Colleges with potential for decent merit aid?

State Forums
1

Trying to narrow down my college options before applying this fall. It’s been my dream to go to CA for college but I will probably only consider schools that provide a decent amount of scholarship money, although my family is upper middle class. I have a 3.8 UW GPA and am taking the most rigorous course load in my school (ranked in the Top 10%). Although I am retaking the ACT in September, I scored a 29 on my last attempt (brought down by math and science scores ) and ost recent SAT was a 1300 and might retake in November.

Schools I am considering include Occidental College, Pitzer College, Pepperdine University, LMU, and University of San Francisco. Any experiences with these schools and their financial aid? Could the fact that I am Catholic and very involved in the church translate to higher chances of merit scholarships for the schools with religious affiliations (Pepperdine, LMU)? If that’s the case I might also consider USan Diego.

If you have any suggestions on other schools I should look at, please let me know. I appreciate any help.

2

Santa Clara is another CA Jesuit school that you should add to your list.

3

My daughter recently was accepted to the UC’s she applied to but with no aide. She has decided to go to Occidental. They offered her pretty amazing aid but it’ still expensive (it will cost the same as a UC w/o aide). I have found that most of the colleges she applied to had a tuition calculator on their website that tended to be pretty darn accurate.