Hi I’m trying to help my senior daughter narrow down her choices. She wants to major in biochemistry, but her career goal is health related social work. She is a bit nervous about the elitism of the Ivies and Stanford, and wants a medium sized school with good liberal arts as well as lab sciences, preferably in or near a city, and with a decent sized non- white population. ( at least 5% black and no more than 60% white).
Stats: 4.5 GPA, 35 ACT, 1570 SAT, 5 perfect AP scores and was just named a National Merit semifinalist.
Anyone with experience at these schools, especially if you are either African American or in biology or chemistry? Good financial aid would also help; we’re in the $150,000 income range.
Oh…as for extra curric activities: debate all 4 years (co-captain this year) , p.e. senior leader, 4 years community service club (leader junior and senior years); 4 years orchestra, 4 years stage crew, lights
With her wonderful grades & test scores, there are plenty of places that would give her loads of merit aid (she won’t be getting a dime of merit from most of the schools u have listed…“need” aid is a possibility at some). The problem will be finding some schools that will give her merit aid that also fit all of her other criteria. For example, Florida International U would probably cost her less than $15,000 per year. It’s in Miami, & has a very diverse student body, but is not medium-sized.
It just announced a great financial aid program for families earring less than 200k/year. Rice is STEM oriented but has good social science and liberal arts offerings as well. It is a great place for happy nerds. Houston is the most diverse city in the country. Rice does not have Greek life but has inclusive residential colleges instead. Rice offers merit aid as well as need based aid.
@crankylibrarian I would second taking a hard look at both Emory and Rice as they both fit the dynamic your daughter is looking for. I am the African American parent of a Freshman Chemistry major with minors in Biology and Math at Howard University. My daughter is on a full ride scholarship and is loving the school and Washington D.C. (the school is about 2 miles from the White House and many other attractions in the D.C. area). My daughter has been doing very well in her classes and she is already getting opportunities (just finished applying to work in a research lab on campus which she will probably get) along with joining a few clubs. She is also going to a job/internship fair this week that has a litany of employers and research opportunities available and she is angling to get her Summer 2019 opportunities lined up. The scholarship she is on has an income kicker (at $150,000 or more, student’s family is required to pay 1/4 of the tuition). Your daughter has to be one of the top 20 African American standardized test takers in America so she has so many options. Good luck in your search.
Thanks for your suggestions; We have not looked at Rice or Emory!. I should clarify that at the moment she is apprehensive about ALL of these schools except for Howard. I pushed her to visit Stanford, Yale and Vassar. You are right of course that we are better off financially than many, but she has met kids through debate from super wealthy, super competitive high schools, and she doesn’t want to be in a cut-throat environment with a ton of super rich people.She liked that Vassar claim to be more collaborative than the Ivies, but I’d like to know how accurate that is.
UNC is a top notch school with a diverse student body and down to earth vibe – not elitist. It has 16k undergrad so might be bigger than she’s looking for, but the campus is pretty compact and well designed so it feels smaller. Lots of great science and research opps as its hospital is a top NIH research grant recepient. There’s a strong sense of community, and the campus and town are picture perfect.
They have some great Excel Carolina (various honors and scholarship programs) opportunities that I think she’d be a great candidate for – including one focused on women and minorities in science. I think they’re called the Chancellor’s Science Scholars. They live together in a dorm and it’s a real learning community with science mentors from the very beginning. I think it’d be a great fit. Oh, and it comes with merit-based scholarship!
Also, there’s a NYT interactive database that shows you what % of a school’s student body is top 1%. It’s helpful for finding the colleges that skew really wealthy.
Honestly – reading your posts screams to me that she’d love UNC. It’s a fantastic school that prides itself on staying humble and not being a wealthy enclave. They won the Jack Kent Cooke award for equity a couple years ago and one of the few publics that meets 100% of need based financial aid. Increasing college access is part of the college’s DNA and this leads to a more economically and racially diverse campus than other top schools.
African-American alum, here. At 150k, your family income would place you in the possible “donut-hole” category, economically and financially where need-based aid is concerned. You need to run the net price calculators at each of these school’s websites. It may cut some of them from your list.
If she would consider a Women’s college in a consortium take a look at Mt Holyoke or Smith. Likely she’d get excellent merit and also FA at these schools. She might even be a candidate for full tuition at Mt Holyoke with those stats. Mount Holyoke is also very diverse. Its in a more rural area with easy access to Amherst and Northampton. Smith is in Northampton which is a bustling town with a funky vibe. Both Smith and Mt Holyoke students can take classes at Amherst, UMASS and Hampshire colleges. There is a bus system between the five schools.
Another reach, but kids I know who may be your D’s twins, separated at birth (you forgot about them, right?), are loving Chicago. But still selective and expensive.
Consider Harvey Mudd (especially if you get over to visit Pomona). Good diversity, including balanced for females/males. Collaborative work environment full of students who want STEM but also want to have a Humanities/Social Sciences concentration. Tiny school (900ish) but part of the Claremont consortium with Pomona, so there are 6,000+ students altogether. They offer good need based aid and also merit, including a (very) small number of full tuition scholarships - and your daughter may very well be a contender for one of those because Mudd highly values diversity (in their faculty and staff, too! Check out Talithia Williams and Rae Chresfield). The students work very hard, but for the right kids, it’s heaven.
For less of a reach, consider Smith. Your daughter would have a good chance for a STRIDE research merit scholarship. They also have a very strong graduate program in Social Work (although I’m not sure if the undergrads would have any access to parts of that program - you’d have to check). As @Veryapparent stated above, Mount Holyoke would also be an excellent choice.
Swarthmore would be a good choice, but there are many. My daughter is a chem major there and absolutely loves it. She too is very nerdy but has very diverse interests. She loves the fact that she is surrounded by smart and engaged peers who put more emphasis on collaboration than competition. As a freshman, she has been doing some cutting edge research with a prof. working on an NIH grant. PM me for more details if interested. Good luck!