We live in a small rural area of upstate NY where there are some but not a lot AP exams. Unlike our more suburban/ wealthier counterparts there are no SAT review classes, etc. available. Student is waiting for ACT results but not likely to be above a 28. Are there merit scholarships (in the northeast) where the test scores are less important? field of study to be business/ finance. Many of the ‘free rides’ seem to require a really high test score and can not be sure of that.
Read here. Not very many guaranteed merit awards in the NE for 28 ACT scores.
What is the student’s GPA?
How much merit do you need? What do you want your remaining costs to be?
The NE is not good hunting grounds for large amounts of merit for those stats, if you need your remaining costs to be modest.
Depending on what the actual test scores are (have child retest AND take the SAT as well!), it may be too early to know where the best merit will be. There may be some lesser known SUNYs that give good merit for mid 20’s ACT scores.
How much can you pay each year?
Are there any colleges your child can commute to?
Does the school have to be in the NE
Student has 3.8-3.9 GPA. Looking in NE as most of those that have these awesome full rides are pretty far away. Hoping to minimize costs and looking further afar, not considered lower income by most definitions.
Look at York College in Pennsylvania. Your kiddo will not get a full free ride, but should get some merit aid there. And for a private college, the costs are modest.
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Hoping to minimize costs
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Can you be more clear?
What do you want your minimized cost to be? $10k per year? $5k per year? more? less?
The reason I’m asking is that when people ask for merit schools, if you don’t give an idea of what you want your net costs to be, you’re going to get a lot of bad suggestions.
Some are going to recommend schools that cost $50k-60k per year, but maybe your child will get a $10k-15k award…that would leave YOUR costs to be about $40k. If you can only pay $5k per year, then those kind of suggestions will just waste your time.
Let’s say that you can pay $10k per year. Then that means that your D can borrow $5k per year and the “family” will be contributing $15k per year. Well, that $15k will only cover room, board, books, fees, and misc expenses. Your child would need a FULL TUITION award if your family can only contribute $15k per year.
So, that’s why we need more specific numbers as to how much you can spend each year.
Look at Hartwick College. http://www.hartwick.edu/admissions/scholarships-and-financial-aid/scholarships