<p>I am looking mostly at liberal arts colleges and want to know which are the ones that offer the best need-based finantial aid. I would need basically full tuition coverage, and as much as possible in grants. It doesn't matter how selective the schools are; I can pick and choose later.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>The most generous need based financial aid is offered by Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford. If your family’s income is very low then there are many other schools besides these that will offer you full tuition coverage. If your family is in the middle class then even these schools won’t cover your full tuition.</p>
<p>With all due respect, Pea’s post is a little misleading, considering how ‘middle class’ is defined. Most (probably all) Ivy League schools guarantee full tuition for families with typical assets that make less than $75,000 a year. At Dartmouth, and other Ivy’s, the school is committed to maintain strong financial aid initiatives regardless of any budget cuts being made because of across-the-board endowment drops due to the recession.</p>
<p>First of all</p>
<p>Your concern may not be to just cover “full tuition.” Your concern may involve the need to cover all college costs - tuition, fees, room, board, books, etc…That can be about $50k per year for privates.</p>
<p>What are your stats… There’s no point in suggesting ivies (or similar) if your stats aren’t “ivy level”.<br>
We need to know your stats to make sensible suggestions.</p>
<p>And…are you aware that at non-Ivy and similar schools, that most F/A packages include a lot of student loans?</p>
<p>Best need-based financial aid, liberal arts colleges:</p>
<p>Full need met without loans–
Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Davidson, Bowdoin, Colby</p>
<p>(That’s not necessarily a complete list, but it’s not a whole lot longer than that. Note, not all of these schools are need-blind, so having high need may impact one’s chances for getting accepted in the first place.)</p>
<p>Once your consider schools that meet full need but do include loans the list gets longer. Some, although they include loans, do cap the amount you have to borrow at a certain level – sometimes in the $5000/yr range.</p>
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<p>Lunatic posted these SAT scores in another thread. </p>
<p>Lunatic…this is only part of your student profile. Your SAT scores are quite good. But remember…so are the SAT scores of MOST of the students who apply to HYPS etc. Most of these schools with the VERY generous need based financial aid packages accept about 10% of students who apply. That means that roughly 90% do not gain admission. In that 90% are some very qualified students. I’m not saying you shouldn’t apply to these schools, but be sure you have a back up plan of some sort both for admissions and finances. The reality is that the generous need based aid these schools offer will do you no good if you don’t get accepted.</p>
<p>You might want to read a thread from momfromtexas…who found some full rides for her two kiddos. One had less than perfect stats. She did a LOT of work. The money is out there for high performing students (and you are)…but you will have to do your research to find it. MomfromTexas’s thread will give you a start.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you can also look for threads from getouttabuffalo. That student also got a full ride…I think a Pogue Scholarship to either Duke or UNC Chapel Hill…also got the McNair from U of South Carolina. Will you be a NMS finalist? If so, check schools with awards for tuition for that as well.</p>
<p>Here’s a good place to start: [Project</a> on Student Debt: What’s the Bottom Line?](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php]Project”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php)</p>
<p>A lot of those figures are out-of-date, but like college_ruled says it’s a place to start. I know kids at several schools on that list that get significantly better aid than is on that chart. (These are need-based only schools.)</p>
<p>I’m not going to be a National Merit Finalist because I don’t go to school in the US (although I am a US citizen) and I didn’t take the PSAT which I think you need to qualify. I really don’t know what my GPA is (my school doesn’t use this), but I think my average grade for high school may be around 90% where the passing grade is 70% although it has been higher in the last two years. My extracurriculars are hard to assess because my school doesn’t really provide much pre-organized opportunities, but I have been co-clerk of the highschool “town meeting,” served one year on the school’s discipline comittee, done math tutoring to lower grade students, and am currently an assistant in the highschool and middle school math class. I also have been running semi-regularly for a couple of years, play ultimate, and have been in a translation workshop given at the school. However, I don’t know if these last few things really count. Anyway, my Subject test scores are 710 Math II, 800 Spanish, and 680 Biology E. I think my essay will be strong as will my recomendations (my teachers really like me). I hope this helps. I will check out the thread from momfromtexas and the link.</p>
<p>Do you know what your family income is? Will they be able to provide documentation of their income? </p>
<p>Your stats are high enough get some merit money, but the GPA issue is a concern. Can you find out what your GPA might be in US terms?</p>
<p>My family income is something under $10,000/year, and not really anything in assets. Right here and now I can’t figure out my GPA (I can’t get a hold of my transcript where I am) and even if I knew my average grade I would not be able to convert it to a 4.0 scale because, no matter how hard I search, I can’t find an answer (or rather a consistent answer) However my grades for last year (senior year) were 99% Chemistry, 96.5% Math, 92% history, 91% English, 87% Spanish, and 87% Spanish social studies. Junior year’s were 96% physics, 91% Math, 92% English, 91% history, 86% Spanish, and 86% Spanish social studies</p>
<p>Hmm…it sounds like you will need some very significant financial aid to attend college. Is that correct? That being the case, you really are going to have to do a hard search for schools where what you have on YOUR application will be highly desirable for the school. </p>
