Chance/match white male looking for competitive scholarships & affordability in engineering

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US domestic
  • State/Location of residency: MO
  • Decent Public School (sends maybe 2-5 kids to T20s a year)
  • White Male
  • No hooks

*Intended Major(s): Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • 4.0 UW, 5.0 W
  • Class Rank: Tied for 1/400
  • ACT: 36 (36 E, 36 M, 36 R, 34 S)

Coursework
IB Full Diploma Student
(HL Math, HL Chemistry, HL English, SL Environmental Science, SL Global Politics, SL French)
Calculus 1 in 9th grade, AP Statistics in 10th Grade, AP Physics 1 this year (our school doesn’t offer any more rigorous physics courses)

Awards
FBLA 4x state top 10, 1x state champion, 2x national qualifier
Mathleague.org math contest: 1st place nationals 9th grade, state top 3 every year
4x AIME Qualifier, highest score 7/15
National Honor Society

Extracurriculars

Math Team

  • lots of competitions
  • captain for national competition

Varsity Soccer all 4 years

  • Varsity Captain Sr Year
  • Ran offseason camp summer between jr/sr year

FBLA

  • VP of competitive events jr & sr. year

Small Engine Repair class at local CC

Music

  • played guitar for 6 years & banjo for abt. a year
  • played in a local band for abt. 4 years (7th-10th grade)

Aircraft Mechanic intern junior year

A little bit of volunteering (tutoring and habitat for humanity) - probably 50 hours total

Played club Soccer 9th-11th (actually since I was 6 or 7 but i know colleges don’t care)

Essays/LORs/Other
Essays are probably gonna be average cause I’m not a great writer. Not super good but probably respectable.
Recommendations should be respectable as well.

Cost Constraints / Budget
50k a year max, but preferably would like to get it under 30k a year.
EFC is like 70-75k a year so no ivies or stanford or anything like that

Schools
University of Alabama (Safety)
Missouri S&T (Safety)
Colorado School of Mines (Likely, Reach for competitive scholarships)
Virginia Tech (Likely/Match, Reach for competitive scholarships)
Olin College of Engineering (Reach)

I was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of what my chances are of (1) getting into Olin and (2) getting any competitive scholarships from Virginia Tech and CSM.

I would also be open to adding more schools if anyone has any good suggestions. I would like something affordable (but still has a decent program), suburban/rural (ideally no bigger than tuscaloosa), and with good access to outdoor activities.

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So you’ll max at mines but you’ll be over $30k. Va Tech over too. Olin as well unless you have financial need. But those are in your 50k bucket.

Arkansas. Bama. uAH. Arizona. Florida State. Ms State. Iowa State. South Carolina. Those are your $30k. UTK, Utah and New Mexico as well.

You might apply to some schools that offer full tuition. Not that it’s likely but you can try 
from a Vandy to a WUSTL and Miami. SMU is another. A little more And Florida, Pitt and Purdue can be of interest
under $50k. Also a WPI, RPI and CWRU and Boulder in the $50k and take a shot at Rice.

You can also try for the Johnson at W&L. It’s a full ride. But they are not ABET but it’s by choice and their outcomes are great.

It’s great you have the cheap ones but you have awesome stats so reach for the stars too at places with merit in addition to the cheap schools.

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You can’t beat Utah for outdoor activities. D spends a lot of her time climbing, skiing, backpacking, rafting, etc. and loves it there.

You should get Presidential scholarship which brings the cost down to $20K-$25K the first year and $5K-$10K in subsequent years (if you stay for residency the first summer).

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RPI might represent a good school to consider for your list.

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You’re a competitive applicant. Add some reach scholarships like the Stamps at GT. Also check out Purdue, Pitt, and Ohio State. You’d get merit at all 3.

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While you probably won’t qualify for financial aid at the Ivies, you may want to run the NPC for one or two just to verify that. They often give “need” based aid to families making more than you think – at the least you might want to confirm that you won’t qualify for anything (or enough to bring the cost into a range you can afford). Apart from that, have you considered Purdue - strong engineering and the cost (all in, including books and fees) is around $41k for out of state students.

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UAH would be good for those majors, should be a safety and very affordable with those stats. Huntsville is bigger than Tuscaloosa but doesn’t feel that big to me and I am from rural Alabama. Lots of opportunity for internships and such in the Huntsville area.

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Clarkson would likely get you to $30k. They give out some full tuition scholarships too. Rural, great access to outdoor activities, and a very active outdoor club.

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Auburn, Purdue, Tennessee, or Washington. Georgia Tech if you can alter your preferences for rural campuses.

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Sorry - I missed the suburban / rural and access to activities. I already mentioned W&L (not ABET but by choice and great outcomes
it’s a top school)
South Dakota School of Mines, Oregon State, Montana State, Wyoming, Murray State)
another mentioned Auburn
not sure if Texas Tech accesses the outdoors but could be another
and UTK - yeah it’s in a city but great access
again CU Boulder is in the $50K category and a very good school. Did anyone mention UNM? Two others where you’ll do well - Embry Riddle and Florida Tech - both more Aviation Focused - you’ll get half scholarships at each. Florida Tech is really nice. Embry Riddle has a Prescott Arizona campus.

