Agree, achieving what you did in the context of a single parent home, URM, could make you competitive for colleges like Vassar or Fordham, as others have mentioned, maybe with merit scholarships at some places as well. I spend a few years in Poughkeepsie, ten minutes from Vassar, it’s a great campus. Any college close to NYC will be great as well for a journalism major. good luck!
Fordham is generally expensive. Vassar is cheap–and gives excellent need-based aid for URMs especially.
Other schools with excellent English programs/ and excellent need-based aid for URMS include–
- Amherst (the private college not UMass Amherst) - $4K-$6K
- Mt. Holyoke =$12K
- Smith = $6-$10K
- Wellesley = $5K-$8K
- Wesleyan U in CT = $3K-$7K
- Vassar - $7K-$8K
- Grinnell
- Haverford
- Bryn Mawr
- Swarthmore
- Colby (It’s possible to pay as little as $2-5K per year here for lowest income level)
- Bates
- Bowdoin
- Tufts
- Boston College (Not Boston University)
- Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, UPenn in Philly is $3K for lowest income level
- Macalester
- LaFayette
In contrast:
- Occidental = $13K
- Fordham = $23K
- Syracuse = $19K-$21K
Use this tool to find your on-average price at your income level for the rest of the colleges
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
Click on NET PRICE
Then use the NPC at various schools that you’ve chosen to get a closer look.
As someone who grew up in Columbia, Missouri, and could not wait to get out, I would hesitate to recommend the University of Missouri. First, the OP doesn’t actually want to major in journalism, but Marketing/Communications. Aside from its Journalism School, Mizzou is not all that highly regarded, one, and unless you want a huge state school in a southern-feeling state, it is likely not a good fit for a Black student from NY, two.
@Dustyfeathers Fordham does give some students significant merit aid in addition to need based aid - of course not knowing the OP’s stats makes it difficult to see where he/she might fall. Just saying it is worth a look and worth running the NPC.
You’re correct in all ways.
Indeed Fordham and many other schools give merit. That’s one reason why it’s helpful to look at approximate costs using College Navigator. It gives you the ballpark figures of what they offer. For Fordham, the lowest-income level, those students are expected to pay on average $23K. That is helpful info compared with, say, Amherst which expects its lowest income students on average to pay $4,000-$6,000 per year including room and board.
I personally find that College Navigator is helpful in figuring out average costs and narrowing down the 2000+ colleges to a handful. Then the Net Price Calculator comes in handy to get a more firm picture of the cost.
If for whatever reason a student falls in love with an “expensive” school, then they can apply and see what that school then offers them. They might have a pleasant surprise.