<p>I know there are a few threads out there about Merit Scholarship, but I was wondering if anyone would be able to guage my situation. I qualify for no financial aid; however, I don’t want to make my parents pay a ridiculous amount for my undergraduate education. Anything more than 20,000 a year would be too much. However, at the same time I’m interested in getting out of my state (there aren’t any good publics here either) as well as private education (though, no schools with under 6,000 students…unless its in/near a big city). So where would give enough merit scholarship to cost under 20,000 a year?</p>
<p>Stats:
1480 SAT
4.2 weighted GPA
17/331 (at top 5 public in the South)
11 AP classes
EC’s pretty lame (work a little at Tech. Corp. for the past 2 years, and clubs: Technology Student Association <several awards=“”>, Future Business Leaders of America, and French Club) No real leadership</several></p>
<p>Your requirement for a school over 6000 students is going to limit you a bit. Maybe these would work:
University of Richmond
Case Western
Rice
Vanderbilt
USC
Lehigh
Emory
Carnegie Mellon
Try <a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com%5B/url%5D”>www.kiplinger.com</a>. They have a list of “best private college values.” As a general guideline, look for schools that offer a high percentage of merit aid - where your test scores would put you in the top 25%.</p>
<p>That’s okay, it’s in a big city. Just so long as it’s not 2,000 students in the middle of nowhere. Like I would never go to some small school in the middle of Alabama. And not necessarily less than 6,000. More like 4,000. The reason for this is I want to go to a school that at least has a Muslim Student Association or a Mosque of some sort. And since Rice is in Houston (huge Muslim population) it’s okay it doesn’t have that many students.</p>
<p>you have to look at the big schools, the ones with money to throw at you, the rich ones. Lehigh is one in our area that it can actually be cheaper to go there than to the community college. My son is at johnson and wales, and although we are having some problems, my son didn’t do nearly as well in his statistics as you did and he received a lot of money. i don’t know why you wouldn’t consider yourself an exceptional student. you have to look at how much the college is giving out in financial assistance, and you can bet if it’s a lot you will get some.</p>
<p>Some of the best merit aid will be at the smaller schools, and you would have a diversity hook as a Muslim. Some of the Pennsylvania schools like Lehigh; Trinity Univ in San Antonio and the Univ of Richmond will probably have money for you, there will be only a small on campus Muslim presence, but they are in cities - Rhodes College, too, it shares Hillel, Muslim and Buddhist student groups with ?Memphis State/Univ of Memphis, whatever the big state school is just down the street.</p>
<p>Another route would be state schools that might give out of state merit aid, particularly for diversity and good scores - VCU in Richmond, what state are you in?</p>
<p>Lehigh will most likely have a rather significant muslim influence since many people come from the middle east to study engineering there, and we have a rather large middle eastern population in the easton/bethlehem area. a tad off topic, but just some cultural information for you to help in decision making.</p>
<p>As to what state I’m in, it’s Tennessee, and UTK is a pretty good public, so I guess my saying “there are no good state schools here” was a bit unwarranted. However, I kind of want to get out of the South, or at least Appalachia. And as for diversity, I don’t count, because as a North African, I’m considered “caucasian”. I guess I’m somewhat of an exceptional student, but at the schools I was considering before, I’m not exceptional in the sense that they would be willing to throw money at me, because I’m not #1 at my school, have pretty mediocre ECs and don’t have a 1600. I looked at smaller schools, but I don’t want to go from what I’ve felt is an already limited Muslim community to a smaller one.</p>
<p>Also, I was just looking at what schools are out there that give merit scholarship to freshmen, but I’m actually going to be a transfer (already at UTK b/c the schools I applied to before didn’t really give me much money, and I wanted the ability to first decide what direction to pursue before spending a lot) so that probably changes things. However, I’m assuming if I’m going to get any merit scholarship (which I’m not absolutely banking on)…it’ll probably be at a school that gives out a lot to freshmen…maybe…</p>
<p>Lehigh looks like a nice school that I wasn’t considering before, so I’ll look into that, so thanks for the information</p>