You’ve already received a lot of great suggestions, but I am going to suggest William and Mary. It is a mid size public school (about 7500 undergrads) that functions and feels more like a private liberal arts school. It is known for its rigorous curriculum and has excellent programs in the social sciences. Because it’s public, the cost of attendance even for out of state will be under $75k without merit aid. They started awarding $10k a year merit to out of state Monroe Scholars - I think that’s about 10 percent of the incoming students and is the equivalent of an honors program. There is another scholarship program called William and Mary scholars that has been earmarked for minority and first Gen students. They have reworded the info about those scholarships on their website so as not to run a foul of the Trump administration’s dei policies, but I think in practice it is still used for diversity purposes.
Given this, many of the suggestions aren’t - in fact, many are the complete opposite. . A Kalamazoo could work, Macalester, Occidental out in Los Angeles. You should check Goucher in Maryland and Franklin &Marshall in Pennsylvania for some urban feel.
As noted earlier, Pitt and Charleston are urban. UVM could work too.
And GW (maybe too big) and American U.
U of Puget Sound (Washington) is a bit of a walk but city accessible. It’s a nice campus.
Corrected this thank you!
I said the same about Bard. I think this is in flux over the last few years. There are parts of the linked page that says institutional aid is need based but the description for individual scholarships like the Bard Scholarship indicates merit based. We applied this cycle and would have had to do the CSS to be considered for institutional aid. The latest Common Data Set on Bard’s website is 2022-2023 (so students for the 2021-2022 year) and suggests 11 kids were determined to have no financial need and the non-need based award averaged around 21K, which helps but is not big merit when tuition is upwards of 85k. I’d be interested to see later CDS reports.
Merit scholarships are usually found at schools that:
- are significantly less selective than the most selective schools that you can get admitted to, and
- which offer sufficiently large merit scholarships.
In other words, you need to look at schools that are likely or safety for admission only, and which offer sufficiently large merit scholarships, although you should realize that, in some cases, the merit scholarships may be reaches even though admission may be likely or safety.
Movement Advancement Project | Snapshot: LGBTQ Equality by State may be helpful with respect to state laws on LGBTQ matters. This can be an issue even if the school does as much as it can to be friendly and inclusive on such matters (for example: https://www.oberlin.edu/center-intercultural-engagement/ohio-law-and-campus-restrooms ).
Lots of great suggestions above. I would definitely do a deep dive into Clark, Smith, and Mount Holyoke since you have plenty of time before you need to finalize your list.
Clark is located in Worcester, where they just passed a resolution to be a trans and gender diverse sanctuary city.
Yes, Clark University in Worcester- forgot to include that on the list of ones D25 applied to and was awarded merit. Definitely one to consider!
You might want to check University of Delaware. It does not feel like a large school. @Mjkacmom your thoughts
University of Denver could be a good fit for you. Their Net Price Calc allows you to enter your gpa and test scores and you’ll see your likely merit aid up front. They are 15 min by light rail to Denver, which is a pretty big city (the light rail stop is right in campus). The city of Denver is also very accepting of the LGBTQ community, not sure about the university only because it’s not something we looked into. They have an exceptional international relations program and a great honors program too. Worth a look!
If Smith and MoHo work, then Scripps deserves consideration too, since you already like CMC and they’re literally next door neighbors and very interconnected within the consortium, and Scripps is at least as likely to give merit if not more so.
Agree with the Reed suggestions on possible fit, but it would be full-pay; Lewis & Clark could be a good alternative with more merit potential.
URochester could be worth a look. Agree with looking at Brandeis too.
The SUNY schools can be quite affordable OOS, but most of them aren’t urban. SUNY Albany is larger but urban and still under 13K undergrads, located in the state capital which can be a big plus, and has a very good honors college that could provide a “smaller school within a larger school” feel. It’s also very diverse (42% white, 18% Black, 16% Hispanic, 8% Asian)
You haven’t said which category of POC you are, but would Howard be worth considering? Very LGBTQ+ friendly, prestigious, gives merit, great for pre-law.
Not sure if you’d want to consider the more progressive urban Jesuit schools, like Fordham, LMU, and U of San Francisco. They’re quite queer-friendly generally but you’d have to assess for yourself whether they’d work for you.
Good luck sifting through all the suggestions!
My student did not attend Bard, but her financial aid letter in 2022 included $28,000 in merit aid. I think it’s just semantics.
OP for your full awareness (regarding finances) please see below if you are inclined to consider Bard. While Bard does not match your desire for an urban setting it does check the box for almost all of your other asks. The kids on campus also give off a very urban vibe.
So that is an example of merit awarded in the past and this is a current example of merit being awarded this application cycle…
This is the future commitment to offer merit directly from Bard…
Good luck OP!