good private school scholarships for a 30 ACT and valedictorian?

Paying for College
1

<p>Are there any good scholarships for this kind of score?</p>

2

<p>are you a senior?</p>

3

<p>Junior, right now…just seeing what I can get if my act scores don’t improve</p>

4

<p>It depends… if your grades are good, look around for private schools where (1) your stats fall near the top of their range (above the top of their 50% range), and (2) they offer merit aid (you can see on the college web sites). If you are “geographically diverse” (from far away), that can help. My daughter got a merit scholarship that covered about 30% of her annual tuition/room/board expenses at Dickinson with this approach. And she was not a valedictorian (only 3.6 GPA, but competitive private school, took the hardest course load, and had great ECs and an excellent interview). She has had a great experience there, loved the school.</p>

5

<p>Do you qualify for need based aid or do you need merit aid?</p>

6

<p>both…but, I don’t really know where to start</p>

7

<p>Start by running calculators to see if your family can afford it’s EFC. If it can you should focus on colleges that meet 100% of need. They are in general top colleges and you should be a viable candidate at some of them. Probably not Harvard et al without a higher score, but several of the lower ranked schools that meet need.</p>

<p>Calculators are on this site, College Board and college web sites.</p>

8

<p>Yes, I think you will be able to find some schools that will be likely to offer you scholarships.
A few questions that could help people guide you–what area(s) of country are you interested in? Are you willing to go anywhere? Liberal Arts schools in the midwest, especially slightly-less well-known ones (good but not super elite) seem like they will be your best bet.</p>

<p>What are you interested in studying?</p>

<p>What can your family afford to pay/are they willing to pay? </p>

<p>The advice about targeting schools where you will be in the top of the applicant pool is good advice. If you are mid-range or below, you might have a shot at getting in, but generally not for merit.</p>

<p>Explore collegeboard web site, there’s a college match-maker that might help you narrow down a bit, then you can look at the individual college web sites & learn more (or ask about specific schools & scholarship possibilities here on the college search forum.</p>

9

<p>PS if money is a big concern, be sure to also consider your state ‘flagship’ university. It may be the most affordable option and it is good to have a financial and academic safe bet.</p>

10

<p>I will tell you how we went about it. We looked for schools with the major my S was interested in. The list was big. Then we started looking for specific things S wanted at the school and offered in his major. We made sure the school offered merit money. We still had over 40 schools. Then I looked at S’s stats and compared then to the top 25% of accepted students. After all that we still had over 25 schools but S whittled it down to about 12. He ended up applying to about 8 schools where he was in the top 25%, and 4 where he was in the middle 50%. He got offered merit money from 7 of the ones where he was in the top 25%. The merit offers varied from about 8K to almost full tuition.</p>

11

<p>Still some good info here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

12

<p>^^mamom, good post. Very clear and succinct about what it takes to find merit aid.</p>