<p>A word of caution about the Miami (Ohio) scholarships - you need at least a 3.7 GPA; however, they will take a school-provided weighted GPA. </p>
<p>The good news is they will take updated GPAs and ACT/SAT scores until March 1 to determine the amount of your scholarship - so 1st semester senior year grades can be submitted if they raise your overall GPA (at many schools you are locked into your 6 semester GPA). </p>
<p>If you meet the minimums at Miami you are guaranteed a merit scholarship, but the exact amount won’t be known until February/March. They are based upon “academic rigor” -so the higher your GPA, ACT/SAT and number of AP/IB classes, the more likely you are to be at the higher end of the scale.</p>
<p>PS - as the parent of a Farmer senior, I have nothing but good things to say about the program. DS had an internship at large financial company this summer and already has an internship with a Big 4 firm for next summer before he starts his masters in accounting.</p>
<p>PPS - DD is just starting a Alabama. The campus is beautiful, the dorms are like palaces and there is an exciting atmosphere on campus. The Presidential scholarship is fantastic and makes the total cost far less than our instate flagship or even directional universities.</p>
<p>If you are a business major, you need to be aware that the internship and placement opportunties vary significantly by your major and GPA, regardless of the reputation of your school!!</p>
<p>Accounting majors seem to have the best chances of landing a good internship and/or job since the Big 4, other large national CPA firms and regional CPA firms need a fresh crop of recuits every year as well as the accounting and audit departments of banks and corporations. However, to get the interviews, you need a high GPA - its not uncommon for the best known firms to want a 3.5 or higher to be eligible to interview. As long as the Big 4 and others are actively recruiting on campus, accounting majors have the highest odds of success.</p>
<p>Finance and Marketing/Supply Chain seem to be on the next tier and can do well depending upon which companies recruit actively on campus. The success rates go up if a number of large banks, brokers, non-bank financials and retailers actively recruit on campus. Once again, a high GPA will be needed to even get an interview.</p>
<p>However, someone with a BS in economics or especially management can be in for a tougher search since graduate degrees tend to be required for these disciplines. There may well be interview opportunities, but most likely far fewer than accounting or finance.</p>
<p>The names of the companies that recruit on campus and hire graduates is probably the best barometer of the quality of the program. Good programs publish their recruiting statistics, largest employers, average salaries by major etc.</p>
<p>Your stats for Bentley are slightly higher than Bryant, but not a big difference. Fact remains that they are frequently cross-applied (along with Babson, the Three B’s) and cross-admitted. They are very similar schools.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about your take on honors and AP. I don’t think kids take these classes to get away from less academically serious peers. They take them because they can handle the material and strive to excel. I never thought about someone being frustrated by their peers. Never happened to me. Guess my friends and I were the dumb ones. We still turned out ok. </p>
<p>Back to the original point. I don’t believe Bryant is appropriate for OP. He is clearly a better student than their average. In most circumstances, the only reason to consider a school beneath your level, so to speak, is if they give substantial aid to attract you. Bryant is not known for that. Much as I support Bryant, dollar for dollar this OP should match with an even better school. </p>
<p>I haven’t seen Binghamton mentioned. OP may want to get out of NY, but Bing is a top school with great placement and in-state pricing. OP should apply as a financial safety. If none of the privates can merit down to that $20k budget, Bing is an outstanding “settle”.</p>
<p>He is definitely applying to Binghamton and possibly Geneseo as his financial safe schools. He prefers Bentley over Bryant and Babson is too small.</p>
<p>OP- Clemson is going to be more than 20k. OOS is listed at around 40k. My DS was accepted in honors at Clemson last year the most they give OOS is $15k they offered him $10k which was nice. But even is they had given him 15k it still would have been 25k to go there…needless to say he is not going there.</p>
<p>Miami U (Ohio) and Indiana are also closer to New York City (or for that matter, anyplace in New York State) than is Clemson. </p>
<p>People in the Northeast often have a distorted perspective on distance. They’ll automatically assume anyplace in the Midwest is “too far” (e.g., NYC-Columbus, Ohio, 540 miles) but they’ll drive south for 750 miles (NYC-Clemson) and think they’re somehow in the same region. Ohio State, Miami U, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State are all closer to New York City than is Clemson. Ohio State is roughly the same distance from NYC as Elon, UNC, or NC State. From almost anyplace in upstate New York, the Midwest schools are much closer than the North Carolina schools.</p>
