Worth it to apply if I can't attend without merit aid, given limited # of schools I can apply to?

College Search & Lists
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This is a tough situation, but it is what it is. If the Temple scholarship is automatic based on your stats, then you should apply there as your safety. I suspect you are in NYC, because some the exam schools have long traditions of limiting the number of applications because it is the teachers who write the secondary school reports and there really aren’t guidance counselors to do that. If that’s the case, can you afford, a CUNY or a SUNY as your safety?

I was in your exact situation more than 30 years ago and I used RPI as my safety. We were told that we could only apply to 7 schools BEFORE APRIL 1. If we got skunked, we could apply to more. Back then CCNY really didn’t have a deadline, so I just used that as my real safety for after April 1, though I was pretty sure I’d get into RPI, which I did. That’s probably not a safety anymore, but there may be a reliable school that is that meets full need. The teacher who acted as my guidance counselor told me not to waste an application on MIT, but I did anyway and got in, probably because I was first generation college student. We didn’t know that was a factor back then, and I thought they had made a clerical error.

One option is to find an affordable safety that you could afford that accepts applications after April 1. Then you can take a little more risk. Otherwise, you really need one of your 7 to be a financial safety if such a thing even exists.

I think for you it’s vital to make your selections carefully. I have an algorithm for such a situation. If you have access to Naviance, I would try to

  1. estimate your probability of acceptance at each of the full need schools to 1 significant figure
  2. rank your selections
  3. calculate your probability of attendance at that school by multiplying the probability of acceptance by the probability of rejection (1- probability of acceptance) for each of the more desirable schools.

If you find you have a school that isn’t your first or second choice that has a probability of attendance of less than 5%, drop it and recalculate.

You also may want to adjust that 5% number to make sure the probability of getting into at least one of your 6 choices is very high.

I think competitive merit scholarships are just too risky because you can’t estimate your chances.

Good luck.