State School vs Harvard: Any Middle Ground?

haavain
Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:49:49 +0000

Talked to parents and turns out i was wrong, we pay 11k a year not 17, so with that being said does that change anything with JHU or anything else?



Yes, to some extent. An 11k parental contribution corresponds to an income of 110k, which will get you significant aid at some top schools depending on your assets. Whether it will be enough is something entirely different–I think you’re more likely to have an EFC somewhere in the 25-35k range, if not higher. But that’s my own experiences, and I don’t know a lot about your family finances, obviously.

To circle back to your original question, there are a few ways to tackle your situation. First of all, top LACs seem to be relatively generous with finaid and are not quite as selective as HYP. I wouldn’t expect that much from schools like JHU, Northwestern, etc. but if you might get lucky. Vandy and Rice in particular seem to be very giving with the money, both need-based and merit aid. Which is the other thing: if you can get a significant (say, 10-15k) merit award that stacks with your need-based aid (it doesn’t always), that could push you into the affordable range.

You could also try for one of the big awards (full tuition/full ride) given out at these schools. Duke (Robertson), UNC (Robertson/Morehead-Cain), UVA (Jefferson), Vanderbilt (multiple programs), and Emory (Emory Scholars), among others, give big awards out. But bear in mind that competition for a lot of these scholarships is fiercer than competition to get into Harvard. (Emory is one of the larger programs–it awards about 150 scholarships ranging from 2/3 tuition to a full ride.) Schools where big merit might be a little more attainable are Tulane and USC.

If you are a guy you might want to look in Deep Springs College, which is free, although for some reason no one seems to like it as much as I do…I would have totally applied if I could have. (I don’t think most people would do well there, but if you would it’s a godsend, and if you wouldn’t it’s good for a laugh and a boggle.)

Will you be an NMF? If so there are a number of colleges that give out full tuition and full ride scholarships for that.

Tangent: is there any reason you won’t consider GT? Because you seem to have unequivocally ruled UGA out, but you don’t mention GT at all. They’ve got pretty decent science programs, an excellent BME program, and a very good Chem E program (and you would be surprised how a Chem E degree can be parlayed into bio/biochem work.) Anyway.

PS: OP, this is a public forum. The posters here do not exist for the sole purpose of being helpful to you, and sometimes they say things that you may not want to hear. It’s the price you pay for putting your words out there in the open. And you don’t get to control the flow of conversation–that’s not how CC works. You can have an expectation that people will not go on extended tangents on your request thread–and so far no one has–but that is it.