Hi, Im a high school senior. I have good grades (3.9 UW 4.2 W) and good test scores (32 ACT and 2000 SAT) with lots of leadership positions in Honor Societies and ECs. I live in Maryland but am looking primarily at southern east coast universities. Right now my reach schools are UVA and USC, match schools are USC, UMD, FSU, and Tulane. My parents don’t have money to pay for college despite making a little less than $100,000 (lots and lots and lots of debt) so it’s pretty much all up to me. This is why I’m applying to USC and FSU as they have scholarhsips for in state tuition and UVA and UNC both meet 100% of demonstrated financial aid. What other colleges will give me good scholarships (need-based or academic) but are als qulity schools. I also really like VTech but am not sure about their financial aid, any info on that too would be helpful. Thank you!
Alabama, UF, Vanderbilt (is that far enough South for you)?
Considering Vanderbilt’s high status, will I be able to recieve very good scholarships there since my stats are barely even good enough to get in? But thank you for the other suggestions ill look into them for sure!
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com
Texas State has a nice campus and is in a really nice town. Go visit the University of Alabama.
Your parents need to run the NPCs for the schools where you hope to get financial aid. Your parents will probably be expected to contribute if their income is close to $100,000.
Full rides are very hard to find.
Well, they do claim to meet 100% of need. So that, and the potential for a scholarship would be good for you financially.
Have you run the net price calculators? A school that meets financial needs meets what THEY think your need is, not what you and your parents think it is. The net price calculators are found on the college websites on the financial aid page, and you will need your parents to hep you fill them out. If your parents are divorced, own a small business, or own rental property, they may not be very accurate (you will not get as much aid as they show). You need to run them for UVA and UNC to make sure you can pay what they would expect.
Also, I assume you know that you can only borrow $5,500 as a freshman, $6,500 as a soph, and $7,500 each year junior & senior years.
You can go run the NPC for Va Tech, too. Every school has one on their website.
lol nope i didnt know that. my parents both didnt go to college and all the research and everything is up to me. so yea theres that.
should i even bother applying to UNC or UVA
You need to get your parents to help you run the net price calculators on every school on your list to see where you stand. Figure out how much you have to work with – if your parents will commit to anything and how much, what you have in savings, probable earnings from summer and during the school year work.
You should look at this list as well, as you have good stats.
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
Ah, sorry, I see someone already posted that link. But you should look at it. Alabama will give you full tuition plus $2500/year. You will have to cover room & board, but with federal loans and working summers/during the school year, that could be doable.
That is absolutely true, which is why you do need to run those net price calculators.
However … if your family income is about $100K, then your net price at a school that “meets financial need” is likely to be lower than the net price at an out-of-state public research university (unless a large merit scholarship comes into play).
Below are examples of net price estimates from College Abacus (or the College Board’s NPC) for a family with a $95K income and 1 college-age child.
Net Price Estimate … College
$35,545 Virginia Tech (out-of-state public)
$28,720 UVA (out-of-state public)
$27,910 UNC-Chapel Hill (out-of-state public)
$23,233 University of Maryland (in-state public)
$22,216 Dickinson (private, does not claim to meet full need)
$17,520 University of Richmond (private, claims to meet full need)
$16,140 Bates College (private, claims to meet full need)
$12,853 Vanderbilt (private, claims to meet full need)
(Your Mileage May Vary)
You may be able to beat most of these net prices at a school, such as the University of Alabama, that automatically grants full tuition (or better) merit scholarships for certain stats. Your net cost at Alabama probably would be competitive with the above estimates for Vanderbilt or Bates (depending on details such as what dorm and board plan you choose).
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USC and FSU as they have scholarhsips for in state tuition and UVA and UNC both meet 100% of demonstrated financial aid.
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I don’t see how ANY of those schools will work for you.
Getting instate tuition at USoCarolina and FSU would still leave you with about a $25k per year cost…HOW would you pay for that when YOU can only borrow $5,500???
Getting instate tuition isn’t enough…you need to get completely free tuition plus more.
How would UVA or UNC be affordable??? Your “demonstrated need” with an income of about $100k will mean that the schools will expect your family to pay about $20k per year. Plus the aid pkgs will already have a full student loan in it so you cant even borrow some of that $20k+.
Tulane will give you about $25k per year in merit, but that will get applied to “need” so your parents will still be expected to pay at least $20k per year.
You need FINANCIAL safety schools…and right now, I’m not seeing any on your list.
