Chance Me Please: IR major looking for big merit! [IL resident, UW4.0, 1450 SAT]

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics

  • State/Location of residency: IL
  • Type of high school: Low income, noncompetitive public
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: White female
  • Other special factors: none

Intended Major(s): International Relations + Language

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.6/4.0
  • Class Rank: 9/350
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1450 (780 EBRW, 670 M) (will probably be test optional for most schools)

Coursework
My school does not offer any AP classes

Will have taken 11 DE classes by graduation

Will have taken math through calculus, 4 years of foreign language

Awards

  1. Selective Free Summer Program (National Level)
  2. NSDA Academic All American
  3. District Orchestra Festival

Extracurriculars

  1. County Youth Leadership Council (Outside of school, Member 9-12, Pres. 11-12)
  2. School Board Student Member (12)
  3. Other Youth Council (outside of school, 10-12)
  4. Captain of Speech Team (Member 9-12, Captain 11-12) 3x National Qualifier, placed in top 60
  5. Captain of MUN (Member 10-12, Captain 11-12)
  6. Orchestra (Member 4-12, Leadership 11-12)
  7. Theatre (4th grade - 12, multiple lead roles, Thespian Society President)
  8. Coding Club (Member 9-12, led and planned over a thousand hours of community outreach)
  9. National Honors Society (9-12, a decent amount of volunteering)
  10. Part-Time Job (Summer of 9- current)

Essays/LORs/Other
Essays: I’m still in the process of writing mine!

LORs: I’m getting one from my French teacher (who has taught me since sophomore year) and I’m debating between my biology and my physics teacher. My physics teacher has known me longer and was my coding club mentor, but somehow I really stuck out in biology and I think that teacher really likes me?

Cost Constraints / Budget
Most of these schools are unrealistic if I can’t get a substantial merit scholarship. I don’t qualify for much financial aid. It’s mainly up to me (with support from my parents) to take out loans and pay them back. I can’t justify more than about 25k a year (which is still a lot), especially since I’m thinking about law or grad school.

Schools
I’m placing most of these schools in the reach category because of the merit aid I would need to get to afford them. I have included some schools that do not offer merit aid only because I am applying to a lot of outside scholarships and am delusional enough to think that I might be able to afford them.

  • Safety: Super local public school (where I will likely end up if I do not get merit)
  • Likely: N/A
  • Match: N/A
  • Reach:
    IU Bloomington (Wells)
    Michigan State (Alumni Distinguished Scholarship)
    Ohio State (Morrill)
    UIUC
    Washington and Lee (Johnson)
    UNC Chapel Hill and Duke (Robertson)
    Boston University (Trustee)
    WashU (Danforth)
    Mt. Holyoke
    Wellesley
    Swarthmore
    American
    George Washington

If anyone could give me any advice (or even suggest more schools with big merit) I would appreciate it so much. Thanks!

2

Fordham has nice merit scholarships.

3

You can only take up to $5.5k to $7.5k in loans each year without a cosigner. Will your parents contribute any non-loan money for your college education?

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My parents are willing to cosign and give me enough money to make sure that I have thing like clothes and food, but my parents are not planning on contributing to paying off the loans

Sorry, I don’t think that was clear!

5

Thank you, I will look into them!

6

You say cost is up to you with support from your folks. How much support? What’s the budget ? Forget $25k if that’s loan based.

Alabama will be $20k ish a year and over 1500 Illinoisans are there likely for the high merit. MS state may cost even less.

Florida State may be - if you get the OOS waiver - that’s an if.

How about SIU ?

A school like Troy or Louisiana Lafayette may be budget friendly but are more local schools so you might feel uncomfortable. SMU has a full ride - the Presidential.

Forget outside scholarships - national ones are impossible and often need based. Local ones are small. You need schools to give $$.

Some like Swat and Wellesley are only need aid. I wouldn’t waste my time per my note on outside scholarships.

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You should look at Midwestern LACs that give merit: Grinnell, Macalester, Kenyon, Oberlin, Denison, Wooster, St Olaf, Knox. Not sure how much merit you’d need but worth checking out. And run the Net Price Calculator on them–you might still be eligible for some need-based aid even if you think you aren’t.