<p>If you are a junior…I don’t believe the PSAT has been administered yet. It is taken during the junior year of high school. </p>
<p>If you are a senior, you really need to hurry with this search. Many of the most generous scholarships (the Pogue and McNair that I mentioned above…and others like them) require an early application and some have a special application for the scholarship itself. Many of these are due very soon for students who are currently seniors in college.</p>
<p>I hope you aren’t a senior this year!!</p>
<p>thumper1, I graduated already! I am taking a gap year and applying to colleges for next year, fall 2010. What are the Pogue and McNair scholarships and what do I need to do to qualify?! Are they merit based, need based, or both? What else is out there? I will do my own research, but anything any of you guys can tell me will make it much easier.</p>
<p>Maybe I’ve missed something, but does the OP fit the requirements of the Pogue, isn’t it for URMs?</p>
<p>The PSAT was given the second Sat in Oct.</p>
<p>I’m really confused because I thought the OP wanted to know about need-based FA.</p>
<p>Thumper…</p>
<p>Juniors took the PSAT a couple of weeks ago. It’s always given in October - except when odd things happen - like Katrina - then some took it in Nov.</p>
<p>However my grades<br>
99% Chemistry, A+
96.5% Math, A
92% history, A
91% English, A-
87% Spanish, B+
87% Spanish social studies. B+
96% physics, A
91% Math, A-
92% English, A-
91% history, A-
86% Spanish, B
86% Spanish social studies B</p>
<p>1 A+
3 A
4 A-
2 B+
2 B</p>
<p>So you have about an A- average…which is about a 3.75 GPA</p>
<p>but we still need frosh and soph year grades</p>
<p>I may be wrong, so anyone else’s input is appreciated.</p>
<p>So, with </p>
<p>CR: 690
M: 750
W: 720 </p>
<p>and, possibly a 3.75 GPA (if my figures are right and 9th and 10th grades are similar)</p>
<p>An ivy or similar is “iffy” - but you need a school like one of them since you need ALL of your college and personal expenses covered. With an income of $10k per year, your family wouldn’t even be able to afford to fly you home for holidays or summers.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, although I do not know my exact freshman and sophmore grades I do know that they are not as good as my junior and senior ones. I think a more realistic GPA given this conversion system would be a 3.5ish. However, I was hoping that my good SATs and the fact that my GPA is increasing rather than decreasing would help compensate. </p>
<p>Question about the letter grading system: Is a D a passing grade, because if it is then would there actually be 7.5 percentage points per letter grade instead of 10? </p>
<p>The help with figuring out my stats and my chances at some of these colleges is greatly appreciated, but I would just like to remind people that my original purpose in creating this post was to find out what colleges had the best need-base aid, not what my chances of getting in were. That is why I didn’t post my stats from the start; I didn’t want people omitting colleges because they thought they were either too competitive or too low ranking for me.</p>
<p>Lunatic…you don’t have a lot of time to apply for some of these “generous” scholarships if you are applying for admission in fall 2010. Applications for these are due very soon…some as soon as November 15. </p>
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</p>
<p>The above is from the Pogue website. However, this OP has already probably missed the deadline for this for fall 2010. Applications to UNC-Chapel hill had to be completed BEFORE November 1 (which is tomorrow). Pogue applications are due Dec 5.</p>
<p>But you see what I mean…many of these very generous awards have VERY early application deadlines. </p>
<p>The McNair is a scholarship at U of South Carolina. You need to go to their website to check for the requirements for this award. The application to the school MUST be completed by the priority deadline (soon) as well as the very complicated and challenging Honors College application. Your SAT scores must be submitted and your high school transcript. </p>
<p>My guess is that most of these very high awards have similarly early deadlines. That is why I said “I hope you are not a senior”. For college application purposes, that is exactly what you are!! </p>
<p>So…get moving. Perhaps someone else here can point you in a direction that will help you.</p>
<p>If your EFC is 0, which is sounds like it will be, Rice University actually has the best financial aid package. The work study is only $1800 ($500 - $1000 less than other schools) and there is NO student contribution required for an EFC of 0. Because there is an allowance for books, personal expenses, and transportation, the financial aid package actually goes above and beyond billable expenses (tuition, fees, and room and board) even BEFORE work study is added in. Theoretically, you’ll graduate with money in your pocket. Theoretically. Stanford, Yale, and the University of Chicago generally require about $7500 in student contribution/work study to actually go toward billable expenses, and that’s after FOUR years, not one. If you can afford a student contribution or if you can put some money, some how toward billable expenses, they are also excellent.</p>
<p>Then there are some other schools. If you are a minority, try Boston University. They are generous to high achieving students with a lot of financial need, but it’s nothing guaranteed - you’ll have to wait and see when your FA package comes. It’s less of a gamble if you’re a minority only because BU kind of needs to do some recruiting… with only 2.8% of their students African American, they are likely (and this is speculation) to be friendlier with African American students. At the University of Pittsburgh, you MAY qualify for a full tuition scholarship. The SAT cutoff last year was about 1440, which yours is (M + CR). After tuition is covered, you’ll need $10,000 a year for room and board. Your Pell Grant and other federal grants should cover about $4000. That leaves you $24,000 to cover otherwise or with loans - not bad at all! University of Chapel Hill, University of Virgina, and the University of Maryland College Park (but in-state only for this one) are also fairly good with EFC 0 students, but I know that College Park and Chapel Hill were due today for priority status.</p>