<p>I'm planning to go to Drexel, but I'm scared of the accumulated debt I will incur if in future years if I end up paying the same for tuition. Are there more scholarship opportunities you can get in freshman year of college for the next years so you don't have to pay as much? Or are most financial aid opportunities lost once you graduate high school?</p>
<p>intgsull…The vast majority of scholarships are available to you as an incoming freshman. The number of available scholarships drops off markedly (if not completely) once you’re enrolled in a university (at least as far as university offered monies are concerned). Some universities offer a few competitive scholarships to current students, but they’re usually for smaller amounts and few in number. Bottom line, if you’re hoping to get significantly increased scholarship amounts after your freshman year, I wouldn’t plan on that happening.</p>
<p>Thank you Wolverine.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, most scholarships are for incoming freshmen. Sometimes, depts offer a few SMALL one time awards for a couple of the top students, but they aren’t enough to prevent accumulating debt.</p>
<p>Schools don’t have much incentive to give continuing students additional monies. They need to use their monies to attract the best frosh class, which helps with rankings.</p>
<p>How much are you borrowing each year? It sounds like Drexel may not be affordable?</p>
<p>I noticed that you applied to Stanford. Does that mean that you had very high stats? If so, did you apply anywhere that gave you huge merit?</p>
<p>I have another question. Are a lot of scholarships lost if you take a year off after high school and wait to apply again to colleges the following year? I know a lot of scholarships are for high school students only…</p>
<p>Some are…like NMF scholarships and some others. </p>
<p>You can’t take any classes during that gap. You need to keep your incoming freshman status.</p>
<p>What is your situation? </p>
<p>What are your stats? </p>
<p>Are you a NMF?</p>
<p>My situation is that I was thinking about taking high school classes again for a year in order to have the chance to get better scholarships etc. for next year, rather than deal with immense debt. My GPA is a 4.0 unweighted and around a 4.4 weighted. I take numerous AP courses, scored a 2150 on the SAT but only took it once. I was only “commended” regarding national merit. </p>
<p>I also wanted to get involved with the AFROTC scholarship programs but couldn’t as I’m too young (16). however they are only available to high school students as I’m aware.</p>
<p>Were you going to graduate early? If so, are you now delaying that?</p>
<p>If you can delay graduating for a year, that might be best. And there are other schools that would give you merit.</p>
<p>What was Drexel giving you? </p>
<p>What is your career goal?</p>
<p>Yes, I was going to graduate early. I am weighing the options, which now seem to be taking another year of high school classes which could be beneficial as I could get more AP credit for college, and simply waiting a year to apply again. I’m afraid though that if I just wait a year I’ll be in the same position I am now financially. All the other schools I applied to have very similar financial situations. I wish to major in Mechanical/Electrical Engineering and work in that field, possible connected to the Air Force and intelligence work.</p>
<p>What did Drexel offer? I’m thinking that you weren’t offered as much as you could have been elsewhere.</p>
<p>Plus, by not graduating this year, that gives you an opportunity to retest and maybe score higher. </p>
<p>I don’t think you’ll be in the same financial situation next year if you apply to the right mix of schools.</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year? How much were you going to borrow?</p>
<p>Drexel gave me a 7,500 scholarship and around 13,000 in financial aid. I know for a fact I could have received a far better scholarship most likely had I applied earlier, as I have better ECs, scores, grades etc. than those who received scholarships in the range of 20,000-30,000.
Due to me simply being misinformed, problems arising with my application waivers that caused applications to be withdrawn, and financial issues, I wasn’t able to get my application reviewed in a lot of places I felt I could have been accepted at with greater financial aid. </p>
<p>In regards to retesting, I do agree. </p>
<p>My parents have a very limited income. Around 35k a year. I was/am looking at borrowing that same amount for yearly tuition.</p>
<p>Oh wow. Glad that you’re not going to do that.</p>
<p>YOU couldn’t have borrowed that much, and your parents probably couldn’t qualify to help you borrow that much. That is waaaaayyyyy tooo much to borrow.</p>
<p>Do you realize that you would have had $140k in DEBT. Do you have any idea of how that would have ruined your life (and that’s only if you could have found a very naive and qualified co-signer). Who would have co-signed that much debt???</p>
<p>You could get MUCH better scholarships if you delay graduation and reapply. What is your M+CR score?</p>
<p>Exactly. </p>
<p>What do you mean by M+CR?</p>
<p>Math + Critical Reading (don’t count the Writing section)</p>
<p>OP, after reading your post about wanted to get into EE or ME and do intelligence work I thought of my son’s friend who is doing both and is a student at Kettering University. This is a small university that works a little differently than others. If I understand it correctly, for some of the year you are working in a co-op, and some of the year you are taking classes. This student got a job with the FBI the first year. Unfortunately my son hasn’t really talked to this student in a while, but when he was a college sophomore he ran into my son and said he loved he school and was getting a lot of experience. I know they give merit scholarships, and some need aid. For those engineering students who don’t want the “traditional college experience” this school sounds great.</p>
<p>Where else did you apply? Why arent you receiving grants with your EFC? I think you should go to CC for a year and transfer to a school where you can receive financial aid. You SHOULD NOT be taking out more than $5-$7k in loans a year. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Financial aid for transfer students usually is not nearly as good as aid for freshman. In this case where the student was planning to graduate early, but doesn’t need to graduate this year specifically, spending the fourth year in high school and applying to a broader list of colleges/universities would probably be the best route to take. The second best would be to do a no-classes-anywhere gap year so that the freshman status is retained while making a better list and reapplying.</p>
<p>*Where else did you apply? Why arent you receiving grants with your EFC? I think you should go to CC for a year and transfer to a school where you can receive financial aid. You SHOULD NOT be taking out more than $5-$7k in loans a year. </p>
<p>Good luck!
*</p>
<p>He probably did receive grants. He said that he got some FA. Grants are probably part of it.</p>
<p>Drexel gave me a 7,500 scholarship and around 13,000 in financial aid. I know for a fact I could have received a far better scholarship</p>
<p>That $13k in FA is probably a Pell Grant and loans.</p>
<p>No, he shouldn’t go to a CC for a year and then transfer. It’s unlikely he’d get the aid he’d need at that point. Transfer aid is often awful unless you’re in a rare state that has grants for state school transfers or you’re lucky to get into one of the few schools that meet need for transfers.</p>
<p>His best bet is to go to HS for his senior year, and then apply to schools that will give him great FA and schools that will give him huge merit.</p>
<p>Alabama would give him free tuition plus 2500 per year. When you add in a 5500 Pell Grant, work study and small sub loans, his costs would be covered.</p>