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One of my kids had similar interests and grades (but higher test scores) and her list included
Centre (KY)
Knox (IL)
Southwestern (TX)
Trinity (TX)
These all gave her merit aid to get to your 25k figure. At the time they all offered larger full tuition or full ride competitive scholarships. The competitive scholarships have early deadlines and require extra applications and essays. She was a finalist for several of them and we visited all these schools. Look particularly at Trinity and Centre. She attended Southwestern University and had a great experience there. She studied abroad twice, graduated a year early, landed a dream job, and is currently in grad school.

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9

You might want to check out Ole Miss for your majors. They give good merit in general and the Croft Institute for International Studies has additional (competitive) scholarships.

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10

It’s not clear to me but is the $25K all loans? Can/will your parents contribute anything towards tuition/room/board?

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11

Look into Grand Valley State in Allendale, MI. They have a nice International Relations program and plenty of language majors as well. You would automatically get 11k off plus in state tuition, so COA would be 13k with that. In addition, if you come from any of these schools, it is an additional 3k off. Plus they have an insane amount of scholarships on their scholarship portal to apply for.

Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences

Curie Metropolitan High School

DRW College Prep

George Westinghouse College Prep

Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy High School

Hillcrest High School

Hyde Park Academy High School

John Hope College Preparatory High School

Jones College Preparatory High School

Kenwood Academy High School

Lane Technical High School

Morgan Park High School

North Lawndale College Prep

Percy L. Julian High School

Perspectives-Leadership Academy

Perspectives-High School of Technology

Perspectives-IIT Math Science Academy

Proviso East High School

Proviso West High School

CICS Ralph Ellison High School

Simeon Career Academy

South Shore International College Prep High School

Thornton Fractional North High School

Thornwood High School

Thornridge High School

UIC College Prep

Whitney M. Young Magnet High School

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12

I would also look at Northern Illinois. While it doesn’t have an IR undergrad major, they do have an international politics emphasis, in the poli sci dept. They do offer an IR graduate major, so there are IR knowledgeable profs there…take a look at the undergrad classes to see if they appeal. COA (tuition/room/board) before any merit aid is around $25K.

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Which foreign languages are you wanting to be able to study? I see you’ve studied French…are you wanting to continue that language or learn others?

Also, I would be very wary of depending on outside scholarships to pan out for you. You may very well get some that will help to defray some of your costs, but it is unlikely that you will receive sufficient scholarship money to be able to make a seriously big dent in college costs. Expecting more than $5k/year in outside scholarships (which would still be a really good sum to get, and quite difficult to amass) is likely to lead to heartache.

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Has your family run the Net Price Calculator at Wellesley or Swarthmore? Some schools are much more financially generous than others. If the NPC at these schools are unaffordable, then I would definitely remove them from your list as they don’t offer merit aid.

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If you are looking at a career in policy/IR/ govt etc, know that internships and jobs are often underpaid (sometimes unpaid!), and that grad school is expected later on. I would look to minimise your debt load as much as possible to enable you to start your career on a good footing. Same rationale for law school if that is also your aim, as you’re likely taking on more debt for a JD.

Can your parents contribute anything without borrowing? Do you qualify for any financial aid?

I also second Ole Miss Croft Institute.

Good luck.

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I do not know what the elite scholarships are saying at the schools on your lists (i.e. Robertson, Morrill, Wells, etc), but I would ask them what percentage of students who were awarded a scholarship applied test optional.

One thing you may want to do is look at schools that are not as competitive for entrance (and big scholarships). That doesn’t mean that you’d be likely to get the big scholarships, but you’d be likelier to get them. A 1450 SAT score is a good score, at about the 96th percentile (source), and many schools would be thrilled to have you on their campus, knowing exactly what your score is. I think that with your interests, leadership experience, service work, etc, that you could be a very compelling candidate.

In looking at your proposed budget ($25k/year, which also appears to include loans), I would target schools that offers scholarship of at least tuition, if not a full ride.

  • Centre (KY): About 1400 undergrads and you might be competitive for one of its full ride scholarships.

  • Denison (OH): About 2400 undergrads with strong offerings (including in your areas of interests) and offers up to full tuition scholarships.

  • Fordham (NY): About 10k undergrads and offers tons of opportunities to take advantage of its New York City locations. Offers scholarships up to a full ride.

  • Hobart William Smith (NY): About 1600 undergrads and you might be competitive for its full tuition scholarships. It’s strong in the social sciences and appears to have a commitment to foreign language education.

  • Loyola Chicago (IL): About 12k undergrads at this Jesuit school and you could be competitive for one of its full tuition scholarships.

