@naturecreative: I am also Catholic & I understand your desire to be in a like minded faith based environment. But you are limiting yourself too much if you need nearly 100% of your college cost of attendance covered by financial aid.
A score of 32 on the ACT is worthy of praise. You are highly intelligent. Do not be afraid to grow during your college years. If you want others to accept you as a Catholic, then you should be open to accepting others of different, or even no, faiths. College is a time to grow & to learn & to appreciate others.
With respect to your financial situation, you should be willing to borrow $5,500 per year & to work part time on campus through a work study program to help pay for room & board & books.
As an individual of conservative beliefs, you are blessed to be in Alabama.
@Publisher Thank you so much! I understand what you’re saying and I am definitely blessed to be in Alabama. I don’t really care if I go to a Catholic school or not, as long as there are people there who are as excited about the faith as I am. I would like to apply to 1 or 2 Catholic colleges, but especially in the south most of the schools I know about have Catholic communities, I just want to get more information about them and would rather go to a more conservative Catholic school. That being said, in no way am I trying to put myself in a box and not be open to learning about different ideas and beliefs. I am not going to college just for a degree, if I was, I would just commute to UAB where I have free tuition! One of the things I am looking forward to most in college is the experience of meeting new people and learning. I LOVE TO LEARN! I am just so excited lol. I just need people that are Catholic as well so I can have a group on campus where I can grow in my faith with my peers, as it is very important to me.
As for the financial side of it, I definitely want to get a job in college and work as much as I can without taking away from my school. However, I am not taking out loans. If all of my other options don’t work out I still have UAB and from what people have told me, what I’ve researched, and from my personal finance class, debt, no matter how small, is not worth it.
@prezbucky I have researched almost all of those colleges, and their financial aid. As I’ve said, I am great with non-Catholic colleges, there just needs to be a strong Catholic community.
Is that because their income is relatively low (below, say, $50K/year)? If so, then you should be eligible for large need-based grants. However, the schools that offer the most generous n-b aid are almost all highly selective … and you’d probably consider almost all of them quite liberal.
(https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2017-09-21/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need)
The only Catholic colleges that claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need are Boston College, College of the Holy Cross, Georgetown University, Thomas Aquinas College, and the University of Notre Dame. 3 of those 5 are Jesuit schools. You might like Thomas Aquinas College, but it’s in California.
Many other Catholic Colleges probably won’t be as generous with need-based aid. Franciscan University of Steubenville, for example, meets the full demonstrated financial need of < 20% of their students; on average, they meet about 62%.
At most colleges, merit and n-b aid don’t “stack”. Merit scholarships reduce the amount of assessed need. I’m not aware of any Catholic colleges that guarantee big (full tuition/full ride) merit scholarships for qualifying stats. At John Carroll, for example, the biggest merit award seems to be $25K. I think you’ll find that is a fairly typical upper limit for peer private colleges. If you can get an award that big from a Catholic school with a relatively low sticker price (Steubenville?), and if your family can help a bit, then you might be able to close the gap with “self help” (loans, work-study, summer jobs).
Your best bet might be an in-state public university (possibly one within commuting distance to save on R&B).
I was trying to post a link to a page listing schools with large scholarships, but the site isn’t letting me.
Anyway, on that list were a bunch of the schools mentioned in this thread, as well as this one:
Saint Louis University
It is Catholic and offers some pretty big scholarships. It is outside the 300-mile range, but the city has direct interstate service, so it’s probably fairly easy to get to. Interstate miles fly by. Anyway, it might be worth a look.
Although it does not meet your geographic preference, Seattle University (Seattle, Washington) is a Jesuit Catholic university of about 4,600 undergraduates & 3,000 graduate students. The Sullivan Leadership Award offers full tuition, room & board for four years to nine freshmen each year. Located in a gorgeous, scenic area of Seattle, it meets your other qualifications. To some, the wealth of Seattle can be overwhelming initially, but most find it to be a motivating force to do well in college. This is an outstanding undergraduate school with kind, intelligent, hardworking students.
P.S. The natural beauty visible from campus is astounding. A few hours drive by car gets one to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada & a ferry can take one with or without a car to Vancouver Island & Victoria. The natural beauty is so overwhelming that you may want to stay.
Driving south from Seattle is Oregon & the Oregon Coast. If you want to have a religious experience, this may do the trick !
I don’t have specific college suggestions that match your criteria, but I would suggest that if you go to a non-sectarian college with a strong Catholic presence that you may want to ask in advance if there is wellness freshman housing available. You could also check with the Newman Center on campus to see if they can suggest living arrangements (or possibly a roommate) that you would be comfortable with.
