where did you get the above information that it is changing next year… I think it is just rumor for now as indicated here
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-alabama/1938162-any-plans-for-requirement-changes-to-presidential-for-fall-2018-p1.html
Thanks again for all the suggestions! I would probably be able to contribute $10,000 a year at the max. This is why I’m looking for the most generous schools.
@annamom definitely it’s just rumor until you see it on UA’s pages, but I’ve heard it is shifting from “full tuition” to a fixed amount per year from people who are usually correct about that sort of thing.
However, until you see it for sure, I’d just say to be aware that any and all scholarships from all colleges can change from year to year as a good rule of thumb.
10K a year barely covers room and board, you need to know whether you qualify for FA (Use the NPCs). Pleny of the schools listed might give bit of merit but not to the extent you want. IE looks to be more women friendly so don’t expect a real gender bump.
UAH, with careful budgeting and a summer job, ought to be doable with a 10k budget. It’ll be a little tight, like grey-dog home between semesters, but doable. Their room and board is about 3-4k less than many schools, which really helps.
I don’t think a female in engineering is all that unusual anymore.
My DD has a 3.4 GPA UW, 4.6 W with a 34 ACT - how do we determine the true GPA when we look at these merit offers?
She has taken IB/AP courses exclusively and is STEM heavy although considering a career as a high school English teacher - another reason not to spend a lot on her education.
Due to a lot of things, I am unable to provide much funding for her college, she is going to have to come up with 100% tuition and then between her and I we can sort out room, board, books and extra costs.
@MamacatTX Her unweighted GPA, 3.4 is her true GPA for merit. You might want to see if she can nudge that up to 3.5 her senior year since that is the cut off for some of the merit packages. Consider a meaningful gap year where she combines career type activities with earning as much money as possible. Applying in the fall of her gap year for the competitive high merit packages.
Some colleges explicitly specify unweighted GPA. Others do not say, so you have to ask directly. Colleges that use weighted GPA may recalculate their own version.
@ucbalumnus That is helpful. I’ve only seen unweighted requests which seemed unfair to the students who challenged themselves with a more difficult track.
Just looked up an Alabama thread and it looks like they use your weighted GPA. @mom2collegekids
The advantage of female applicant in engineering varies a lot from school to school. There was one article about it a few years ago. For some schools, it does not matter at all. In certain school, it is a little bit easier to be admitted. While for my D’s school, it may be not easier to be admitted but they offer good merit scholarships to attract the admitted female students to enroll. So you do need to pick the right school with that policy, and of course, with her stat on top of the admission range. By the way, my D’s school has ~25% female students in engineering.
Might depend on major and school. Computer engineering is about 5% female at my school according to the most recent numbers I have, which are from a couple years ago. Biological is among the highest, at about 30% female. No engineering major is majority-female at my school, unless things have significantly changed since those numbers came out.
So it doesn’t seem like being a female will help me very much for merit aid from colleges. Does anyone know of any specific scholarships I can apply to for women in STEM? I really appreciate all the responses I’ve gotten!
I think that as an incoming freshman, you might find gender aligned aid to be a little softer than strict merit. IE you might see more aggressive grant aid than, say, the other 75% of applicants.
While we remain bullish on UAH, I recommend again investigating (applying to) Rose Hulman, Illinois Inst of Tech, and Clarkson - AS LONG AS you have one or two financial sure things available too. I know there are more, but NMSU, UNM, UAH, UAlabama, and about half a dozen universities between North Dakota and Texas are likely to be around 12k cost of attendance automatically or with very little luck. That’s 10k a year plus a job or small loan. Feasible, IMO.
Our D got a strong enough offer from Rose that we would have supported her if she chose it. In the end there were other ABET schools she liked better. I think RHIT was her 4th choice.
I’m going to start looking into all of the schools you have mentioned. Hopefully by fall I’ll have the official list of all the schools I’m applying to.
Cooper Union?
@CourtneyThurston has said that Embry-Riddle has additional aid for women. There is the Society of Women engineers that gives scholarships. There are some local scholarships that were available to women in the Orlando area who attend UCF, Florida Tech, Rollins and one other school.
If you find a school you like, look on its financial aid page and there might be some available at the school or locally.
There are scholarships just for women in this list but also the college you choose might also have scholarships for female students which would be easier to win:
https://sites.ed.gov/whhbcu/2013/11/21/scholarship-opportunities-for-minority-students
Yes, Riddle has an automatic $20k scholarship for women. So $5k/yr. Total COA is about 52k/yr though so it doesn’t really make much of a difference for affordability.
RPI. I know a young woman who applied to RPI at the last minute and she got an amazing scholarship. She beat out the #2 Asian male in her class who is also going there. Her belief is that it was because she was female. Graduates from RPI go on to get great jobs and although Troy, NY may not seem appealing on first glace, it grows on you and students I’ve known have had a great experience there. The hockey games are a blast.