Chances for Northwestern, Rice, Wash U, Carnegie Mellon & more...and chances for merit aid

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Interested in what you think my son’s chances are for getting into schools mentioned below, and chances for merit/institional aid. (We will not qualify for federal need-based aid.)

Schools he’s interested in: Northwestern Univ, Rice Univ, Wash U St Louis, Carnegie Mellon, Purdue, Univ of Minnesota/twin cities, Univ of Illinois Cham/Urbana, Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech. Of course likes Univ of Penn, Stanford, MIT, too. (Will apply to Iowa State and U of Iowa because they’re in-state, but he wants to go out-of-state.)

Majors: computer science, math, possibly engineering

GPA: 4.21 (W), 3.91 (UW)
Class rank: Top 3% in a class of 625
Honors: one of 12 seniors in Honors Program, which requires taking most rigorous coursework offered, maintaining a 3.9 GPA, completing independent learning capstone project
12-13 AP classes: took Euro History, Biology, US History, Lit & Comp, Calc AB, Chemistry, Comp Sci. Senior year taking Calc BC, Physics, Statistics, Lang & Comp, US Gov & Politics, and maybe Enviro Sci
Dual enrollment: will graduate with an AA in liberal arts from local community college (64 credit hrs)

ACT: 35 composite (36 sci, 35 math, 35 Eng, 34 reading, 10 writing)
PSAT: 1,450 (750 math, 700 reading/writing)…expecting he’ll miss NMSSF by 1 pt
SAT: taking in Aug, along with Math 2 and Chem subject tests

ECs & leadership roles by end of sr yr:
Mock Trial (4yrs): team captain for two years, Outstanding Attorney Award, Outstanding Witness Award
FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics Team (3 yrs): team co-captain two years, team won “Motivate” and “Connect” Awards, qualified for state
FIRST Robotics Challenge Team (2yrs): team captain sr year, team qualified for World Competition during rookie year and was awarded the “Rookie Inspiration Award,” won awards from judges at regional competitions. Role included product design, coding, writing letters to secure grants, presenting to execs at companies that sponsored the team.
Model UN (2 yrs): co-president
National Honor Society (3 yrs): chaired two committees
Principal’s Advisory Council (3 yrs)
SIlvercord (4 yrs): 210 volunteer hours
Iowa High School Speech Assoc Contest (2 yrs): state qualified in jr year for expository address
Linguistics Club (1 yr)

Academic honors:
National Council on Youth Leadership - selected for leadership program as a jr
James Jordan Scholars Leadership Institute - selected for leadership program as a soph, won scholarship for essay
Academic letters each year
National Merit Commended Scholar

Other:
75% of volunteer hours were helping teach computer coding, robotics and leadership skills during school district summer programs for grades 1-8, and for Junior Achievement
Senior Honors Project - will teach gifted elementary students how to code and compete on a first year VEX Robotics team
Other interests: art/drawing, cello, public speaking
Residence: Iowa
White male

Thank you!

2

Penn (any Ivy), MIT offer no merit aid. All need based.
CMU, Northwestern have some very competitive scholarships, as do WashU etc.
Here’s an older, but decent list of all schools that offer merit just for reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/07/08/education/edlife/8edlife_chart.html

Your son should get into a number of good schools with those stats but predicting aid can be even more difficult than predicting collge acceptance.

If merit aid is key, the trick is to be at the top or beyond the school’s academic profile.

If you can swing it without needing some merit aid, the options are bigger, obviously.

If he were to end up somehow getting NMS semi or finalist, the scholarship options increase.

3

He will be competitive for a merit award at Rice University.

I wonder why Rice University isn’t on the New York times list posted above?

In my limited experience, it seems that kids that are accepted to Rice can also get accepted at Wash U. Both schools have some excellent merit awards, but I don’t know how they compare for giving merit awards (i.e. if you get a large merit award at Rice, would you also have a good chance for a large merit award at Wash U.).

4

Northwestern does not offer merit-based aid other than the $2,500 for NMS.

5

@IWannaHelp So sticker price minus $2,500 (maybe)…Ouch!

6

@IWannaHelp

I know they used to have one or two other large award scholarships (that went to very few students) but perhaps they’re no longer awarding. But regardless, NW is not a good school if you need merit aid.

7

Honestly, your son has really good stats BUT a lot of the top colleges are looking for some sort of sports background to really stand out. Wash U is not need blind, so most of their scholarships are need based. You have to either apply to a scholarship program (which can be fairly difficult to get into) or really stand out academically in order to get a scholarship there if you want something merit based.