College Search Binge

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Recently, I have been on a college search binge I have spent hours of my day just researching potential colleges and their information from different online sites. But one of the main problems I have is I don't know what colleges I have reasonable chance of getting into because admissions is very subjective. For example I really like Colby College in Maine and while I am in their admissions range, I and clearly nowhere near as well rounded as some of the students to hat apply their. So, I was wondering what chances do I have of getting in if I apply early decision? So let's get to the heart of my question, what ways can I determine my chances at a college which takes into account all of the admissions factor?</p>

<p>P.S. If you could recommend colleges that I gave a good chance at, that would be great.</p>

<p>BTW here is my info</p>

<p>ACT 32
SAT Subject Test</p>

<p>US History 740
Math 1 770</p>

<p>Freshman</p>

<p>English 9 B
World history A
Honors Biology A
Geometry C</p>

<p>Final GPA 3.76</p>

<p>Sophomore</p>

<p>English 10 A
AP US History A 5
Honors Chemistry A
Algebra 2 C
Japanese 1 A</p>

<p>Final GPA 3.66</p>

<p>Junior</p>

<p>Honors English 11 A
AP Government A (don't know scores)
AP Psychology A (don't know scores)
Trigonometry B
Honors Physics A
Japanese 2 A</p>

<p>Final GPA 3.87</p>

<p>Senior </p>

<p>AP physics
AP Euro History
Pre-Calculus
Honors English 12 </p>

<p>GPA from 9th-11th grade 3.76</p>

<p>Extracurricular</p>

<p>intramural Basketball 2 years</p>

2

<p>Possible majors?
Cost constraints and financial aid situation?
Other preferences in colleges? (e.g. non-major academic offerings, big vs. small, urban vs. suburban vs. rural, etc.)</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-18.html#post15895768[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-18.html#post15895768&lt;/a&gt; may give you some low cost safety ideas (a safety must be affordable). <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-2.html#post15889078[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-2.html#post15889078&lt;/a&gt; may give you other potentially low cost ideas, contingent on getting the scholarship (not merely admission).</p>

3

<p>Financial aid does play a role and my parents and my sister are willing to contribute up 15,000 a year and after that its all loans. Our household income is around 42,000 but my sister is not included in that. As for college preferences I would prefer a college in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, or the Mid-West (I live in Pennsylvania and don’t want to move too far.) I would like to go to a college that enrolls less than 10000 students and would prefer a liberal arts college. As for my major, I wish to possibly do a double major in political science and economics. So a strong econ and poly sci departments are a plus. I do like a college to have good dorms and offer good vegetarian options. Other than that I’m pretty open minded towards schools.</p>

<p>Sent from HTC One using the CC App.</p>

4

<p>Consider Dickinson. They’re good for what you list as wants and they tend to be great with need-based aid.</p>

5

<p>Try the net price calculators on the various college web sites to get an idea of financial aid and net price estimates at each school.</p>

6

<p>I understand that financial aid is important but could you please start recommending schools and help me determine my chances. As for the automatic scholarship schools I don’t seem to like any of them.</p>

<p>Sent from the HTC One using the CC App</p>

7

<p>Truman State (6,000 students) has a list price of about $26,000, but an $8,000 automatic scholarship for your stats. So that leaves a net price of $18,000 before any additional competitive scholarships. So that may be a safety, if you are willing to do $3,000 of work earnings or student loans (Stafford limit is $5,500 first year, $31,000 total for four years).</p>

<p>University of Minnesota - Morris (2,000 student public LAC) is about $23,000 per year, which may be just within affordability if you are willing to do about $8,000 of student loans and work.</p>

<p>But you should go through the course listings and faculty rosters to see how strong the economics and political science departments are for your interests.</p>

8

<p>Well let’s start with Colby. You say you fall within their admissions range, but you’re “not nearly as well rounded as the people who apply there”. Based on what?</p>

9

<p>You certainly have a shot at Colby, but you may not get merit aid there. Lack of ECs may hurt you a bit – if you did anything during HS, including work or activities outside of school, that should be in your application as an EC.</p>

<p>If you are looking to get merit aid, look into Muhlenberg, Dickinson, Goucher to name a few.</p>

10

<p>@JoBenny I have no ECs but my ACT is in their range. Also their policy of optional testing requirements leads me to believe that they focus more of EC than test scores. This is why I was wondering about my chances.</p>

11

<p>Ajda12, have you looked at a copy of the Fiske Guide to Colleges? A couple of hours with that and a pack of post-it notes to flag the colleges you are interested in is very worthwhile. After that go and run those net price calculators, because cost/financial aid is going to be very important to you. I do agree with a poster above that Dickinson is a college you should look at. Also, if you have any interest in women’s colleges, you might look at Mount Holyoke.</p>

<p>You mentioned in your initial post that you might apply ED to Colby. The thing about applying ED is that you have no opportunity to compare financial aid packages across colleges if you do that. The cost of attendance for you (and amount of debt you will come out of college with) can vary really widely by college. There are numerous other threads discussing this on CC – some people swear by it, others say you will get the best deal on college by applying RD at several colleges (10?) and comparing packages. You also should include a couple of the automatic scholarship schools among those just in case – assuming you would rather be sure you are going to college, even if it isn’t to a top choice, and if you want to be absolutely sure you have at least one truly affordable choice. Think of it as a “financial safety”.</p>

<p>I do agree that your extracurriculars are on the light side (just intramual basketball?). Do you have any other clubs? Have you been working at a job to help your family, or taking care of family members (a reason why you don’t have ECs)? Any activities outside of school you haven’t mentioned (hobbies)? Can you beef up your ECs this summer (if you have time, could you volunteer someplace and build up some hours)?</p>

