<p>People say all you need is 2 safety schools. Well with good stats, I have two financial safeties: RPI and UConn, where I am guaranteed enough money IMO.
But I am considering many good schools with merit scholarships, and I'm wondering if I'm applying to way too many. Could there be disadvantages to doing this? Or should I go for it? Anyway, here are the schools:</p>
<p>People tell me that I should just apply to many so that I can compare offers, but with these competitive merit scholarships, is it not worth it to do so and should I be carefully selecting which ones I apply for?</p>
<p>Since none of those scholarships are assured, it is a good idea to apply to many if you need the money to attend.</p>
<p>What are your stats?</p>
<p>Are you a citizen/green card resident?</p>
<p>Why do you think that RPI and UConn are your financial safeties? Why are you certain that you can afford those schools? RPI is expensive. I don’t think it has any assured scholarships, does it?</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year?</p>
<p>Why aren’t you applying to any schools with assured big scholarships? At least then you’ll know for sure that you would get those.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to predict merit aid, so it is always good to apply to several. If a scholarship is strictly based on academics and you are very obviously not in range, that may be a reason not to apply. However, many take into account academics as well as other factors (eg. URM, ECs, leadership, etc.) Another limit in how many to apply to is being able to send high quality scholarship applications if they are required. If applying to many means that the quality of your essays is reduced, then that may be too many.</p>
<p>Hi mom2collegekids, RPI is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we might have some confusion with that. Anyway, Rensselaer medalists are guaranteed a pretty decent 15k/year, which can be added on to financial aid.</p>
<p>As for UConn, it can’t be considered too good of a financial safety but I am in state and the COA is definetley affordable with my parents, especially if I’m in the honors program where many students receive scholarships. There is competitive nutmeg scholarship though which I am not guaranteed.</p>
<p>The weighted GPA is 4.14
In my class of 400, I’m confident I’m one the top 20 students.
I’m a citizen in CT, not a NMSF :(, and my parents pay depends on the school they are paying for.</p>
<p>And I forgot to mention Purdue is also on my list of competitive scholarships. So yeah, I have 5 scholarships I’m applying for plus UConn.</p>
<p>No, you are not applying to too many schools since many of those schools are reach schools for the awards. Getting sizeable merit scholarships from well known schools is often more difficult that gaining admissions to HPY.</p>
<p>RPI is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we might have some confusion with that. Anyway, Rensselaer medalists are guaranteed a pretty decent 15k/year, which can be added on to financial aid.</p>
<p>Yes, I know what RPI is… :)</p>
<p>You’re the one whose family has a lot of assets and a good income. You won’t get much (if any) FA from RPI. Schools don’t add merit to FA. They will subtract your merit from your FA. </p>
<p>So…if your family contribution to RPI is $35k</p>
<p>and, COA is $50k</p>
<p>then, your “need” is $15k.</p>
<p>If you get a merit of $15k, then that is all you’d get. Your parents would still have to pay the $35k.</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay for a “good school”?</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay for a top school? (like top 30)?</p>
I did some EFC’s, and it looks like I would get 10k, even more when my brother a year younger than me enter college. I contacted RPI about combining fin aid and the scholarship and they said:
Although most schools do not combine the two types of aid, it looks like RPI does.</p>
<p>Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Rice etc. - up to $35,000
others - probably $16,000</p>
<p>Yes, some schools do give merit and financial aid. Many have merit within aid awards. I don’t know who has what, however. Be aware that the RPI blurb that you highlighted for us refers to “federal aid”. Federal Aid come in the form of PELL grants, for which you are not going to meet the eligibility and Stafford loans. SEOG, and other federal programs are heaviiy PELL dpendent. So I don’t see much in terms of federal money for you, outside of loans. </p>
<p>However, I have known some kids who have gotten some very nice merit/financial awards from RPI, RIT and URochester. A young man we know was offered a transfer option to Cornell after a successful year at Rochester, but decided to turn it down because the financial package was just that much better at Rochester. Even though Cornell meets full need, the merit part of the package that he would lose by transferring there was just too much and his family is having a rough time financially right now. That his college costs are pretty much met, has been a big relief for the family.</p>
<p>Hmm do you think they are trying to mislead me? I specifically asked if the Medalist scholarship is combined with any financial aid you qualify for, but they’re saying “plus any federal funding they can provide”. Does federal funding not mean financial aid?</p>
<p>I don’t think they’re <em>trying</em> to mislead you, ripemango, but what you qualify for changes based on what you already have. If you have a scholarship, internal or external, they are required (by federal law, where federal financial aid is concerned) to subtract that from their cost of attendance, before figuring out if you need any <em>more</em> money to reduce your cost below your EFC. If COA minus scholarships is still greater than your EFC, then you have “unmet need”. This may or may not be met – they did say that they “cannot always meet the financial need of every student”. </p>
<p>From what they wrote, it sounds like they would not give you any institutional need-based aid, and you would only get your medal plus anything you’d qualify for under federal programs, which is usually nothing unless your family income is quite low. So if you qualified for a federal Pell grant, you’d get the Pell money plus the Medal money. But if you don’t qualify for a Pell grant, RPI is unlikely to add need-based aid to your medal scholarship to bring your COA down to your EFC :(</p>
<p>I have heard that RPI Medal winners can also sometimes get additional scholarships such as a room and board grant which would reduce your costs by a fair bit. But unless you can definitely afford $35K+ per year, RPI is not a financial safety :(</p>
<p>Yes, I do need one more safety, but UConn is alright.</p>
<p>RPI was bad because of the male/female ratio, the student body had a lot of nerdy kids
as could be imagined at a school with mainly engineering students. Other than that though, its academics are good, I just don’t see it being a blast of fun.</p>
<p>Our income is 90k, but yes with big savings but I do get money from the EFC calculators and more when my brother goes to college.</p>
<p>So another question…
Schools don’t like seeing students apply to too many “reach” schools, like with all the Ivies + Stanford and MIT on their list. So in the same way, would these schools prefer not to award merit scholarships to students who they see are applying to many?</p>
<p>No, you aren’t applying to too many. If you’d need merit aid to go to your safety, unless the aid is guaranteed (such as a school guarantees a full scholarship to NM finalists, and your scores put you in that category), then that is not a safety.</p>
<p>From what I can tell, you aren’t assured of merit aid at any of those schools. I know that’s the case for Vandy, which uses merit aid to lure its top applicants away from places like Harvard. You aren’t even assured of admission at some of those schools.</p>
<p>Typically, one’s best shot of getting merit aid is from schools that would be safety schools for you, not reach schools.</p>
<p>If you’ll need merit aid, then you need to apply to more schools, and those need to be less competitive than are most of the ones on your list.</p>
<p>Ok, I’m going to do it again, I know all the numbers, but I’m confused what to put for “adjusted gross income”. Our income is 120k, but taxed -30k, so is the adjusted gross income 120 or 90k?</p>
<p>
What!? Which ones? And do you mean I’m not assured as in I can’t call it a safety or do you mean there’s a decent chance of a rejection? Not sure what that means.</p>
<p>So would applying to these + my top schools + assured merit be the way to go? What I don’t like about doing that is there will be so many schools on my list.</p>