Olaf for a music scholarship (demonstrate interest now - fill out “join our mailing list”, click on what they send you, read links of interest) but Gustavus, Luther, and Concordia Moorhead would also have music scholarships+academic scholarships that would be less competitive than at St Olaf and your SAT would be competitive there.

Are your parents unable or unwilling to contribute? Have they run NPCs with you and do they know what college costs?

IU Bloomington (Wells) => send an ealy app for Hutton+ Hamilton Lugar+ Arabic flagship to be combined with French minor (capstone year in Morocco)

Michigan State Definitely apply to James Madison College (indicate it as your major on the application) + Honors to maximize odds of scholarships (Alumni Distinguished Scholarship)
https://jmc.msu.edu/

Ohio State (Morrill)
UIUC
UIUC for IR is basically a safety for you academically. Is it affordable?

Washington and Lee (Johnson)
You’re competitive academically and your odds are 1 in 3 in general, though I think they use the scholarship to attract kids different from their usual demographic (=Christian/white/wealthy/from the South) so depending on how different you are from this you may or may not have an actual shot.

UNC Chapel Hill and Duke (Robertson)
I don’t think you fit the profile of the kids - the award winners had basically cured cancer.

Boston University (Trustee)
WashU (Danforth)
I’d cross them out as well as Swarthmore.

Mt. Holyoke
Wellesley
Add Bryn Mawr; look into Agnes Scott (good merit scholarships).

Swarthmore
The odd one out.

American => unlikely

George Washington => unlikely

You could also run the NPC for Tufts, Dickinson, Kalamazoo, Wooster, Denison, Grinnell, Knox, Beloit, Goucher.
Seconding Trinity TX, Southwestern, Centre (if their states’ healthcare policies are okay with you); Ole Miss Croft+Sally Barksdale is awesome academically and financially; GVSU has a great Honors College.
@tsbna44 's daughter is an International Relations/international scholar in the Honors college at College of Charleston and it’s quite good.

Wondering whether U New Mexico would be affordable (you’re qualify for a lot of scholarships).
UMN Morris would likely be quite inexpensive (no OOS tuition surcharge+ scholarships).

If you’re interested in French, look into McGill, Concordia, Bishop in Quebec. They have scholarships and McGill for sure has bursaries (financial aid).
Sciences Po Reims (“transatlantic” French/North American) campus is worth a look too, I think full tuition is sth like 15K and it’s one of the best IR colleges in Europe (Europeans are used to inexpensive or free college so that’s A LOT for them.)

2 Likes