You’re asking for need based and/or academic. If you get an academic award, THAT will get applied to your “need”. you won’t be given “need” based aid, and then be given merit to cover your parents portion.
We see this issue a lot on CC. We’ll see kids with no parental help and pretty strong incomes looking for “instate tuition” or other merit amounts that will still require large contributions…when no one is paying.
Vandy won’t likely be affordable because (again) it will expect your parents to pay their share which you wont be able to cover by yourself. Calicash’s response may be misleading…even if Vandy gave you merit (very unlikely), it would get applied to “need” first, and then any remaining “need” would get met, and they your parents would be expected to pay their share based on their near-6-figure income.
BTW…does either parent own a business or take business deductions?
FSU isn’t 25k if U get in-state tuition (which u probably would…my kid got it with a 29 ACT). I think its more like 17k.
Check out Florida International and.South Florida.
I was just using a rough guesstimate…but it doesn’t matter because this student doesn’t have the means to pay this year’s COA (when he wouldn’t even be going there, much less the higher COAs for his frosh thru senior years.
the COA for this CURRENT year at FSU is:
Tuition and fees $6,507
Room and board $10,264
Books and supplies $1,000
Estimated personal expenses $2,728
Transportation expenses $1,572
Estimated Total $22,071
If this student were to go there, it will be even closer to $25k… by the time he/she would be a junior in college, it will be higher than $25k
But either way, the student can’t come up with the instate costs to go there.
3.9/32 is likely to yield good honors scholarships at fsu and usc but the honors college at usc is very hard to get into. Have you started on the application and its many essays ?
Use npc’s on uva and unc. Apply for Robertson and Jefferson scholars but those are Ivy-competitive.
At Vandy or top LACs 100kand slightly under will yield a lot of aid depending on assets. Not all colleges take home equity into account the same way.
What is your parent’sbudget? Will they pay for room&board? Just rent and books?
Ask them. You need a direct answer.
Then run npcs on the colleges you listed.
Definitely apply to UAlabama before Dec 1st.
The net price I estimated above for Vanderbilt is ~$13K. That is after applying college grant aid, but not “self help”. After deducting federal student loans and work study, the net expected parents’ contribution might be ~$5K. That’s an estimate, of course (and I don’t know if my assumptions fit the OP’s situation). If the family has significant assets, the expected parents’ contribution might be significantly more. If there are no significant assets, and other school-age children, then it might be a little less. It almost certainly won’t be zero for a family income of ~$100K.
If the OP’s family cannot afford to contribute anything at all, then s/he probably does need to focus on opportunities for automatic full ride merit scholarships, or else on public schools within commuting distance from home.
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My parents don’t have money to pay for college despite making a little less than $100,000 (lots and lots and lots of debt) so it’s pretty much all up to me.
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Since the student has indicated that college costs are up to him, and his mention of his parents “lots and lots and lots of debt”, that suggests to me that the family is living paycheck to paycheck with every dime going towards living expenses and debt payments.
The student needs to work part time now, saving what he can, and work full time during summers, and saving as much as he can. He’s going to need that money to pay for any shortfalls or “student contributions”.
Students who don’t qualify for Pell aren’t eligible for Work Study, are they? It may be possible to get a non-Work Study job on campus, but I would’t count on it. It doesn’t sound like the parents can contribute at all.
I suspect this student will have to plan on using the federal student loan, a tuition grant, and work earnings to pay for school. I agree that working part-time now and full-time in the summer is a good idea. Because the parents are in a lot of debt and probably won’t be able to provide a financial safety net for a number of years (including after college graduation when OP will be just starting out), I’d suggest choosing colleges wisely and keeping debt to a minimum.
In many cases, schools “run out” of WS after awarding to Pell students…sometimes low Pell students. I was surprised when a 100 EFC student who submitted FAFSA early didn’t get WS at one school…school told him that he was on a WL for work study because they “ran out”.
Of course it depends on the school and how many Pell, low EFC students it has.
Does each school get a proportional amount of WS? What is it based on? Student numbers? Pell numbers?
@tk21769, re post #9, I believe UNC and UVA say they will meet need for OOS students. But they also make admission much tougher for them. And “meets need” probably does not help this student, since as discussed above, the OP’s parents are not willing to pay what the colleges think they can/should.
Even Pell students who have been awarded work study don’t have a guarantee of being able to get an on-campus job, especially during the first year. @abinator what state are you in? Have you considered attending community college and then transferring in state?