At selective schools, merit aid is used as a recruiting tool to attract high stats kids whose scores bring up the school’s average. Target schools where your stats place you well into the top quartile.
If you google: Common data set <> you can find the school’s 25th-75th percentile scores.
Ivy league schools don’t give merit aid.
Sadly though, most of the big scholarships (Elks, Coca Cola, Jack Kent Cooke, etc) had deadlines in the fall. Burger King, AXA Achievement, GE Ronald Reagan, and other big ones had deadlines either in December or earlier this month.
I won’t say that there are no scholarships but it will be hard finding them. Have you tried unigo? I find that one to be the most useful. Also did you apply to safeties? Does your state offer merit scholarships if you stay in-state?
You’d be surprised how many engineers in the Boston tech corridor went to the state school. Great for networking. Once you’re in no one really cares what school you went to. They only care about your performance. And the salary gap between the “good” and state school evaporates by year 10 if you look at the cost analysis.
The issue of the size and renewability of outside (not-from-the-college) scholarships aside, my kids had the most luck with LOCAL scholarships. Our county offers a single app for a few dozen different scholarships with varying requirements. About half require a somewhat low income, or consider income, about half don’t. One requires experience with pigs in 4H (not joking), one requires an intention to be a STEM major or firefighter or nurse or teacher, etc.
But local ones are far less competitive than the national scholarships.
It’s late January. Why are u inquiring about aid money only now? That wasaan intrinsic element that should have been addressed in your selection of schools to apply to.
What was the point of applying to schools like Princeton and Brown if you don’t expect to qualify for need-based aid and you’re not willing to pay full freight?
Maybe there are merit aid granting schools on this list, which are still accepting applications:
There are separate lists for universities & LACs
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php
^ in post 17 I listed good universities where OP has a shot at merit aid with deadlines on 2/1.
Can we be a little more gentle with these young people that chose poorly when applying? Some may not have had a real financial conversation with their parents until it was too late. Some may have been poorly advised by their GCs. I was lucky enough to find CC when my oldest was a sophomore, but that is not the case for most.
I have a feeling that even though the list of schools on post 17 are still accepting applications, the deadline for merit scholarship consideration has likely passed for many or most of them. I would check on that before investing in any more applications this season.
OP, if you find the prestigious schools to which you have applied to be too pricey, your options are:
1- Attend your instate public (UMass Amherst) or
2- Take a gap year, and start the process all over again with finances (specifically, school-sponsored MERIT AID) at the forefront.
Good luck!
If UMass has not contacted OP and they have applied early then that is concerning. You should check your portal to see if you are missing anything. That school will still probably cost 22k. Hopefully that is affordable.
Brown, Tufts and Princeton are reaches for you…as is Olin. Brown, Tufts and Princeton give need based aid onky…no merit aid.
Maybe you will hit the admissions lottery and get into these schools. But if you do, you will have to have financial need to get any aid from them.
There is nothing wrong with UMass…do you have free fees as well? The tuition isn’t very high, but the fees are.
@thumper OP has NOT been accepted to UMass yet and he applied early action. Sometimes those safety schools are not safe. I hope he put some effort into the application.
Can the OP,afford to attend WPI? If not…I don’t see a sure thing on his list.
@thumper1 I don’t see a sure thing either. Which is why I put UMass Lowell out there for a low cost and solid engineering option. It is not a cakewalk to get accepted into engineering at UMass Amherst. @NEPatsGirl I seem to remember UMass Amherst being pricey even instate. Free tuition is not much money.
@ANewName105 you were already offered 20,000 at WPI. Have you done the optional scholarship supplement for WPI? I think it has a Feb. 1 deadline, but double check the website. With that you might be reconsidered for the Foisie Scholarship which is full tuition.
All WPI first years are considered for the Foisie without a separate application process. Selection has already begun. The only other student that I know that received significantly more money at WPI was a NM scholar. For white, males much harder to get $ there. However grad school at WPI is quite reasonable and there are companies that will pay for it.
Wow, this has been very eye-opening for me. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has replied to this so far.
I’m not sure what my train of thought about college was prior to this, but it seems like I was innocently and foolishly living under some impression that I should apply to schools I wanted to go to and work out payment afterwards - clearly not the proper way to do this.
This has got me thinking: does it even matter what college I go to? Will I really get better opportunities and jobs coming out of a "good’ school with a lifetime of debt versus a “mediocre” school with little debt? I think I’m just going to make one last desperate attempt to apply to more affordable colleges and go wherever I’d be paying the least. I’m starting to realize that costs are a primary concern when considering college, exacerbating the mistakes I’ve made so far. Is there still a chance for me to get into some nice public/state college and not be stuck in debt for the rest of my life? At this point I’m worried that I’ve made irreversible mistakes in college applications.
I’m going to look through some of the colleges people have listed here, especially the ones on that automatic full tuition website, and try to apply to whatever I can that has low costs.
Unfortunately I did not run any NPCs with my family, or even talk about this with them today, since I thought I could run them by myself with the information in my FAFSA, but it looks like NPCs need a lot more information than the FAFSA. I’ll try to talk to them tomorrow and come up with a definitive financial plan for college and update here when possible.
Again, thanks to everyone who has posted here so far. You guys are probably saving me from making a grave mistake in life, and for that I am grateful.
There are only a handful of professions where it’s critical to go to a certain school. For most other professions, especially engineering, the state flagship U is where job recruiters like to visit.
http://www.wsj.com/public/page/rankings-career-college-majors.html
Look at local scholarships.
Spend a little time on Google. Look at the websites of any high schools in your general area. You’ll be surprised at the variety of scholarships they list.
The ones that say “See Mr. Smith in guidance for application” can be googled.
As a Massachusetts resident, you can apply to University of Maine for the same tuition cost of going to UMASS. It is rolling admissions. You have good stats so might also be offered a merit scholarship if they have any scholarship funds left. UMaine Orono has a decent engineering school.
Look at Case Western. It gives good merit aid.
@ANewName105 What really matters for tech field jobs is internships. A good school is nice and WPI is a great engineering school but remember it is your last college that counts more. A lot of people move up the food chain. I.e. I went to a state school for undergrad my company paid for grad school at RPI. Most of the time you have no idea where the people you work with went to school, you only know what they can do. For UMass, which is a great school, they had a record number of EA applicants this year. And unfortunately it is probably one of the most expensive state school for instate kids.