I’ve been accepted places already but want to make sure I have a very affordable option because getting much aid isn’t likely. Our EFC was around $40,000 but my mom says she can’t do much more than $18-20k a year. I make around $3k during the summer I can also put toward it. I’m from PA looking for good biomedical/bioengineering program, preferably a larger school. I have 34 ACT and 4.08 WGPA (all A-/A grades). My cheapest option right now is Pitt, I was already accepted with $5,000/year scholarship. I just want to be sure I have some other options if it comes down to it with money being a huge issue.
Olin College. They give 50% off tuition to everyone, but it’s a very small school and it’s not a safety. Do you have SAT II’s?
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
But check for (a) whether the scholarships are still available (deadlines are soon or may have passed), (b) whether the scholarships have changed since that list was made, and (c) whether the schools have your desired majors.
What is your career goal with BioMedE?
Alabama would give you free tuition plus 2500 per year if you apply NOW and quickly send scores and transcript (deadline on Dec 15). The app is super EZ and quick…no essays, no LORs, takes 5 minutes.
Bama doesn’t have BioMedE, but people with those interests often do ChemEngineering or MechEngineering, depending on their ultimate career goal. BioMedE grad schools don’t care if you do ChemE, MechE or BioMedE…they accept all of those.
If you apply and send scores and transcripts by the deadline, and choose some sort of Eng’g major, your net cost would be about $14k per year.
Bama has amazing and new STEM facilities. Over 1 million sq ft of new STEM buildings.
I’ve seen your other choices and it’s doubtful that you’ll get costs down to what your family can pay. Apply to Bama today and send scores/transcript. At least you’ll have this safety in your pocket
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UPitt instate is about $35k per year.
How much do your parents pay each year for your high school? I see you mention having a scholarship there. What is your parents’ portion? That might give you some idea of what they realistically can afford.
It looks like Stevens gives money to a lot of kids and their scholarships go up to full tuition. I have no idea how competitive it is or what the typical award is, though. Maybe others here do.
I think Kansas State and University Of Tennessee, Knoxville give out nice merit awards too, but no personal experience. I just looked at their scholarship page for someone recently.
I would take any list of undergrad Engineering schools(you could use the US News to get an idea of ranking too) and go down the list and google the school name and “Scholarships”. Some schools don’t list the requirements for the scholarships they offer, but some list the minimum requirements and some list the scores that guarantee their various scholarships.
@mom2collegekids my high school costs about $33,000 a year but I have a half scholarship so my parents pay about $15,000/year. I think my grandparents help out a little bit though. I have talked to my mom and she said she would be fine taking out some loans, but the highest she said they alone can go is about $25k. I want to keep my costs as low as possible because my two sisters will be off to college in two years and grad school is almost a requirement. I know my options I have right now are mostly out of reach pay wise, but unfortunately I wasn’t thinking like I should have when picking schools that I liked. I will definitely look at Alabama now.
Why not Penn State? Their engineering is fine as with instate rates should be affordable to you.
If you qualified for National Merit, look at URochester. The school gives 20k yearly merit scholarships to National Merit Finalists, and I know it’s a school that is really focused on the health sciences (idk about biomed but I assume it’s good too).
@insanedreamer Penn State’s COA is over $30,000 for instate students and its merit (and need-based) aid are notoriously poor.
Temple with your stats will likely be honors college and big merit, although Temple moved away from guaranteed merit with specific stats this year, so it’s not as clear as it used to be what the merit will be. Temple’s honors housing is supposedly very, very nice.
Stevens full tuition award is pretty competitive – based on the Stevens thread they give away only about 15 of those a year.
NJIT Honors could be generous. Several of the “prestige vs. full-ride” discussions here on CC specifically mention NJIT, so it appears they are pretty generous with merit to high-stats students, even to out-of-staters.
All three have BioMed Eng.
What is your career goal with BioMedE???
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my high school costs about $33,000 a year but I have a half scholarship so my parents pay about $15,000/year. I think my grandparents help out a little bit though. I have talked to my mom and she said she would be fine taking out some loans, but the highest she said they alone can go is about $25k.
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I want to keep my costs as low as possible because my two sisters will be off to college in two years and grad school is almost a requirement. I know my options I have right now are mostly out of reach pay wise, but unfortunately I wasn’t thinking like I should have when picking schools that I liked. I will definitely look at Alabama now.
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With two younger sibs to go thru college, your parents should NOT be taking out any loans! I wish @cptofthehouse still posted on CC, but she’ll tell you her difficult story. She paid and took out some loans to help her oldest child go to college of his choice. Then when the next child went to college, she was in a pickle. The money that she would have used to help pay Child #2’s college was being spent on LOAN PAYMENTS from Child #1.
When parents have more than one child to put thru college, then borrowing is very risky! Your parents have 3 to put thru college.
With your stats and eng’g interests, there is no reason for your family to go into ANY debt.
The students at Bama that have BioMedE goals are often premed or they’re interested in prosthetics or medicine development or biofeedback devices. They’ve gotten their undergrad degrees in MechE or ChemE. Some have taken add’l bio classes. Bama does have some BioMed classes, just not a major. These students have gone on to to top grad programs or med school.
Apply NOW…and send scores and transcripts immediately. the app only takes about 5 minutes. I am serious. No essays, no LORs, just answer a few questions…that’s it. Shortest app ever!
@stencils I have been looking at Temple and I used their npc and it said it would cost around $13,000 which was good. I really wanted to go a little away from home though, and Temple is like 10-15 minutes from my house (but if it comes down to it I’m totally ok going there). I think I’m going to talk to my counselor about it tomorrow and see what my options are along with it.
@mom2collegekids Thanks a lot for the insight. I told my mom it would not be a good idea to take out loans, but shes really banking on my sisters getting money for sports (they’re really good at rowing/swimming). I know it’s really hard to get good money for sports like that though so I don’t want her to have to bank on that for my sisters. I will definitely apply to Bama now, I’m not 100% sure how I’ll fit in there, but I love football so thats a plus I guess.
Over 60% of the school is OOS, so no worries about how you’ll fit in.
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but shes really banking on my sisters getting money for sports (they're really good at rowing/swimming).
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Neither of those sports are full head sports. Even if your sisters are good enough to get recruited for D1 or D2, they will receive partial awards and your parents will have to pay the rest.
the following are the only “full head count” athletic scholarship sports…
Head count scholarship sports are Football (DI FBS only), Basketball (DI men’s and women’s), Tennis (DI women only), Gymnastics (DI women only) and Volleyball (DI women only).
OP, UA has two ‘sister’ schools, UAB and UAH. UAB has a biomed degree (for all the state schools) but Mom2 is right about everything she says about UA. If your HS GPA is also 4.0 you would have 4 years of free housing at UAH, but UA offers so much for you that it would probably be the best fit for you.