My mom wants me to add a school that would give me good merit aid to the colleges Im applying to. Whats a good school that would match my profile?
Basic information: 93 UW GPA 96 W GPA, 33 ACT, intended major: political science Size: under 25k students
Location: Northeast and Southeast
St. Lawrence if you are interested in nature.
American University or Fordham might offer you decent merit packages. Temple would almost certainly give you generous aid and admission to their Honors College, although they are close to your limit in terms of size. Pitt is another possibility, although they might not offer you as much aid as Temple would. They are relatively expensive for a public university, but could still fall within your price range. Would McGill be too big for you? You have a solid shot at admission, with your statistics, and they are significantly less expensive than many US colleges. They won’t offer you any aid, but the lower “sticker price” should compensate for that.
Elon in NC.
Tulane in New Orleans.
Dickinson, but still about $40K per year.
It would be helpful to know what your family can afford, as that may help refine the search for options.
Your mom seems concerned about costs. Ask her what she’d like the net costs to be (the cost after merit is applied).
Alabama is larger than 25k undergrads, but the net cost would only be about $15k per year…quite low. The merit award is ASSURED for your stats if you apply before the Dec deadline.
The campus is large, but the buildings are laid-out very thoughtfully, keeping similar bldgs together so that your classes are clustered in the same area. Core/Gen Ed classes are mostly around the Quad, and then each major’s bldgs are in a certain area.
The app is EZ…takes only 5 minutes…no essays, no LORs. Just submit the app, send in scores and transcripts and you’ll have your acceptance and LARGE merit within a couple of weeks.
Bama has a strong Poly Sci dept and it has a highly ranked law school (the two seem to go hand in hand).
What is your career goal? Do you plan on going to law school?
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My mom started her job about a year ago, her not working is on one tax return (110k income with just my dad working) and now my families current combined salary (around 200k) is the income on the most recent tax return. However, my family is paying off debts atm so they do not have an excess amount of money to pay for my full tuition. Will I get a decent financial aid package?
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No, you’re not going to get any need-based aid, which is why your mom has made this request. I would suggest that adding ONE merit school is NOT enough. I would suggest adding 3. Otherwise, you could end up with only one affordable school, and then you won’t feel like you have a choice…you’d feel railroaded into your one affordable school.
Apply to at least 3 schools where you know for sure that you will get HUGE merit…those can be your fallback choices in case the other schools are unaffordable.
Your mom seems to realize that your favorite schools will cost the family $60k per year (no aid), and she knows that they can’t spent $240k on your education. They’re needing to put their new income towards debt…and likely retirement.
This site describes automatic full tuition / full ride scholarships:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
If you need less than full tuition, check out the Kiplinger “best value” pages:
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts
(click-sort on columns 9 and 10 for % of students who get merit aid and average amounts)
Schools in the East that award relatively large amounts of merit aid (but usually not enough to cover full tuition on average) include:
Washington & Lee, University of Richmond, Davidson, Centre, Rhodes, St. Lawrence, Lafayette, Providence College, and UMiami.
Without knowing what type of school you are targeting or the strength of political science departments, many colleges would likely give you merit awards with your stats. In the southeast, Stetson and Birmingham-Southern would give you large merit awards and have relatively low final cost of attendance. Likely other CTCL colleges as well. Look for colleges where you are at the top of the admitted students GPA and ACT range.
Hobart & William Smith offers courses across four political science subfields (American politics, comparative politics, international relations and political philosophy and theory) and offers merit scholarships.
Agree about having at least 3 “safety schools” - sure admission and merit/cost in your budget. That way you can sort through and have some choices.
Almost all deal with constraints. Nephew (stats similar to yours) had an older dad that didn’t want him to go far, so he went to where he thought would be the best within their geographic area, and that worked out great.
See where you can receive a quality education and also like the vibe of the college.
Check out Rollins in Florida. Looks to me that you could get a big merit scholarship.
http://www.rollins.edu/financial-aid/as-cps-financial-aid/scholarships/index.html
It is not enough that a school offers large merit scholarships, you also need to know how MANY merit scholarships are offered.
Up above, Davidson and Washington & Lee do offer merit, but it is very tough to get it.
I echo the “at least 3” advice above.
The 3 safety schools need to be schools where the merit is ASSURED for stats. No one should expect any merit, particularly large merit, from a top school where merit is very competitively offered.