College Suggestions for strong academic, dancer needing diversity and scholarship?

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We still don’t know your financial requirements.

Seems like we should be able to manage 30,000 a year all inclusive. But this just comes out of her med school potential costs.

For a diverse environment with lots of students interested in the arts but also very academic, check out Vassar. They generally have very good financial aid, but run the net price calculator to get an estimate. Will there be income in the future? If so, that would change the aid going forward.

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Wesleyan Explore Dance, Dance - Wesleyan University

They have always had a global perspective. A friend went there and spent a few years in India studying music and dance.

Editing to add: Of course Wesleyan is a “little Ivy” and has top notch academics.

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Everybody has psychology, not everybody is going to have dance clubs or groups with Indian classical dance styles. You said you had no income for 2 years, so I would think that would help with need based aid. Schools I have in mind dont offer a ton of merit scholarships (almost none). But I do know that Johns Hopkins and Duke both have more than one student run dance club or group on various Indian styles. Swarthmore also does. It will probably be a matter of looking at schools your daughter is interested in and checking out their student organizations. Honestly you will probably have to look at the makeup of the school a little bit too. If there is a very low population of Indian students, it is unlikely they will have a club. On the plus side, most schools allow you to form clubs or groups that don’t exist. A little tougher would be to see if any schools have classes in the classical style your daughter is interested in. I know you said she doesn’t want to major or minor, but it wouldn’t hurt t have classes available if possible.

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Agree with suggestion to look for dance clubs, too.
For example, many colleges participate in this Raas South Asian dance competition; see results from National championships this spring.

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College counselor here. One of my students was a very strong Indian style dancer. She is now at Tufts, but not majoring in dance. They have clubs for this.

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Interesting suggestion. Thank you. Looks like the larger schools are on this list.

Thank you. We will review this one

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Thank you. All three seem very highly selective but will look at them. The acceptance rates seem intimidating.

Thank you, will look up vassar

Thank you. will look further at colleges that offer this.

What can you afford NOT including the 529?

Others may correct me, but all need based schools will include the 529 in their calculations.

You will need merit aid that gets you down to your non-529 budget. It is possible, but you will most likely need to let go of a number of your college requirements. Depending on how much you need, the most generous merit aid schools are in the south and mid west.

Also make sure that if you start earning, then your required contribution is likely to go up, with need based aid.

Good luck.

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You listed strong stats, so I thought that’s what you were looking for. :slight_smile:

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That’s perfectly fine. Barnard has a very strong Psychology and Neurosciences department - and the course catalogue of Columbia University means one can explore very diverse specializations. Because of the NYC location my daughter was able to intern at another major university‘s research, as well as a Psychiatrist practice.

But if interests change it’s very easy to switch field of study until the middle of the second year - or, given enough credits, swap major/minors even later.

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How academically challenging an environment does she want ? I am not familiar with IB–what is her unweighted GPA and how does she compare/rank relative to peers? If she ranks highly, has taken the most rigorous courses and done well, AND likes a highly competitive environment, these schools all have Indian dance troupes as well as diversity and are excellent psychology departments and premed preparation:
Duke, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton. Yes, they are all reaches for admission but with her 1530 superscore she would be solidly the middle of the pack so they are not likely academic reaches for her.

She seems to be managing quite well in one of most competitive high schools in this region. Students regularly make it to the ivies from here. Which actually presents a disadvantage since its harder to stand out amongst all equally strong peers.
International Baccaularate is a very rigorous high school curriculum. It is not an easy conversion to a GPA - but some conversion links suggests she should be over a 4.0

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She didnt want Barnard as its an all womens college. But Columbia sounded interesting .Just very hard to get … She is only allowed to pply to 13 colleges and cant have so many reaches.

Yes perfectly ok to pay if earnings resume. Would love to hear what schools you recommend in the South/midwest. The combination of high diversity, merit aid seems to be tricky. She is ok to adjust to any sized school. Dance is not a requirement actually since she says its a personal passion she can always continue.

529 is only at 100k which wont cover much given today’s costs!

There are some great schools in the midwest who do a fabulous job educating. But there’s not a lot of diversity in most because the midwest just doesnt have a large, diverse population to draw from. Trust me, the colleges are trying though!

(for that matter companies in the midwest are trying as well to increase diversity, but the midwest geography and weather is sometimes a barrier for those highly recruited diverse candidates.)