<p>Hello, I have some 2 safeties and 3 reaches but here I'm not really wild about the safeties heh. Hence my evaluation of the "match" schools--so new to the process that I'm not entirely sure if that's the right term.</p>
<p>-24 year old student, English major. Crap hs grades, afterward got a 3.0 in one community college class, out of school for 5 years.
-GPA after 10 classes at next/only other (current) community college is 3.96. English student of the year award for the school, glowing recs, good essay writer.
-Pretty much no extra curriculars other than my job for the last 3 years. Trying to start a literature club.
-Haven't taken an SAT and won't for most of these, but recently did a practice one and got 2010.</p>
<p>List: Indiana, Michigan, NC, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin Madison, U of W Seattle, UVA.</p>
<p>Can’t comment on admissions, but are they realistic transfers financially? Where are you a resident? Except for UVA and UNC, you can expect little if any FA from the OOS publics. While several of these have good (and very selective) merit aid for fr admissions, the opportunities are more limited for transfer students.</p>
<p>According to Projectonstudentdebt.com all of these have large need based aid for students in low income brackets. Which would certainly be myself : )
Perhaps things have changed in the last year though.</p>
<p>Given the financial situation of many states, particularly MI and WA on your list, I would be very cautious as an OOS student. Check each school individually on their website or by calling for recent changes. Also, make sure how they calculate ‘low income’ for independent students. I’m not that familiar with independent status, as my kids aren’t there yet, but colleges do expect a higher contribution from students than they do from parents in FA calculations.</p>
<p>I just looked at the site you gave the link for, I’m not finding several of the schools you listed under the “Initiatives - FA Pledges” section, are they somewhere else? It looks like an interesting site, so I’d like to be able to use it to find colleges to recommend to people.</p>
<p>Wisconsin is not on there actually, my mistake. The other UW (sea) is in state for me, so it’s still in play. The rest of the schools are listed though.</p>
<p>I also forgot to mention the 10 classes I’ve had were on the quarter system. I’ll have 3 more done by the time apply–can’t promise 4.0s but it’ll be close I think.</p>
<p>Public schools absolutely suck when it comes to OOS financial aid.</p>
<p>However, UW Seattle offers full tuition to all Washington residents who make less than 65% (less than 39k) of the state’s median household income if grants don’t pay for it all. As you do qualify as an independent student, I’m sure you meet that requirement.</p>
<p>One comment, though it likely doesn’t apply to you, is that people need to be sure to read the statement on “Calculating the Net Cost of Attendance”. I see this all the time on the FA & Scholarship forum, where people only think about their income and not what the schools consider “typical assets”, which include investments and home equity. This can really make a difference for schools that have very generous policies for upper income families (between 100-200k/yr).</p>
<p>I’ll admit I’m more than a little surprised at the figures for Princeton and Stanford, the amounts starting from about 100k for S and 80-100k for P look much higher than they should be with their current FA policies. They should be much more in line with Harvard and Yale. </p>
<p>Lucky you to have UWashington as an safety option. As your neighbor to the south, it’s very disappointing that UW isn’t a WUE school.</p>
<p>p.s. it looks to me like the Michigan and IU aid pledges are only for state residents.</p>