I think there’s a part in the profile which states how many people the parent feeds and cares for. By that, I meat he feeds and cares for them(living in our house). We’re not rich, my dad makes about 30,000 per year, but here, that’s quite a bit, so his less fortunate relatives moved in with us.
Perhaps I’ve not been stating it well enough. Forgetting about top ranked schools though, how probable is it to get a scholarship for your advanced degrees with a good enough GP in a “low ranked” school.
People who graduate from “low ranked” colleges and universities with outstanding grades, GRE scores, and letters of recommendation do get admitted with full funding to PhD programs every single year. So yes, that is entirely possible. Funding for a master’s program is less easy to find.
For the record, there are 3,700 colleges in the US. Any college on the Princeton Review’s best colleges is considered top 10%. Attending any of these is 100% fine for top graduate programs. (Very strong PHD production from Earlham, Lawrence, Reed… some of which you may never have heard of). Sure, attending a top 50 university/LAC guarantees you top-notch peers, but you’ll find intellectual challenges are many universities.
At this point I’ve resigned to getting a full ride-ish scholarship anywhere I can. But that’s the problem. I don’t know what I can rely on. Howard had the full ride award on their page when I applied, and still do now, but apparently that award has been reduced. Most of the awards on these forums are for the year 2017. How can I be sure about what I’m applying for? Like right now, I just found out Maryville University doesn’t give full ride, yet it states explicitly on their scholarships page that they do.
Any help here? Even the admissions officers are taking forever to reply…
OP isn’t getting a soccer full ride. Most of the schools he’s been accepted to do not give athletic scholarships anyway, so even if the coach gets him in he’d get the same FA awards based off the CSS. Getting accepted didn’t seem to be the problem. He needs money.
I have talked to the Howard Financial Aid Office a few times over the last 6 months and they don’t really have a true full ride scholarship like the Presidential Scholarship anymore besides the full ride that my daughter received (Bison STEM Scholars Program BSSP) which is a competitive scholarship for students who want to commit to getting PhD or MD/PhD degrees in STEM fields. I have heard of some students who have receive what basically comes out to full ride by stacking merit and need based scholarships at Howard but those seem to be hard to receive and even harder if you are trying to start in January. Good luck on your search.
@MYOS1634 , you have experience with schools that don’t give athletic scholarships giving them to international players?
You suggested he contact the coaches at 250 top schools. Really? Many of those schools will not offer athletic scholarships. Getting into the schools wasn’t the problem, getting money to pay for them was. Something on his CSS gave him an EFC of $15k or so at Rochester and Cornell. His EFC should also be about that at any Div 3, Ivy, or other school that doesn’t give athletic scholarships.
They’re not called athletic scholarships obviously. It just happens that schools define what constitutes need and thus what you need. All athletes benefit from this. I’ve also seen some previously thought to be impossible juggling at universities that don’t offer merit.
The NCAA makes sure that need based financial aid isn’t given out as merit aid or athletic aid. They actually check up that someone who has an efc of $15k isn’t suddenly deemed to have an efc of $0. The amount of merit/financial aid given to athletes has to be in line what non-athletics with similar financial need or stats (for merit) is receiving.
I guess I’ll just disagree with you that a student who has been admitted without enough financial aid will suddenly get more need based aid because he plays soccer and is an international. For January admission when it is already June).
'Scuse me, but OP is somewhat desperate and none of us know if he’s recruitable. Not in public comments here, at least. Nothing breathed about his level, awards, attention. Or even how much play.
So if lightning strikes, super. But in case it doesn’t, OP needs realistic ideas.
True. I’d say I’m good, but I’m not a skiller or a trickster or anything. I’m more like a Toni Kroos Andre Iguodala kind of player, which is why I was a bit skeptical with the tricks. And the awards I’ve received are pretty local (inter school)
Aren’t there merit based opportunities? Even at State Colleges?
We need more info on the soccer front. My advice to use soccer only matters if you’re recruitable. So we need hard data to evaluate your recruitability. Being a strong soccer player with excellent stats is a hook. Being a non recruitable soccer player with excellent stats is the same as being a good debater or a good violin player, just an EC, and won’t tip things in your favor. So if you’re good “for schools in your city” ie., in a non competitive tournament, (v. playing in a U19 club that’s regionally or nationally ranked), my advice doesn’t apply. However if you have athletic skills, they’re very important in the process, so please give hard data.
