<p>Gearing up for round 2 ~ college search with our junior. Would a more obscure school be more competitive by mean of grants?...With all the research I did the first time around, D didn't get much in offers for grants/scholarships even though everything we researched, we were surprised that she didn't qualify for more. I guess my question is unless you are a merit scholar, top of your class, athlete, or financially in need, you pay basically full price. I have a friend who's daughter went to a college I had hardly heard of for theatre. She got 3/4 scholarship...She was smart, but not brilliant...Just wondering...thanks in advance:)</p>
<p>Daughter is a 3.7 unweighted.</p>
<p>Have you never looked here? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/52133-schools-known-good-merit-aid.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/52133-schools-known-good-merit-aid.html</a></p>
<p>How do you know what she is getting already if she is only a junior? Complete aid packages are not available to high school juniors yet? Only the real stand-out students tend to get the mega scholarship offers this early. Also, without knowing her SAT/ACT scores, it’s hard to say. A 3.7 in itself isn’t going to get you much. Most schools combine that with an ACT/SAT score for their large scholarships. We have 2 juniors and have gotten a pretty good idea of what they would be eligible for at the schools they have looked at but even those are not a guarantee.</p>
<p>Chances are better for that merit aid at a school where she would come in at the top end of their applicant pool though. I think people get really caught up in having to go to “the best” school and forget that most of the time that is not necessary. Find a school that fits her wants and needs and go from there. There are VERY few professions where you HAVE to go to a certain school in order to get a job and even within those professions there is a lot of variability.</p>
<p>Another aspect to look at is geographic diversity. Colleges love to brag that they have students from #xx states and #xx countries. Sometimes, searching for schools that are further away from home can help, especially if your child is from an area that is underrepresented at that school.</p>
<p>great insight thank you all</p>
<p>Are obscure schools overlooked treasures? </p>
<p>Yes, but you’ll rarely hear about them here. That’s why they are obscure. What part of the country is your daughter looking at to go to college? Or is she open to all parts of the country. What are her academic and extracurricular assets? Give us a a few hints and I’m sure CCers will have plenty of suggestions. Just because we mainly talk about HYPS doesn’t mean CCers aren’t knowledgable about schools that normally fly under the radar.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that some of the obscure treasures get dumped on by people that know nothing about them on these boards too so try to weed those comments out if you do ask about specific schools.</p>
<p>I am interested in this question too…I am on the search for a college that might give some merit money for my DD who has 3.9 gpa but ACT of 27. We live in the mid-west and my DD is willing to go pretty much anywhere. Any suggestions are much appreciated!</p>
<p>And just remember that some obscure schools are obscure for a reason. They might have a religious affiliation that doesn’t suit your family or might not have very good career placement resources.</p>
<p>gonavy2015–for most of the midwest LAC schools and merit aid, that ACT is going to need to be 28 or better, but not all. Is she planning on retaking the test? I would suggest she does.</p>
<p>What kind of school does she want, setting, campus size, etc. What field is she thinking about going into or what do you see her doing if she is undecided? What extra “stuff” would she like at school–band, certain clubs, etc.?</p>
<p>MomofWildChild–or they have excellent career placement opportunities and people that know nothing about the school assume they don’t…Religious affiliation is applicable if you care about that. Being afraid of nuns is not a good reason not to chose a school.</p>
<p>Nuns are fine, but when 80% of them are on walkers and/or hooked up to oxygen, it hurts the youthful vibe a little!</p>
<p>Earlham might be a good example. It is a small Quaker affiliated LAC in Indiana that produces a large number of students who go on to graduate school and achieve PhDs. The stats of the student body are not particularly impressive, but they appear to have rigorous academics, community cohesiveness and they teach. </p>
<p>My daughter is a good student with just under 2000 on the SATs - heavily weighted toward critical reading and around a 3.6 GPA. She found Earlham because they have an equestrian program and I found it in “Colleges that Change Lives.” Earlham has made a very generous merit aid offer, that does not look especially difficult to renew. While we are still leaning toward Sewanee, we have decided to visit Earlham to give it a fair shot. There is a lot to like about it if you can deal with rural LACs, which we can.</p>
<p>I suspect that most of the colleges listed in “Colleges that Change Lives” except for Reed and Whitman and perhaps a couple of others, would give substantial merit aid for good, but not Ivy elite level students - you need to be very well credential led for merit aid at Whitman, and I suspect Reed. So, scholarships are out there for good students at obscure schools.</p>
<p>Deep Springs College, but it’s incredibly competitive. Go to their forum and look at the discussions from a few years ago and you’ll see the mindset and intelligence of some of the people who go there and got in.</p>
<p>gonavy2015 – Ohio Wesleyan and College of Wooster are two that come to mind, even with a 27 ACT. Wittenberg is another, as is Lake Forest. Some schools do place most of their emphasis on GPA and test scores when divying up merit awards, but there are many others where the financial aid offices will follow the lead of admissions offices and look at the student holistically. Schools that are heavily stats-driven will sometimes feature a merit scholarship calculator on their website.</p>
<p>Hiram College near Cleveland is another good school that would probably be considered obscure in the wider scheme of things. The Dean’s Scholarship, the top institutional merit award at $16,000 per year, is given to students with a 3.6 GPA and 26 ACT (or 1200 SAT).</p>
<p>DD is scheduled to re-take ACT two more times and trying SAT in March.
She is leaning towards Journalism and Poli Sci. She seems to like schools that are larger than 10k students but if a small school offers very good aid, she will consider. She loves univ of Illinois (but too expensive even as an in state student) and also univ of Iowa. She would consider Catholic schools as well. thank you!</p>
<p>If she wants a larger LAC, try St. Thomas in St. Paul. They have a very good Poly Sci department, not sure about Journalism but it’s probably ok as their English department is good as well. I think it is around 6500 if memory serves me but it’s in St. Paul and feels bigger than that. You also have the option of taking classes at 4 or 5 other LAC in the immediate area as well as the University of MN if St. Thomas doesn’t have the class she wants (no extra fees to do that, classes by agreement transfer credits). Their merit aid isn’t AS good as other LAC in the area but they are trying to get more of an out of state presence so that gives her an advantage.</p>
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<p>On what basis do you draw this conclusion? They have a total of 5 PhD tenure-track faculty. Only one actually does what would be considered ‘research’ (e.g. publishes in peer reviewed journals that colleagues might recognize, and therefore a student could do research with them that would help with graduate school admissions…not local magazines and newspapers).</p>