I Want to Take Advantage of Free Score Reports...So Suggest Some Colleges?

College Search & Lists
1

<p>I am a junior in high school. Unforunately, my financial situation makes the college search process much, much harder than it needs to be. My family income is low, but my parent’s large sums of assets complicated things. With > than $250,000 saved in the bank, but only $10,000 per year of it able to go towards my college education and rather not-good enough stats for merit aid, this college search process will be difficult. </p>

<p>My parents don’t want to go to college farther than 5 hours by car from where we live (Rochester, NY), because more transportation costs aren’t going to help us either. I am a prospective geology or mechanical engineering major.
Here are my stats up to junior year:</p>

<p>Female
Asian
NOT first generation</p>

<p>Private school (that is kind of a feeder school of U of R and RIT)
WGPA: 96%
Class Rank: None.</p>

<p>Courseload:
AP World History-3 (self-study, not available at my school)
AP US History
AP Psychology (self-study, not available at my school) </p>

<p>Honors World History I
Honors World History II
Honors French III
Honors French IV
Honors English 11</p>

<p>152 Cultural Anthropology at Monroe Community (summer)
101 Geology at private college (junior year spring semester)</p>

<p>Senior Year will probably be:
AP US Government
Honors English 12
AP Chemistry
AP Calculus AB</p>

<p>105 History at Monroe Community (summer)</p>

<p>PSAT: 173 (58 CR, 61 M, 54 W)
SAT II: World History 680</p>

<p>Extracurricular Activities (NO Leadership!!! :():
Volunteer Genealogist/Genealogical Researcher
Volunteer Genealogy Database Producer
Envirothon Team Member
Sports Broadcasting Member
National Honors Society Member</p>

<p>Awards:
High Honors
Won an international handwriting contest (don’t know if this will have much meaning in the admissions process, but doubt that it would give me any significant boost)</p>

<p>The schools that I were thinking of were:
For engineering:
SUNY Buffalo
SUNY IT Rome/Utica
Syracuse
Alfred
NJIT
RIT</p>

<p>For geology:
SUNY Oswego </p>

<p>That’s all I can really think of. I know that I might afford SUNYs, but I’m still not sure. Please make some suggestions!</p>

2

<p>Encourage your parents to take the money out of the bank and bury it in coffee cans in the back yard. If they can get those assets off the books, college will be a lot more affordable.</p>

3

<p>Sorry, I don’t have any colleges to suggest. I do have other suggestions, though. :)</p>

<p>Fill out the FAFSA 4-caster to see what the EFC actually will be.</p>

<p>Consider community college and then transferring.</p>

<p>Look farther afield for more options - a few hundred dollars for plane tickets a couple times a year isn’t really that much in the grand scheme of college costs, and you may find schools cheap enough that the cost difference more than makes up for transportation.</p>

<p>Your classes and GPA are good, but your test scores aren’t so hot - study and see if you can bring them up and be competitive for merit money.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>In that case, which colleges far away from Rochester, NY do you recommend me to look at?
Since I’m going to major to mechnical engineering or geology, the list of colleges that I can study at are much smaller than someone who wants to study biology or english. </p>

<p>I don’t hate the idea of going to community college, but my parents and GC do. I wouldn’t mind ROTC either if I didn’t run a mile in 12 minutes or can’t do any pull ups. </p>

<p>And yeah, my parents are clinging onto their money and letting it stay in the bank :(.</p>

5

<p>My recommendations would change based on what your EFC is. Yeah, it seems that having money in the bank would make the EFC high, but you haven’t said what it actually IS. Colorado School of Mines, Rose Hulman, Case Western would all meet your academic needs. Financially, you’d have to know if your EFC is more or less than what your parents can afford to know whether to look for need-based aid or merit-based aid.</p>

6

<p>According to FAFSA4caster, my EFC is $2,317, but I doubt that it would be that low, because I entered in my financial stats in many schools’ net price calc and most of them required me to pay at least $25,000.</p>

7

<p>Bummer. In that case, I’d recommend casting a wide net, applying both to colleges that meet need and to schools with merit money. </p>

<p>If you’re the one paying, then you get to decide if you start at a CC. Your parents and GC don’t get to require you to go to a college you can’t afford. Find a CC with an articulation agreement with a four-year college, at least for backup. Debt is pain, Blair961. Anyone who says differently is selling something.</p>

8

<p>Study hard for the SAT and ACT to get the best scores possible.</p>

<p>For your free score reports, pick some safeties…like a couple of SUNYs and maybe some LACs that give good merit.</p>

<p>Are your parents self-employed?</p>

9

<p>No, my parents are not self-employed.</p>

<p>Are merit scholarships really based on merit and academics? Or do they care a lot about extracurricular activities as well. If so, do you think I need to improve my ECs? Thanks a lot everyone!</p>

10

<p>There are different kinds of merit scholarships; each has its own definition of merit. Some are pure academics, some are for community service and citizenship, and some are merit with the qualifier that you also be low-income. You need to look at scholarships of interest and see what they require, or better yet, find scholarships that you qualify for.</p>