Chance an ambitious future educator

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Okay, I keep finding more places for you to research.

  • Clark University (MA), not available, meets 92% of need. There’s no cognitive/neuro major, but it has these: Bioinformatics, Clinical Psychology, Developmental and Child Psychology, Personality Psychology, Psychology (General), Social Psychology and it also has education degrees.
  • Beloit College (WI), 1080-1380, meets 96% of need. I don’t see a cognitive/neuro major in the College Board listing, but this blog post included it as one of the top cognitive science programs at liberal arts colleges and explained a little bit about why. Beloit also offers education majors.
  • Luther College (IA), not available, meets 94% of need. Neuroscience major and education major available.
  • Hendrix (AR), 1150-1360, meets 93% of need. Offers a major in Study of the Mind/Neuroscience and is one of the Colleges That Change Lives. There are others on the various lists I’ve made that are as well (Clark, Beloit, Denison, Hiram, Lawrence, and St. Olaf).
  • Valparaiso (IN), 1070-1290, meets 92% of need. Offers a variety of majors that might hit at aspects of the cognitive science major, and perhaps will also allow an individualized major. Also has education majors.
  • Monmouth (IL), 950-1210, meets 90% of need. Offers majors in biopsychology, neuroscience, and education.
  • College of the Atlantic (ME), not available, meets 97% of need. Has a major in cognitive science and in education fields.

I’d call most of these either possibles or likelies.

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Bates has a neuroscience major and a teacher preparation program. It offers much of what Bowdoin does but is a little less impossible to gain admission. It would be a good option to include on your list.

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When you say a college is meeting 100% need, are you assuming they are need blind? Need aware colleges can be tricky!

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Among meet full need colleges, some are need blind, some are need aware. Of the need aware colleges, they do differ in the admissions process as to the point they consider an applicant’s level of need. Most colleges do not meet full need.

Also important to remember is that schools that don’t meet full need for all (some of the ones AustenNut highlights above) do in fact meet full need for some students (the ones they really want).

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Good answer. That is what my perception is having gone through the cycle once.

Truly need blind schools are generally quite hard to get into because of the intangibles and how they choose to shape their class.

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Most colleges are need blind, including most public colleges. Meet full need colleges are relatively few (maybe 125 or so), and do tend to have relatively low acceptance rates.

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I was not assuming that all of the institutions are need-blind. But the OP has a compelling story and with his ECs, I was trying to find the schools where his odds were not impossible. And at schools where he would be in the top 25% of SAT scores, I think he’d be more likely to be admitted than when he is in the bottom 25%.

There’s obviously a variety of schools presented up above. Part of that is for the OP to have the chance to look at a bunch of schools and see which ones catch his eye and feel like a better fit. It’s also a chance for him to see what things he likes or doesn’t like and to narrow the search down. He can also start showing interest by getting on the colleges’ email lists and attending virtual events. (Note @Maxwell_Austin: many people recommend setting up a different e-mail address to give out to colleges because of the large number of emails that may be forthcoming.) But depending on the cost of the college a 5 or 10% difference in need met can be a significant amount for a family with an EFC of $0.

If you live within commuting distance of one of the MA public universities, I would definitely include that as an extremely likely option.

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I think you might want to take a look at Colgate. They have both neuroscience and education majors. They also just announced a new Mind, Brain and Behavior Initiative.

They also have very generous financial aid policies including meeting 100% of demonstrated need and no student loans in their packages. Also, new this year, a sliding scale for tuition costs so likely no cost to you. The bad news? The number of applications has hit all time high numbers the last consecutive cycles, up 146% in the past 2 years. The mid-50% of SAT scores was 1370-1500 for the class of 2025. Plus, it is academically rigorous with a substantial workload day after day so it’s not for everyone.

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