UAH might be a great choice - it seems aerospace is what you like and you’ll go for cheap. It’s like NASA part 2 after Houston.

PS - my son goes to Tuscaloosa (it’s dirt cheap) and he and his girlfriend go to the river walk, some lake 20 minutes away but then drive an hour to hike. The campus is gorgeous
the town
well toilet bowl might be harsh
but it’s not great.

Good luck.

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Florida Tech and Embry-Riddle (Daytona or AZ) are good for aerospace or mechanical, and offer a good deal of merit. Would probable bring you close to $30-$35k, and a lot cheaper second year because you could live off campus for cheap.

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Purdue is the first one that came to mind, especially for aerospace. I’d suspect you’ll get merit funds and get honors college. You’ll thrive. Full cost OOS is $42K but merit of $10K would get you down to your target and a top school for your field. No guarantee for merit but worth a shot.

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I noticed Rice was mentioned. Have you checked out the “Rice Investment”. They have a pretty clear cut financial aid policy based on income.

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Here is a list of colleges that our MO school said give merit.

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Yes but Rice offers merit aid. Unlikely but not impossible similar to other schools I said to reach for, ie Vandy/WUSTL.

It’s an unlikely admit but we don’t know the OPs finances, just the EFC, and potentially Rice would be affordable with aid and/or scholarship.

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You sound pretty similar to my son. Below I reposted a post I wrote about his college search, that might help you out. Feel free to ask me about any of the applications. Also - don’t rule out Georgia Tech - it’s in a city, but the campus is very green and contained. They also have a LOT of outdoor activities - my son just spent the day sailing with the Sailing Club yesterday - about 45 minutes from campus. They also have a very active outdoor club that goes rock climbing, hiking, whitewater rafting, etc, and there is also a mountain biking club/team. It is among the best in the country for Aerospace (if not the best), will come in just at your budget, and you have a great chance of getting in with your stats. Apply early action, for sure!!!

Now that this crazy college application year has finally come to a close, I thought I’d share our journey with you, in hopes of providing info to those just beginning the search


We live in NJ. DS attends a good public school. He’s worked hard, and was #2 out of 300 in his class, 4.0 unweighted gpa, 1540 SAT(800 math), all AP/honors classes with 5’s on all tests taken so far, co-captain of robotics team since freshman year, LOTS of self-led engineering projects & other activities/volunteering, selected for NJ Governor’s School of Engineering & Technology. Nothing incredibly remarkable, though (i.e. he hadn’t cured cancer) Knew he wanted to study electrical engineering from the beginning. However, he had NO idea of what school he wanted to attend. Our EFC is in the mid $40’s.

First, we researched our state schools, and tried to figure out which were the best fit for engineering, and what the cost would likely be after merit. Then, we looked for private or OOS schools with solid engineering programs that had special merit awards that could potentially get the price down to match or beat those in state schools. It was pretty tedious looking through CC posts from many schools, and digging in the Common Data Sets and college websites, trying to find the average merit scholarships, and which schools had additional ‘big merit’ scholarships(full ride or full tuition) that had separate and additional applications. Then, we also chose some reach schools that didn’t offer merit, but we might consider stretching for if he got into.

For application timelines, he applied to as many Early Action as was available. The only school he didn’t apply EA to was MIT, just because the application was so long and involved, he needed more time(he should have started the Maker Portfolio months ahead, but we didn’t know about it).

After the EA deadline, he had to work on all of the ‘special’ merit scholarship applications - most of which had additional essays. Then, there were the honors college applications, which also had additional essays. Also, the RD applications. It was a lot of work.

Our NJ state schools were very generous with merit awards, making them hard to pass up. For the vast majority of private schools, he was awarded merit that brought the cost down to our EFC or a bit lower, so he wasn’t awarded any financial aid at these schools. He did not win any of the ‘special’ merit scholarships from any schools, with the exception of Clarkson, where he won two awards that lowered the cost an additional $10k. For the schools that didn’t give him any merit(Cornell, GT, Michigan), he was awarded financial aid that made the price pretty much match our EFC. Here’s the list of schools, and their final COA for him(tuition, room & board, and mandatory fees minus merit scholarships & financial aid grants):

Maine 0rono (honors college) $15,184.00
Case Western $42,126.00
Colorado School of Mines $40,482.00
Rowan (honors college) $7,952.00
Rutgers (honors college) $21,834.00
NJIT (honors college) $4,560.00
Pitt (honors college) $28,250.00
Rose Hulman $41,690.00
Clarkson $30,998.00
Georgia Tech (honors program) $44,710.00
Northeastern (honors college) $43,362.00
RPI $44,904.00
stevens $48,520.00
michigan $56,506.00
cornell $47,682.00

He was rejected from MIT and Caltech, and waitlisted at Harvard, then rejected.

His final decision came down to Rowan, Cornell, and GT. He ended up choosing GT, and we couldn’t be happier!

Good luck to the Class of 2022 in your search!

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