<p>What about Case Western in Cleveland? They’ve got quite a good business school, they have a reputation for giving good merit aid (at least sometimes), and Cleveland is closer to New York City than are the North Carolina schools. For all you Northeasterners: Cleveland is about a 2 hour drive past Pittsburgh, which most of you place comfortably in the East. Except from NYC you can shoot straight across Pennsylvania on Interstate 80 without going through Pittsburgh, so it only takes about an hour longer to get to Cleveland than it takes to get to Pittsburgh. Coming from upstate New York, Cleveland is just 3 hours from Buffalo, 4 from Rochester, 5 from Syracuse. When I was an undergrad at the University of Michigan, I knew a guy from Syracuse. He had a shorter drive home (7 hours) than I did, and I lived in-state. I knew another guy from Buffalo who sometimes made the 4.5 hour drive home on weekends to have his mother do his laundry.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, we live in Upstate NY, abt 3 hrs from NYC. Also, he picked NC and SC for the weather not because he thought it was closer than Ohio or Indiana. At this point, we are open to any suggestions. If there is a school in Ohio or Indiana that gives good merit aid and has a strong business program, we will look at it. </p>
<p>Thank you everyone for the continued suggestions!</p>
<p>DS was accepted into honors at Indiana. OOS started at 40k they offered 14K. He applied for more but didn’t get any of those extra scholarships.Yep he’s not going there either.:)</p>
<p>Remember there are automatic scholarships and then extra ones the kids can apply for. So there may be a number of colleges that look expensive but end up not being expensive.</p>
<p>Runs18, is your son’s 3.6 his weighted or unweighted GPA? That could make a big difference.</p>
<p>Indiana’s Kelley School of Business is quite competitive for direct entry as a freshman. You could go straight to their website to check on merit money–I believe it is spelled out.</p>
<p>Other than wanting to keep the total cost to approximately $20,000/year, what is your son looking for other than a business curriculum?</p>
<p>DS isn’t a business major. He just happened to apply at 2 of the schools with automatic aid you asked about. He is going to Georgia Tech although he did seriously consider some of the other colleges mentioned such as University of Alabama and Ohio State. Ohio State gives good automatic scholarships and it looks like based on your student’s ACT you could get merit aid of at least 18k so it would be under 20k to go there… Plus there may be other scholarships for business students.</p>
<p>His GPA is unweighted. Our school does not weight GPAs. He wants a fairly big school, although he loved Bentley, which has abt 5000 undergrads and he didn’t feel it was too small. Good sports, preferably D1 for football or basketball. Non-religious or no religious affiliation. Good coop/intern program (preferably paid). Good career/grad school placement.</p>
<p>Let me underscore Case Western in Cleveland. Ranked #31 for undergrad business by US News, ahead of schools like #40 Boston U, #47 Bentley, #56 American, #56 Clemson, #56 Miami U, #72 Richmond, #72 George Mason, #72 Northeastern, #72 UMass Amherst, #87 Lehigh, #87 NC State, #87 Alabama, #141 Elon. The only schools on your initial list ranked higher for undergrad business are #5 UVA, #7 UNC Chapel Hill, #21 Penn State, and #21 U Maryland–all OOS publics, none of which to my knowledge gives generous merit aid. </p>
<p>According to Case’s 2012-13 Common Data Set, about 2/3 of the enrolled freshmen without financial need got merit awards averaging over $23,000 in 2012. Your S’s ACT score of 33 puts him in their top quartile (middle 50% ACT 28-32). It’s at least worth running their Net Price Calculator and seeing what it says.</p>
<p>From the Albany area, Cleveland is about a 7 hour drive. That makes it closer than Richmond or UVA. From Binghamton, Cleveland is a 5.5 hour drive, again closer than Richmond or UVA and only about a half hour longer than the drive to DC.</p>
<p>Don’t know that much about the school, truth be told, but I’ve always heard the two things they most pride themselves on are engineering and business. And on CC, they’re most often mentioned for generous merit aid.</p>
<p>FWIW, Bloomberg Business Weeks’s 2012 undergrad B school rankings say 86% of Case Western undergrad business grads got job offers (in whatever the reporting period was). This compares favorably to American’s 76%, Richmond’s 73%, Elon’s 69%, and Penn State’s 52%, but is slightly below Northeastern’s 89%, Boston College’s 92%, and Indiana’s 93%. I’m not sure how reliable those figures are, and not every school reported that statistic.</p>
<p>Both Indiana and Ohio state appear to give merit to OOS business school candidates if they meet certain criteria. I could be wrong, but I think Case may focus more on non- profit business. My older son (2012 grad) received significant merit aid from Case, but I think they are becoming more selective/competitive. My S12 did not wind up there, but they offered him a pretty good deal. I don’t remember if American has been mentioned on this thread, but I’m trying to find out about merit aid there.
I’m very interested in this topic as my S14 son is planning to be a business major and if he doesn’t get into UMD CP we will be looking for merit.</p>
<p>Case does have some graduate-level specializations focused on non-profit management, but that’s a small part of what they do. At the undergrad level it’s a smallish business school with a limited range of majors: accounting, economics, finance, marketing and a self-designed “Dean’s approved major,” with minors in any of the above plus entrepreneurship and management. May not be everyone’s cup of tea.</p>