12

<p>@intparent I have been working at Best Buy as a sales associate for 2 years now but would that count as a EC and about the ED thing I was thinking Colby would be a good choice because of their promise of meeting 100% of the student’s need.</p>

13

<p>Working is the equivalent of an EC. Or to put it another way, kids who don’t need to work because their families are low income need to do something that shows they have a bit of get-up-and-go so ECs are where they demonstrate that.</p>

<p>Do run the Net Price Calculator at each college/university website. With your family income you should qualify for some aid at most places. The challenge will be to actually get it because most places leave ginormous yawning gaps between a student’s identified need and the aid that the institution can/will actually offer them. Unless you can find a co-signer, or unless your parents are ready, willing, and able to sign up for PLUS loans, you will be limited to the federal loan maximum each year ($5,500 freshman, $6,500 sophomore, $7,500 junior, and $7,500 senior). If those loans are already packaged into whatever aid the college/university does offer you, you won’t be able to borrow anything more.</p>

<p>This means that with the $15,000 that your family can chip in, and $5,500 for your freshman year in federal loans, you have $20,500. What can you get for that? Is there an in-state public option for you that comes in under that budget? If not, how big is the difference? Is it something that you can cover out of your income from a branch of Best Buy in that city/town?</p>

<p>I understand that you don’t like the looks of the guaranteed-merit institutions, but do give that list a second look. If you meet those GPA and ACT/SAT requirements you are guaranteed admission AND you are guaranteed that amount of aid. No questions asked. Just be sure to apply by the priority deadline and you are in with the money. One or more of these places could serve as your Safety if there isn’t anything in your home-state that guarantees you admission for your stats and is dead-on affordable. Once you’ve got the Safety (preferably Safeties) pinned down, build your list upward into the Match and Reach and Dream ranges.</p>

14

<p>I was wondering how hard would it be for me to go to school in the Northwest? I currently live in Pennsylvania and I really like a bunch of schools in the Northwest like Willamette and Whitman College.</p>

15

<p>bump (10 characters)</p>

16

<p>As a parent, I would recommend identifying a range of schools that are academic and financial safeties, matches and reaches rather than focus in on a single school because it says it meets 100% need. Remember, that is “need” as defined by the school, not as defined by the family. By way of example, we think we can only afford 15k per year for our son, but schools look at our financial situation and say we are full-pay. They define our need as 0 so don’t need to provide any financial aid. Just because we feel like we have “need” does not mean we do in the eyes of the financial aid office. </p>

<p>So take a big step back. For many students, the in-state public university is a financial and academic safety – I gather that would be Penn State for you. Is there merit money for in-state students with certain gpas etc at Penn State? I always get confused whether U Pitt is public or private – if public, again, is that an option for you? Are there Honors College or Honors programs within the big instate school that would create a smaller learning environment, as you say you want 10,000 or fewer students. You should research whether those in-state, public schools are affordable for you and whether you meet their admissions standards. If so, you may have your academic/financial safety.</p>

<p>Then you want to figure out schools where you are at the top end of admission standards and they give merit money. Dickinson may be a possibility; also, if you are female, consider some of the single sex schools such as Bryn Mawr, Mt Holyoke, maybe Agnes Scott in Atlanta. Other mid-range smaller liberal arts schools could include Trinity College in Hartford, Skidmore College, Connecticut College. If you are willing to go to the midwest, that adds Earlham (Quaker school in Indiana), College of Wooster, Denison in Ohio, Kalamazoo in Michigan. You can go on to each school’s website, search for “common data set” and that pulls up the annual report which includes admission info – what percentage of incoming class has what gpa and test score range. If your scores put you solidly in the top 10-25%, you may be eligible for merit money. If you are in the middle or bottom, it is a reach. </p>

<p>The top 20-30 liberal arts colleges are, in my mind, not matches for any student because the admissions decisions can be so unpredicabtable. A strong student may be denied and a student with “lesser” credentials admitted, and who can tell what will happen in advance. So schools like Haverford, Bowdoin, even Colby, are too hard to predict and I would recommend seeing them as reaches, no matter where your stats might put you. </p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

17

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</p>

<p>Penn State and Pitt are apparently “state related”, with lower list price for in-state than out-of-state students. They have a reputation of poor need-based financial aid (even for in-state students), though Pitt has a reputation of having more large merit scholarships available.</p>

18

<p>What ucb said… Penn St and Pitt are likely to be higher in cost than many other options the OP could get, esp if they qualify for need based aid.</p>

<p>Pitt does offer some significant merit aid awards, but the bottom score for merit aid (as per an admissions group session) is 33 on the ACT. For higher awards, you want higher.</p>

<p>Penn St has given out a little more merit aid recently from what I’ve seen, but still nowhere near Pitt and nowhere near making things truly affordable for most in state students with need. At both schools, the need based aid is rather lacking (to say the least). Our true state schools cost less, but also aren’t all that great with aid and don’t offer merit aid.</p>

<p>With a 32 ACT, I suggest looking elsewhere, esp if needing aid. </p>

<p>For engineering, I’d still recommend Penn St. For pre-med, nursing, or neuro types of majors, I’d still recommend Pitt. You never know what will happen in the financial aid office, but don’t count on them as safeties.</p>

<p>I can’t recommend western schools as I’ve never looked at any and we have few students from here going to any of them (so no personal feedback for me to draw upon). In PA I do suggest Dickinson as before. The OP could also try Franklin & Marshall if looking for need-based aid - they don’t give merit aid. I’ve heard good things about Wooster (regarding aid and academics).</p>