How can I do scholarship and admissions wise with my stats?

Paying for College
1

<p>I’m a high School Junior and I will more than Likely Graduate with a 3.51 GPA
I have a 31 ACT (Which will be Improved) And got a 162 PSAT during my Sophomore Year ( no prep i just took it on a whim, did not take it junior year but am applying for National Merit with my SAT scores ) and will be taking the SAT in June</p>

<p>Grades: AP courses have an asterisk
8th (we had the option of two high school credit courses)
B,B</p>

<p>9th:
A,A,A,A,A,A,A,A</p>

<p>10th:
A,B,B,B,B,C,C*</p>

<p>11th:
A<em>,A</em>,C*,A,B</p>

<p>12th (Planned)
A<em>, A</em>, A<em>, A</em>, A*, A, A. And two College Courses which should be A’s but will not affect my HS GPA</p>

<p>EC’s
Trumpet Player</p>

<p>Beta Club: Headed numerous committees, participated at state events, have participated in since 5th grade</p>

<p>Christian Club: Have helped out with various drives and charities</p>

<p>Academic Team: Made history for school freshman year by qualifying for State competition in two subject areas (a freshman had never qualified in even one subject area). Champions at district level in subject area numerous times. Made it to state with Quizbowl Team junior year</p>

<p>Accepted into a leadership club at my school</p>

<p>Logged 150+ service hours by helping around my community and by helping at summer programs for young kids</p>

<p>Accepted into the Commonwealth Honors Academy program at Murray State University (in Kentucky) </p>

<p>Received an Audition in Creative Writing for the Kentucky Governors School for the Arts</p>

<p>I don’t intend to apply to any Ivys or anything.
More than likely I’ll be applying to:
-University of Louisville
-University of Tennessee
-Vanderbilt University
-Purdue University
-University of Kentucky </p>

<p>All for Biomedical Engineering or something of the like.</p>

<p>I really just want to get an idea of where I stand as far as Scholarships and Admissions go. I’m more concerned about the types of scholarships I can get (my goal is to not take out any student loans if I can avoid it). </p>

<p>Thanks for any help you can give!</p>

2

<p>Can your parents pay anything, or do you need a full ride?</p>

<p>Before you get too attached to Purdue, read the website carefully about aid for out-of-state students. It may not be worth it to keep it on your list.</p>

3

<p>What do you mean by “I’m applying to NM with my SAT scores?” </p>

<p>If you were sick on PSAT day then your GC had to contact NMCorp, and then you would have taken/submitted SAT scores from last Dec. </p>

<p>Who told you that you can submit a June SAT for National Merit??? That wouldn’t be fair. That’s 8 months after everyone else took the PSAT. I highly doubt that you can use a June score in lieu of the junior year PSAT. Why didn’t you take the PSAT as a junior???</p>

4

<p>How much will your parents pay each year? If you don’t know, ask. </p>

<p>Your stats are low for Vandy. Even if you raise your ACT by a few pts, merit would be questionable. </p>

<p>With higher scores, you’d get about $10k in merit from Purdue, but the remaining costs would be about $30k for your parents to pay each year.</p>

<p>Oh, just saw the GPA. That will keep you from getting merit at a few schools. I think Purdue requires about a 3.8 GPA for merit. And, you’d need that long before you graduate.</p>

<p>I doubt Vandy will accept you with that GPA and those Cs… No way would you get any merit.</p>

<p>What is your GPA at the end of junior year?</p>

5

<p>My parents can pay for a bit, it hint I have about 1000 in my college fund and they can probably contribute abit more of need be and I’m saving up a bit myself. I’ll also have about 2000 dollars in KEES money maybe more.</p>

<p>I’m not really all the attached to Purdue, due to cost reasons and accreditation transfer issues, but distill like to go.</p>

6

<p>“Parents paying a bit” tells us NOTHING. will they pay $5k per year? 10k per year? 25k per year? WHAT??</p>

7

<p>Mom2CK</p>

<p>I’m applying for national merit with my SAT scores because I didn’t take the PSAT this year. I’ve already contacted National Merit about it all, I just have to send my SAT scores to them in june, so long as its a score from the 2012-2013 school year they count it.sI didn’t take the PSAT as a junior because I had never been told of the fact that you had to take the PSAT junior year for NM.</p>

8

<p>I apologize for not telling you everything so far as my parents go. I’d say they would probably be contributing around 5K per year, all depending on what type of scholarships I can get.</p>

9

<p>Well, that is new for NMCorp. There are a whole bunch of kids who sure would have benefited from that. In the past, the GC had to call soon after PSAT date and then the student had to take the SAT in Dec. Having kids take the SAT 8 months later really is strange.</p>

<p>Anyway. If your parents can only pay $5k per year, then you need mega-huge scholarships. You need at least full tuition or more. </p>

<p>Room, board, books, fees, etc, can cost about $15k per year. If you don’t get a lot more than free tuition, then I don’t see how you’d cover costs without student loans.</p>

10

<p>Yeah I figured I wouldn’t be able to do it, but it was always my goal. Thanks for the advice though!</p>

11

<p>I never said that you couldn’t do it. My point is that your choice of schools may not work since you need so much in merit money. If you get a 32+ or you make NMF, there may be some affordable schools.</p>

<p>What is your goal with BME? That isn’t a necessary undergrad major.</p>

12

<p>BME is sort of just my general idea as of now (I’m REALLY Asorry if I’m being frustrating here), I’d like to go into research for a university or company, maybe working in pharmaceuticals (in which case I’d more than likely go into BioChem or Just pure chemistry)</p>

13

<p>I agree with the Vanderbilt thoughts, merit scholarships with them are very competitive. Try to reach out to your state/nearby OOS schools about scholarships and your financial situation. And definitely bring that GPA up!</p>

14

<p>Thanks Range,</p>

<p>Unfortunately ( assuming I’ve not made a calculating mistake) that’s the maximum unweighted GPA I can make, so there’s not much chance to bring it up</p>

15

<p>You’re not being frustrating. :slight_smile: We just needed more info. </p>

<p>BiomedE is fine, I just didn’t want you to think that you “had” to major in that for various career goals. </p>

<p>Careers in pharm research or similar usually require a grad degree, so the undergrad major doesn’t have to so specific. Chem, biochem, and some other majors would also work. </p>

<p>The BME major isn’t offered everywhere, so since you need huge merit, you don’t want to limit yourself only to schools with biomedE.</p>

16

<p>Yes we’ve looked at that. I live in KY (if you hadn’t already figured that out) so we’ve been looking at schools that fall under the Academic Common Market, one of the reasons were looking at The University of Tennessee. So we’re exploring And looking around to see what we can get.</p>

17

<p>Just to let you know…If you take advantage of the ACM, then you don’t get scholarships as well. You’d be expected to pay the full instate costs. UTenn likely has an instate COA of about $20k per year. You’d be quite short if your parents will only pay about $5k per year. </p>

<p>Plus, UTenn isn’t generous with merit anyway.</p>

<p>You’d be better off finding schools that will give you huge merit that covers at least the entire tuition rate (instate and OOS).</p>

<p>What will your GPA be at the end of THIS year?</p>

18

<p>Okay thanks! I hadn’t really heard anything like that about the ACM</p>

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