List of good colleges that offer automatic merit scholarships?

Paying for College
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<p>GPA: 4.19 (weighted), 3.81 (unweighted)
Ranking: 36/730
SAT Reasoning Test: 2270 (760 CR, 770 M, 740 W) [Superscore: 2300, with 770 W]
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<p>Senior Schedule:
0 AP Physics B
1 AP Spanish
2 AP Calculus BC
3 Honors Principles of American Democracy
4 Honors Art History
5 Senior Board
6 AP Literature</p>

<p>Community Service
• 2011: Teacher Assistant at Lawrence Middle School: Assisted teachers and students and organized paperwork for staff members (12 hours total)
• 2011: Volunteer at Hsi Lai Temple: Annual Buddhist Ceremony (16 hours total)
• 2011: Volunteer at Tree People (Planting Trees, 4 hours total)
• 2012: Volunteer at Heal the Bay (Beach Clean-up, 4 hours total)
• 2012: Volunteer at Heavenly Pets Cat Shelter (8 hours total)
• 2012-present: Volunteer at Gift Shop, Post-Partum, and Patient Care departments at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center: Working closely with the manager and customers to improve the shop, shadowing and assisting doctors and nurses, and helping patients (170+ hours total)
• 2012-present: Leader and Side-walker at Ride On Therapeutic Horsemanship: Teaching horseback riding to individuals with disabilities (28 hours total)
• 2013-present: Knitting Teacher and Arts and Crafts Teacher at Police Activity League Supports, sponsored by the Los Angeles Police Department: Teaching arts and crafts classes for children, Knitted baby hats for newborn babies at the Northridge Hospital (50+ hours total)
• 2013: Volunteered at Justice Elementary School’s Bake Sale and Book Fair: Helped sell baked goods and books to parents and students (4 hours)
• 2013: Volunteered at Woodlake Elementary School’s Monster Mash: Arranged the Halloween games for students to play, organized and handed out prizes (6 hours)</p>

<p>Honors/Awards
• 2010: Future Star Award for Girls Varsity Golf
• 2010: 2nd Place Regionals for Girls Varsity Golf
• 2013: Certificate of Merit for Violin (Advanced Level)
• 2013: AP Scholar with Honor
• 2013: Presidential Volunteer Award (200+ hours)
• 2013: CFGL Essay Award</p>

<p>Activities:
[Co-founder, Treasurer, and Main Programmer], Robotics Club (10,11,12)
[Publicity and Art Director], Senior Board
[Art Director], Sophomore + Junior Council
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School Varsity Girl’s Golf Team (9th grade)
CSUN Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (9-12)
Korean Language Institution
Give and Take Book Club
St. Joseph Korean Catholic Church Youth Group
Violin lessons (13 years)
Piano lessons (6 years)</p>

<p>List of Private Colleges:</p>

<p>1) Amherst (reach)
2) Brown (reach)
3) CMC (reach)
4) Washington U St. Louis(reach)
5) Davidson (match/reach)
6) University of Rochester (match)
7) USC (match)
8) Vassar (match)</p>

<p>9) Macalester (safety)
10) Pepperdine (safety)
11) Muhlenberg College (safety)
12) Sarah Lawrence College (safety)
13) Willamette College (safety)</p>

<p>UC’s:</p>

<p>UCB
UCLA
UCSD
UCSB
UCI
UCD</p>

<p>I’m kind of worried about applying to Macalester, Pepperdine, Muhlenberg, Sarah Lawrence, and Willamette College because I don’t know if they are truly safety schools if I don’t have all costs covered. Do these schools offer automatic merit scholarships? If not, what are some similar safeties that do? Please and thank you!</p>

<p>P.S. It will be extremely hard to pay for college if I don’t have at least half of my tuition paid :confused: I think my family’s income is a little lower than 100k, so I think I have to rely more on merit scholarships.</p>

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<p>Question is, how much in merit aid do you need to make the schools affordable? How much can you and your parents contribute each year? If you need full-tuition or full-ride there are threads with automatic merit stickied at the top of this forum but the schools aren’t as highly ranked as the ones you have listed. Will you not qualify for need based aid? Amherst and Brown only have need based aid, no merit. Schools use merit to improve the caliber of students that attend. Most of these schools don’t need to do that, at least not with large automatic merit aid.</p>

<p>Ok, you added the 1/2 tuition statement but the other 1/2 tuition at USC and UCSB your family would have to cover is quite a different amount so a dollar figure for what your family can afford to pay would be more meaningful.</p>

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<p>The list of automatic merit schools is pinned at the top of the forum.</p>

<p>I don’t believe the colleges you are specifically asking about as safeties provide automatic merit. They will provide some packages to a limited number of students they wish to attract. Some of them, or all don’t guarantee to meet need either.</p>

<p>Have you run the net price calculator for the UC’s and learned what your family will be expected to contribute? If that is affordable then you should have safeties there. If your GC thinks you will be guaranteed to get into one of those then you are good, otherwise you will need to add another UC or two for safety.</p>

<p>You were advised in your other thread to run the Net Price Calculator for each of these colleges to see the amount you are expected to pay. You might get extra merit aid from some of them that isn’t reflected in the calculator, though. But you won’t know until you apply. If Amherst or Brown isn’t affordable according to the NPC, then probably there is no reason to apply because there will be no additional aid.</p>

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<p>Have you run the net price calculator on every school’s web site to see whether they should be affordable on need-based aid, or if you need merit scholarships?</p>

<p>A school can only be a safety if it is certainly affordable on need-based aid, or with guaranteed-for-stats scholarships. Muhlenberg and Sarah Lawrence consider “level of applicant’s interest”, so they are not safeties in any case.</p>

<p>What are you considering studying? Your college list includes some colleges that are rather different from each other.</p>

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<p>Are you really going to apply to ALL of those schools?</p>

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<p>9) Macalester (safety)
10) Pepperdine (safety)
11) Muhlenberg College (safety)
12) Sarah Lawrence College (safety)
13) Willamette College (safety)</p>

<p>No, those aren’t safeties if you’re not sure that you have costs covered. Think about it. How can a school be a safety if you get accepted but can’t afford to attend.</p>

<p>Your dad was unemployed for awhile and is now reemployed. What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay each year? Your parents may be recuperating from the time your dad was unemployed.</p>

<p>Safeties won’t be like your top chosen schools. If they were, then they’d quickly become too popular and then they wouldn’t be safeties. </p>

<p>You need to find out from your parents how much they’ll pay. If they say that they can only pay $15k per year, then you will need a FULL tuition scholarship so that their $15k will pay for room, board, books, fees. A half tuition or half COA scholarship won’t be enough.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-15.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-15.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>The application deadline for USC for scholarship consideration is December 1. I hope you have that application ready to submit.</p>

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<p>^^^ The application for many of the competitive (and automatic) scholarships is December 1. You need to get to work NOW!!!</p>

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<p>Your parents will pay half of what? Your sticker price for the UCs in state will be considerably less than what it would be for some of those private schools where the COAs are in the mid $60K range. Can your parents afford $30K which means all your state schools are finanical safeties and good goes, or does it mean they can afford $15 which means that if your EFC and NPCs don’t match in terms of what the schools think they should be paying, then you have to get some serious merit money. The problem with school merit money is that they reduce need first, so they are often integrated into the aid award, and you end up with just the same acost atmount as the full need. So you have to get enough merit to “swallow that need” amount and bring down the price to what is affordable to you.</p>