About me:
Junior at a public school in RI
Strong academically but not outstanding- (~3.9UW GPA and 1350 on the new PSAT. 2APs.)
Depth over breadth for ECs (read: I don’t have many)
Want to go into Marketing and maybe advertising more specifically?
What I want from college:
In or near a city
SAILING TEAM
MARKETING MAJOR (of course)
Lots of opportunities for Scholarships/grants/generous financial aid if possible
Options for other business and/or design majors
Current list: (in no particular order)
Bentley University
Boston University
Syracuse
Northeastern
Penn State-UP
UPenn (I can dream, right?)
Villanova
University of Florida
Any recommendations for schools I should add or take off based on the above would be very much appreciated! Thanks so much!
@newjerseygirl98 the PSAT has a max of 1520 but the new regular SAT has a max of 1600. Not sure why. I’m not willing to spend more that 10,000 a year (so I need scholarships/aid). Thanks for your reply!
How much can your parents afford to pay for college? Have the money talk with them and run the Net Price Calculators for each college you are considering. This is as critical as the academic part of the equation, and without this information, CC can’t give you appropriate recommendations.
Just saw your previous post. Others will be of more help, but I recommend in state colleges or some colleges on these sites.
@addalinemore That is a VERY low amount to want to pay. What is your families EFC? Maybe if you are very low income, you could pay that amount at URI which of course has sailing. I would look at international business at URI which would offer great opportunities for you. They do a nice job with international partnerships. Also look at their honors program (small classes rather than lecture halls) and will provide you with a more personal education. I would also look at possibly commuting to Bryant. I’m not sure that you could pay as little as $10K a year unless you have financial hardship. I am in RI.
@bodangles@gearmom
RE: money
I do not want to be limited by money in this early of a search. I don’t see the harm in adding expensive schools to my list because you never know what you can get from any of them in terms of financial aid. If I apply and don’t get enough aid, then so be it and I don’t matriculate. Therefore, do not use money as a factor at all as far as the purposes of this thread.
You DO know, for schools like Penn State. It’s well documented.
“Penn State does not offer standard merit awards for students who fit particular profiles.”
So no merit scholarships.
“Penn State scholarships comprise 9% of the available funding for undergraduate students.”
The rest of it is mostly loans.
“Approximately 6,700 first-year students receive a University scholarship (all campuses). 35% of first-year scholarship recipients are at University Park; the remaining 65% at Penn State campuses.”
That’s about 2,345 recipients at UP. About 6% of the campus’s student population.
“Typical Penn State scholarships are between $1,500 to $3,000 per academic year.”
Even if by some miracle (6%!!) you can get one, it’s tiny compared to tuition.
Source: http://admissions.psu.edu/costs-aid/scholarships/
I apologize, I divided by ~40,000 (total) when I think I should have divided by ~10,000 (freshmen). That would be 23%. Still less than a quarter of freshmen – and those quarter get a couple thousand knocked off the tuition (~$45,000 oos).
@addalinemore You can get an idea of financial aid by using the NPC net price calculators. You would use a different kind of strategy if you needed high merit aid. I would try to have a few true financial safeties on your list. Most students in the US go to their state schools. I don’t know your EFC but please make sure you have the financial safety schools. The Boston schools are not known for their aid.
You CAN know what schools will cost you these days. Every college has a net price calculator on their website that will give you an estimated cost of attendance if you put in your family’s financial info. It is silly to waste a lot of time on unaffordable schools with those tools available.
It depends on the college. Some do, some don’t. Usually when they do show it, the merit is automatic based in on your stats. Start there to see what your price is. Then there are other ways to judge your possibility of merit aid:
Visit the web site section on affording/financial aid for the college, and carefully review what they say about merit/non-need based scholarships.
Google the Common Data Set for each school. Look for the section on financial aid, and look for the number of students getting non-need based aid – section H2A, I think. Figure out what % of the student body is getting merit aid. Say 10% get it. Then are your stats, particularly test scores, in the top 10% of the accepted student stats? And would the average award shown be enough of a cost reduction to allow you to attend? It is a rough estimation, but gives you an idea if you are in the ballpark for merit aid.
Look at the past accepted students threads out here and see what the stats are for students who say they were offered merit.
Update: EFC is $30k and my parents are willing to pay this. Ran the NPC to my safety and favorite match and reach schools. Not factoring in EFC: Safety will likely cost me nothing, the match leaves 28k, and reach leaves around 35k