GPA: 5.0 (weighted) 4.0 (unweighted)
Took 6 honors classes in 9th grade and 1 AP. Three APs in 10th and the rest honors (except debate). All APs in 11th. (except debate). And all IB 12th grade. (expect Debate)
50% of the APs I scored a 4 and the rest 5 and I expect to do well on the IB tests.
Extracurricular:
250 Community Service Hours
Four years of Debate and Student Gov. (leadership roles).
…From where?
Testing scores?
And depends on the college. Some have 0 merit.
No way to answer your question. Where did you apply??
What was your SAT or ACT score?
OP says in another thread, posted today, that he/she is a high school freshman.
I guess the stats above from each high school year are projections? No one can give you decent information based on projections, OP. Especially not projections that sound unrealistic.
To answer your question based on your other thread: if money is a problem for you, but you’re not low income (are you?), you’re going to need merit heavy schools. Ie, not Caltech. Take a look at the list of automatic full ride/full tuition scholarships that CC posters put together (I believe that’s pinned in this forum). Aim to get the necessary test scores for those scholarships.
Further, if staying within your family’s budget is going to be an issue, going to (public) school in California as an out-of-state student is unrealistic (you may be able to get merit offers at private schools). Especially since you live in Florida. We have Bright Futures here; you should stay and take advantage of that money.
The first thing you should know about merit aid is that it varies widely from one college to another. There are a very limited number of full-ride scholarships available for academics. Nationwide across all colleges probably a few thousand at best. None of the ivy league colleges or the very top LAC’s award any merit aid. Assuming you end up with very high standardized test scores (1500 SAT or 34 ACT or higher) and keep a very good UW GPA / class rank, merit aid awards might be as high as $30K/year or much more modest like $6K/year. My D’s admission results last year might be typical for a high stats student (36 ACT, 3.82 UW GPA, lots of APs). She received $25K from Case Western, $25K from George Washington, $15K from Kenyon, $25K from SMU but nothing from Notre Dame, Smith, U.Illinois. If you are counting on merit aid as a significant factor in paying for college you will need to target the right schools and absolutely kill your ACT/SAT scores while keep very solid grades. You also need to pay very close attention to application deadlines because it’s very common to have a 1 November deadline for the best scholarships when a college’s normal RD deadline might be 1 January
It’s too early to tell, and you may not get ANY merit.
There are colleges that give ZERO merit…like ivys, MIT, Stanford…and others…give NO merit no matter how great your stats are.
Merit is largely based on SAT and ACT scores, and you dont’ have any.
The OP mentions possibly wanting to attend college in CA but is a resident of Florida. Wonders if this will be financially feasible.
At this point, since all of,the posted stats above are guesses and not yet fact, it’s hard to say.
But I will say…if the OP wants to attend a public university in CA, it’s best to assume that she will be full pay at the out of state rate.
There are plenty of public universities in FL that offer engineering. Assuming grades are kept up…and SAT or ACT support this…Bright Futures in FL would provide a nice guaranteed start to the college payments.
Between 0 and full ride.
You should realistically expect zero scholarship money from any school, unless they happen to give merit scholarships and even then they’re usually not guaranteed (there are some mid-ranked schools that do give guaranteed merit scholarships based on meeting minimum GPA and test scores).
ok…so if you are currently a HS freshman, you would not have taken ANY of the AP tests yet…as APs are offered in the spring.
So…what’s the truth? Are you someone who has taken all these AP courses…and scored 4 and 5 on the tests…
Or are you a HS freshman who is guessing what might happen in the future?
Slightly random, and very much a conflict of interest, but OP you should look at Embry-Riddle in Daytona (look at being the operative phrase – you cannot make any decisions now).
They’re very good with merit if you have high stats – especially if you declare engineering/cs. There’s a scholarship for in-state students that’s currently $27,700/yr if you have a => 1290 CR+M/3.5+ GPA and declare an eligible major. Combined with the FL Bright Futures grant, you’ll have full tuition right there. That doesn’t factor in any extra scholarships that they offer incoming freshman for activities like FIRST Robotics, VEX, Real World Design Challenge, etc (there’s like 6-7 additional scholarships for various rocketry competitions you may have done in high school).
Also, if you’re female, you get an automatic $20,000 ($5k/yr), and if you declare something that falls under the Electrical, Computer, Systems, and Software Engineering department, there are additional scholarships available to you.
Some people in my life were shocked that I chose Riddle. But this was the most affordable school by far (they stack scholarships, so I’m actually getting a scholarship refund to use for personal expenses/travel/etc), and my experience has been fantastic so far in pretty much all aspects of college life.
Very strong option for top Florida students.