Our daughter is a high school senior currently preparing her applications and we are working on the final list of schools to apply to.
We’d like to get tuition/fees+room/board into the $35K range. We could potentially stretch to $40K.
Through junior year at a very well respected public school that doesn’t rank she’s got a 92.01/100 weighted or appox 3.7 weighted GPA with a 30 ACT (31 superscore). Junior year GPA and standardized tests went way up, even with a more challenging schedule. She’s got 1 varsity sport (kickline) for 3 years and has a lot of community service work in and out of the school.
With UConn starting at $51K, is there any reasonable chance it would get within budget?
We are instate and my daughter had the same stats. She did not ultimately apply to UConn (too big, too close) but we were very nervous about her even being admitted. Word is they give some merit (topping out at around 20K) to top applicants. It is good that your daughter shows an upward trend. If she is ranked highly in her class that will also help. Have you done the NPC? Many of the ones we filled out showed expected merit.
@lexluthor5 What is the intended major? I think majors like engineering and business are more competitive. They do have an excellent program called ACES for students still exploring their majors. My S is there as a freshman, we are in state, and he is a Fine Arts major. My niece is also a freshman as an education major. They mentioned this was the most competitive year ever, with a record number of applications and higher stats. I think your D has a great chance, but it is difficult to tell about merit aid because it also depends on state budgets and direction the new president wants to take. We are electing a new governor this year, and UConn’s president will step down after this year. One word of caution from what I have heard from OOS merit recipients is that there are strict GPA requirements. A co-worker’s daughter’s roommate from Vermont was not allowed to return for this her sophomore year for missing the GPA requirement and losing her merit aid. What state are you from? What other schools are you considering?
@lexluthor5 I think it is possible to receive merit that could bring it down to that range. Daughter was admitted to honors business with signification aid. She was a B+/A- student with more accelerated classes than next level down and 4 APs. 1460 SAT
@taverngirl UConn npc seems pretty worthless. It doesn’t ask about stats. And worse, it i say we have 1 child in college next year, it says $18k and 2 children (which took be true) $10500. That makes no sense.
@magnetnh she’s looking at speech pathology at the moment. We are from NY. Great point to note what is required to keep merit aid at different schools.
I was thinking UConn would definitely be out of reach, but maybe not.
Other schools getting applications are probably Binghamton, Buffalo, Delaware, Towson, Rhode island, Miami (OH), Vermont, West Virginia, West Chester, James Madison and maybe a couple others.
So, it’s definitely a chance that we could get UConn to $35k-40k even with a starting point of $51k?
My daughter is an OOS senior. There were definite cutoffs regarding class rank and SAT score when she applied…that I was not aware of…they may have changed…but it is worth a phone call. My daughter took the SAT, not Act so I am unaware of those cutoffs, but after she applied I found out that for Merit $ she needed to be in the top 10% of her graduating class. But as mentioned previously UConn’s budget will change every year. I have seen that first hand with the University Grant my daughter got first year
@TLD1267 our high school doesn’t rank. I’m not sure how that works in this situation. Will the provide a rank if requested for merit? I doubt she’s in the top 10% if they would provide rank, but it’s a pretty well respected public school.
I guess I’ll call admissions and see what they have to say.
My son had higher stats, and was a linguistics candidate last year, and we did get merit that brought it down to $35, which matched our local schools (University of California, which are competitive but pricy). Except for the cost of travel, which is not insignificant, it was so nice he had his choice, and so far so good. 2 weeks and he loves it!
Unsure if this is helpful, but I was an OOS applicant and ended up getting $16k/yr in merit money. 35 ACT/1580 SAT, valedictorian, humanities major, 3.9 UW GPA. Good luck!
Wow, those are high stats. My daughter isn’t close with a 30 ACT and 3.7 weighted GPA. I’m not sure how she’d get anything significant if someone with a 35 ACT and 3.9 UW GPA is getting $16K.
West Virginia U would be within budget without merit and U of New Mexico, NM State (New Mexico is lovely), U of Alabama, UA-Huntsville, and Ole Miss (among others) offer automatic merit that would bring their cost easily under your budget limit. Check out the rewards and resulting OOS costs if these interest you.
@lexluthor5 Not sure if OOS follows same deadlines but I do recall that applications had to be in by 12/1 for merit. However, maybe that was for the in-state merit. Just letting you know so you can keep an eye on the dates. It seems so far, but it will be here before you know it. Also, my S schools did not rank but they did for the merit programs as UConn has special merit for Valedictorians so I think schools may have special rules when it comes to merit requirements.
Have you visited UConn? Each time I go I am more impressed and my S loves it. He is in a learning community and I highly recommend them, especially for freshman. As a parent, I attended the parent orientation program and I like how they engaged the parents. You can’t beat the school spirit, everyone has been friendly, they have so many opportunities for students and most important to me is that they care about the students. So far it has been a supportive and cooperative environment. Hope you will be able to see all the great things UConn has to offer.
The admissions rep who came to our school yesterday told the students that a 3.5+ GPA/30 ACT gets $15K merit. That would certainly keep UConn very much in the mix. Not sure if she said “qualifies for” though. I think we’ll see the same rep at a college fair this weekend, so we’ll see what clarification we can get.
We did sign up to go to the open house on the 30th. As long as we get feedback that $15K is certainly possible, we’ll go.
@magnetnh we visited today and really enjoyed it. The school spirit was quite obvious. My daughter knows some from our hs who it a freshman and loves it there, so we got a nice insider tour from her.
@lexluthor5 So glad to hear you enjoyed the visit! We will be visiting S this weekend for family weekend. Remember the 12/1 priority deadline for merit scholarships!