Just received my latest ACT results and got 36. Looking to study pre-med, willing to go anywhere to get a full ride scholarship. Any suggestions? I prefer the east coast. I don’t mind snow. Also, I took the ACT four times to get the 36, should I just submit the latest even if I get a poor essay writing score? Or should I also submit the 34 with a 11 writing score. I don’t feel I did well on this one in essay writing.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1315830-hobart-and-william-smith-vs-st-lawrence.html
Check out those 2 schools, they give great large merit aid. Checkout poster @5boys for stats of her son.
Howard (in Washington, DC, which is east coast)? Your other posts indicate an unweighted 4.0 GPA, so that plus a 36 ACT would get you a full ride. Plus, there is a 6-year BS-MD program there that you can apply for.
Consider Denison. Congrats on a great achievement.
U Rochester has some competitive full ride scholarships. Check them out. They’re worth an app if you like the school.
Pittsburgh also is terrific for pre-med opportunities and offers some competitive full ride scholarships.
Is there a reason that you’re looking for a free ride? You have a college fund.
I guess it would be nice to put that college fund toward med school.
You might want to apply to USC in LA, you never know, they do give full ride and full tuition scholarships.
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:
Clark, Davidson, Lafayette, Providence College, St. Lawrence, UMiami, University of Richmond, Vanderbilt, and Washington & Lee. For freshmen entering in 2013-14, Duke awarded 67 merit scholarships averaging over $56K each (according to its Common Data Set for that year). High stats would be necessary but not sufficient for those awards.
The NYT provided a merit scholarship chart in 2012, but note that numbers can change quickly when it comes to admissions and $$$ offers.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/07/08/education/edlife/8edlife_chart.html?_r=0
US News has a list of colleges with the highest percentages of students receiving merit aid. Check out the financial aid websites to see how large the scholarships are and how competitive they are.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/most-merit-aid
If you’re a NMF/NMSF, see this thread for those awards.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-an-updated-compilation.html
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com
For pre-med and merit aid possibilities, check out Rhodes in Memphis. Very strong science departments and close ties with the Memphis Zoo (across the street) and St. Jude (15-20 min away by bus). Full tuition is the most they’ll offer, however.
A slightly misleading statistic. Because Duke’s merit scholarships are privately endowed, many come with eligibility requirements. There’s noticeably fewer scholarships available after one removes the NC scholarships (BN Duke, Trinity), international scholarships (Karsh, MasterCard), and special category scholarships (alumni, Reginaldo Howard). The majority of applicants are eligible only for the AB Duke, Robertson, and University Scholars programs, a total of around 30-40 freshmen.
Ah yes, I forgot to mention U Miami - nice school - and you could also try Wake Forest. Our last super high stat student (at school) chose between these two - both offered total free rides, BUT, she was also competitive for those scholarships. Neither were automatic based upon stats alone. She also could have chosen Vanderbilt, but eliminated them earlier in the process.
She’s extremely happy with her choice.
I can understand wanting to reserve the college fund for med school…totally fine. I was just asking in case there had been some financial change.
Schools don’t care about the essay score, but if you’re that worried, then submit the 36 and also submit another high score with a high essay.
As a premed, your goal will be to go to a “good school” and get the highest GPA possible. Getting a 36 on the ACT is terrific, but it doesn’t mean that you can go to any school and emerge with a top GPA. You may just be a very talented test taker. I don’t mean that in a harsh way…I’m just warning you to proceed carefully…with a 36 in hand, it could be tempting to think, “hey, if I get a large award to UChicago, I’ll go there,” when UChicago can break a GPA quite easily. There’s a parent here on CC whose premed child went to UChi. The DD had top stats, and ended up with NO interviews to any MD schools…so of course, no acceptances…because her GPA was not high enough…she had a 3.5.
Here is a list of competitive full tuition and full ride scholarships, in addition to the list of automatic ones previously linked:
Thanks for all the suggestions, I don’t think I will restrict myself to the east coast. I have been researching Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, USC, Howard, Duke, UChicago, Yale, and Brown. Lots to think about.
<<< @ssjr16 Looking to study pre-med, willing to go anywhere to get a full ride scholarship.>>>>
???
Then why are you looking at Vandy, WF, USC, Duke, Uchi, Yale and Brown?
^ Good question when the OP is apparently from OH. Any of the in-state colleges will do a good job of prepping her for med school and most will give a good scholarship (probably even OSU).
Temple would give full tuition. Miami (of OH) would likely offer full tuition though it could be less (my D had a 34/35 and was offered 3/4 tuition if that helps).
OSU is pretty stingy with scholarships. I would think the OP could get full tuition at Miami of Ohio.
Also, cue a certain poster…
^ I almost tagged that poster, @suzy100 but then thought why, we all know what will be said…
@suzy100 I would like to take advantage of the whole college experience and go out of state. My experience with my high school though is that OSU is rather generous with merit for high stats. My GPA is now 4.1 uw/4.8 wtd. Class rank is top 8%. I also just won a national scholarship last week that should improve my application. Looking on the websites for Vanderbilt and Duke they have some really good merit scholarships. Very competitive but I think I may have a chance at it. Washington Univ was just suggested to me on another thread and I looked that up, lots of merit aid there.