There are automatic merit opportunities but full rides are rare. There are more full tuition scholarships.
Some competitive merit scholarships can be found at Miami-Ohio, Appalachian State, UT Dallas, UMN Twin Cities, UKentucky Honors, IowaState Honors.
Yes I have. They do At least for this year. My next email asked about their availability next year, which I am yet to receive a reply for.
And another thing I didn’t want to add, I took some online STEM courses via Coursera a while back, but I took them for the education, not for the certificates. When my laptop was stolen, I hadn’t made any backups, so I basically lost all the certificates. I didn’t want to put this in my application due to this fact, but going through some EC’s of members of these forums, it seems having some form of STEM education is always a bonus.
So the thing no one has said so far is this. Almost NO ONE agrees that the EFC derived via the FAFSA or CSS is truly “affordable”.
My daughter was admitted to Cornell this cycle, and our EFC was $72,000. We also have a son in college, AND a multiply handicapped daughter whom we have to enroll in a VERY expensive private school for the fall, due to lack of services at her public school. Her medical bills every year are over $12K; last year they were almost $20K…but that is not reflected in the current Fafsa or CSS. Not the $20K, not the private tuition (because we have not actually incurred that expense yet). So we would have to raid my older daughters college fund to pay for her sisters private school, and HOPE that in a year or two, we MIGHT get some FA from Cornell.
Cornell was, shall we say, unsympathetic.
Did we contribute to our retirement accounts? Well, are you saying we shouldn’t save for retirement ? “No, we aren’t telling your NOT to save for retirement, we are just saying that that is money that is AVAILABLE to your family”. So I think the “allowance” to siblings and relatives would definitely fall under “money that is AVAILABLE to your family”. Also, you can afford to give $1000 to orphans?
Cornell is probably the stingiest if the Ivies. They even said something to the effect of “they have a bigger endowment than us”. I’d like to point out by what order if magnitude Cornell’s endowment outstrips our retirement funds, but again, they don’t really care.
You need to look at schools that give a LOT of merit aid, for which international students are eligible. To do that, you need to lower your sights from the “dream schools” to schools that would actually be impressed with your credentials and want to add you to their statistics. Shoot for schools where you are in the top 25% on every metric. You should have a decent number of choices.
My daughter is going to attend Virginia Tech this fall. It is a great school and what we all agree is affordable for our family. You are not alone by any stretch. But you don’t have any exceptional circumstances that many schools will consider. There are a LOT of GOOD schools. Don’t be too precious about it. Good luck.
First, many Americans are shocked by their expected familial contribution. The CSS takes far more into account than income, so whether or not the numbers generated are accurate or not depends on those other factors. I personally would not automatically jump to the conclusion that the calculated amt is unreasonable by the schools’ definitions. Not being able to afford what colleges expect you to pay is the reality many kids your age face, mine included.
UAH would offer very large merit. There are several other schools out there as well. If you spend time doing research, you should find a list to apply to. And as @happymomof1 posted in post 21, students from lower ranked schools attend top research universities for their PhDs. My ds just graduated from a school ranked below 100 and will be attending a top 5 university for grad school.
ETA: I just read @Gudmom’s post above mine. I agree with that post. EFC’s are often very unaffordable. It is what it is. Lament away, but students have to be able to pay the bill.
Upon sending emails to UAH, i was encouraged to apply. To my surprise, their fall admission is still on, and the admissions officer said I would receive the scholarship automaticallly, based on my WES evaluation and SAT scores. Right now, I’m in a bit of a dilemma. Do I apply now for fall, or for Spring 2018?
Things that come to my mind are things like the time it would take to mail the documents needed to acquire an F-1 visa, and the time it would take to get an F-1 visa. I really don’t want to resume halfway through the semester, because I really want to graduate with as good a GP as possible.On the other hand, I have no guarantees this same scholarship will be available come Spring, and this seems to be the only school that offers substantial financial aid in Spring. And anything could happen.