  • Miami (OH): This public ivy of about 17k undergrads suits your interests well and offers scholarships, and I think you could be competitive for the Presidential Fellows, its full ride.

  • Saint Louis (MO): About 11k undergrads at this Jesuit institution, and I think you could be competitive for one of its full tuition scholarships.

  • Syracuse (NY): About 15k undergrads and it has been known to give students combinations of scholarships to get up to full tuition.

  • U. of Cincinnati (OH): About 30k undergrads and you might be competitive for one of its big scholarships (it’s unclear whether the Cincinnatus just cover in-state full ride costs or out-of-state ones, too).

  • U. of Rochester (NY): About 6800 undergrads and offers scholarships up to full tuition.

I’d also take a look at Southern Illinois-Carbondale and the opportunities available there (including a full ride).

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Then…where will you get enough loans for some of these colleges…do you have $25,000 a year toward college without loans? That will still leave $50,000 a year or more at some of these colleges. You would need a full tuition scholarship at least to get your net cost down to $25,000 a year (and that’s assuming you have that $25,000 a year).

Your GPA is really great. But I think your SAT will take you out of contention for some of the scholarships you have listed. Someone else will have to check, but I think some of those are not test optional.

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Is the $25k you mention loans or non-loan parent contribution?

19

Can you run the NPC on Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, and Mount Holyoke? on Macalester and St Olaf?
If your orchestra skills are strong enough you can apply to St Olaf for a music scholarship (demonstrate interest now - fill out “join our mailing list”, click on what they send you, read links of interest) but Gustavus, Luther, and Concordia Moorhead would also have music scholarships+academic scholarships that would be less competitive than at St Olaf and your SAT would be competitive there.

Are your parents unable or unwilling to contribute? Have they run NPCs with you and do they know what college costs?

IU Bloomington (Wells) => send an ealy app for Hutton+ Hamilton Lugar+ Arabic flagship to be combined with French minor (capstone year in Morocco)

Michigan State Definitely apply to James Madison College (indicate it as your major on the application) + Honors to maximize odds of scholarships (Alumni Distinguished Scholarship)
https://jmc.msu.edu/

Ohio State (Morrill)
UIUC
UIUC for IR is basically a safety for you academically. Is it affordable?

Washington and Lee (Johnson)
You’re competitive academically and your odds are 1 in 3 in general, though I think they use the scholarship to attract kids different from their usual demographic (=Christian/white/wealthy/from the South) so depending on how different you are from this you may or may not have an actual shot.

UNC Chapel Hill and Duke (Robertson)
I don’t think you fit the profile of the kids - the award winners had basically cured cancer.

Boston University (Trustee)
WashU (Danforth)
I’d cross them out as well as Swarthmore.

Mt. Holyoke
Wellesley
Add Bryn Mawr; look into Agnes Scott (good merit scholarships).

Swarthmore
The odd one out.

American => unlikely

George Washington => unlikely

You could also run the NPC for Tufts, Dickinson, Kalamazoo, Wooster, Denison, Grinnell, Knox, Beloit, Goucher.
Seconding Trinity TX, Southwestern, Centre (if their states’ healthcare policies are okay with you); Ole Miss Croft+Sally Barksdale is awesome academically and financially; GVSU has a great Honors College.
@tsbna44 's daughter is an International Relations/international scholar in the Honors college at College of Charleston and it’s quite good.

Wondering whether U New Mexico would be affordable (you’re qualify for a lot of scholarships).
UMN Morris would likely be quite inexpensive (no OOS tuition surcharge+ scholarships).

If you’re interested in French, look into McGill, Concordia, Bishop in Quebec. They have scholarships and McGill for sure has bursaries (financial aid).
Sciences Po Reims (“transatlantic” French/North American) campus is worth a look too, I think full tuition is sth like 15K and it’s one of the best IR colleges in Europe (Europeans are used to inexpensive or free college so that’s A LOT for them.)

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Are you certain that your family will not qualify for any aid? Some schools (granted, they are tough to get into) offer need based aid for families that make up to $200k per year. It might be worth running some NPCs at schools like that and see what the number is - otherwise, it is going to be tough to meet a $25k per year budget. Also, I wouldn’t suggest borrowing $100k for undergrad (which it sounds like you would be doing). That is a heavy burden to start off with. Will your parents contribute nothing to college?

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