Though the school is very far away from you, it seems like Hillsdale College in Michigan may be a good fit especially if your interested in liberal arts schools. Though Hillsdale is technically unaffiliated, this is used to there advantage by allowing many christian presences to thrive on campus.
This will vary. Sometimes “Christian” means “ecumenical”, which includes Catholics. However, sometimes “Christian” means “evangelical Protestant specifically”, which excludes Catholics.
Belmont appears to be “Christian” in the ecumenical sense, so it could be a potential fit. The Newman Center guide estimates that 1,000 of 7,000 undergraduates at Belmont are Catholic. In addition, Belmont is located near Vanderbilt, which has an estimated 2,600 (of 12,000) Catholic students. So there appears to be a fairly large local Catholic student community. Furthermore, there is a local Newman Center serving both Vanderbilt and Belmont, with student leadership boards for both schools. I’m sure they could put you in touch with the Belmont student board if you had questions about Catholic student life there. http://www.newmanconnection.com/locations/find http://www.universitycatholic.org/student-leadership http://www.universitycatholic.org/from-our-co-presidents-at-belmont
Belmont’s 25%-75% ACT range is 24-29, so your 32 is quite high by their standards. It’s probably worth applying there to see if you can win a merit scholarship, which could go beyond free tuition. For example, the Belmont “Presidential Scholarship” is a full ride (full tuition, room, board, books, and fees for four academic years) awarded to five students with ACT of 30 or above. http://www.belmont.edu/sfs/scholarships/merit.html
You might also consider applying to Vanderbilt. Their admissions are far more competitive, with ACT 32-35. The chances of admission are low for everyone. However, Vanderbilt is a wealthy school that offers generous need-based financial aid to those that do get in.
@Corbett Thanks so much! That really helps me. Belmont says that there are required courses on the Old and New Testament. Would these be more anti-catholic or just so Christians can discuss the Bible whether they are Protestant or not? My guess is the latter since you said they were ecumenical.
I have checked out Vanderbilt, but the low admission rate scares me, and I don’t know if I could get a lot of money even if got accepted. I am homeschooled, don’t have any AP’s, and have a 3.95 UWGPA. I don’t really know if they would like that. My EC’s are average, as well as my leadership positions (I think). The only thing I think that could work in my favor is that I am a grade ahead of most of my peers. I am with an accredited homeschool group if that helps.
It looks like Belmont is Christian but non-denominational, so they should have no anti-Catholic ax to grind. But I have no connection to Belmont, and can only guess. Get in touch with some Catholic students at Belmont via the local Newman Center, they seem approachable:
Do you understand the difference between merit-based aid and need-based aid?
A school like Belmont gives out money for high academic achievement (i.e. merit-based aid). They need to do that to attract high-scoring students. Belmont would tend to give a student with high test scores more aid than one with low scores – even if they have the same financial need. You have high test scores by Belmont standards, so you could qualify for merit-based aid if admitted.
A school like Vanderbilt is different – they have no problem attracting high-scoring students, and they have a lot more money. So they primarily give out money on the basis of financial need (i.e. need-based aid). Vanderbilt would tend to give a student with high need more aid than one with low need – even if they have the same test scores. You have high need by Vanderbilt standards, so you could qualify for need-based aid if admitted.
The admission rate at Vandy is very low, so yes, the odds are against you. On the other hand, they are stacked against everyone else too; you have no more reason to be scared than anyone else. Your background is probably quite different from those of most Vanderbilt applicants, but that could actually a plus, because they want some diversity in their class. The odds would improve significantly if you applied via Early Admission. This would commit you to attending Vandy if accepted, but you could back out of that commitment if the financial aid was insufficient.
I second Franciscan University of Steubenville for someone who wants a a seriously Catholic environment. For example, they fired a professor in 2017 for being insufficiently pro-life.
@Corbett What constitutes as high financial need? Also, can you back out of Early Decision if you can’t go there for financial reasons? I did not know that.
Each college defines “need” more or less as it sees fit.
Run the online net price calculators on any school that interests you.
The College Board site will save your data so you can run it on all participating schools. https://professionals.collegeboard.org/higher-ed/financial-aid/netprice
At rich, selective schools with the best n-b aid, anyone with a family income of about $50K-$60K, or less, has most costs covered (other than a few thousand per year allocated to “self help”). These schools offer diminishing amounts of FA for family incomes up to about $200K-$220K. But again, each one sets its own definition of “need”. Schools consider the number of children, the parents’ ages, financial assets, and other factors.
At other schools, the income ceiling for n-b aid may be much lower.