I have my in state flagships as my safeties right now. Even though they are affordable at around 30k/year, I would like to see if I could find safeties for even less than that. Are there any places that I could get scholarships for an even lower net price than my safeties?
Demographics: Asian Male, middle class
Objective:
GPA: 97 UW, 99 W(4.0 UW on 4 scale)
SAT: 1450/1600 new SAT(1400 old)
Rank- 2/110
Course Rigor- 7 APs, 10 Honors throughout high school, most rigorous in my school
ECs:
FBLA-2 years- treasurer(11), president(12)- 1st at regionals, didn’t place at states
Model UN- 2 years- treasurer(12)- outstanding speaker, two events per year
Tennis- 3 years- Varsity team, club team(winters), clinics year round, #3 sometimes #2 singles on varsity team
Tennis volunteering- helping out at local clinics over this summer for our district residents(75 hrs)
Students against destructive decisions(SADD)-4 years-treasurer(11)
Engineering competition-11-12th
Recycling club- 9-12th- I know this sounds like nothing but I’m president next year and I’m trying pretty hard to make it more active as this year was probably the worst ever
Piano- seven years- private lessons
I know most full tuition/full rides would require me to get higher test scores to be competitive. Would I qualify for significant merit anywhere with my current stats? My dream would’ve been to get a full tuition at one of my in state safeties(Pitt) but my scores aren’t good enough. Can any other schools beat that price?
If that SAT is a single sitting, U of Alabama Presidential Scholarship is automatic. Also look at U of South Carolina. In state, you should qualify for significant merit from Temple.
@LuckyCharms913 I have seen Alabama suggested here a lot and it looks like a great school. Do you know their reputation for business? I’m looking into business/finance. I feel like the location might not be ideal for someone looking into finance.
Culverhouse is Alabama’s B-school. Although Alabama isn’t near NYC, finance and econ majors have no trouble getting high paid positions after graduation. Goldman Sachs does recruit there.
Mom2ck is the best one to advise about U of A, so glad she commented.
U of SC’s strength is International Business (Finance is fine, but IB is top ranked nationally). Temple’s B school is very well regarded (my opinion is it’s better than Pitt’s, on par with Penn State’s–but that may be inaccurate so perhaps others will weigh in). Both of these schools also have top public Honors Colleges (SC is ranked the same as Schreyer’s, just a little bit higher than Temple). U of A’s Honors College is somewhat broader but attracts many smart kids.
You might look at Bentley (offers some full tuition scholarships, excellent for business) if you’re open to New England. Some Catholic colleges, such as Providence and St. Joe’s (Philadelphia), offer a limited number of full tuition scholarships and have good business programs (usually one or two majors that are stronger than the others).
Yes, your stats might be enough for Temple’s full tuition. Not sure what their requirements will be with the new SAT, I think it was 1420 CR&M last year.
You might get enough merit from Ohio State with the Buckeye scholarship and maybe another smaller award.
You could apply to U Richmond and Ohio University is supposed to be good for business and has the honors tutorial college.
You could also try applying to Duquesne, they gave merit from $10k to $20k when my D applied.
As a PA student it seems to be more difficult to qualify for full tuition at Pitt, but there is the Stamps Leadership scholarship and also Nordenberg leadership scholarship for only PA students that you might qualify for with all your ECs.
I would definitely apply to Pitt and early, application starts in July.
@LuckyCharms913 I do like the idea of honors colleges at safeties, especially those that have perks for honors students. I did consider Temple, but I didn’t think it was that strong for business compared to Pitt or Penn State. The location worries me a little bit for recruiting in the area with the best undergrad business school right nearby.
I have heard good things about Bentley for business but wasn’t sure if it would end up affordable. I’ll have to look up their scholarship opportunities.
I don’t really know about the others but I’ll do some research.
@mommdc I have actually considered Richmond as a match. Their net price calculator came out amazing, beating every school including my reaches. However, because our financial situation is complicated(business, rental property) I would love to try to get some scholarship money. I know Richmond is pretty competitive and that’s why I had it as a match, but would I qualify for any scholarships there?
Unfortunately if the concordance tables are right then my SATs are just a little short for full tuition at temple but maybe I did better on my retake. I haven’t looked at Ohio State much because I didn’t think OOS flagships would be good with scholarships but I wouldn’t mind going there.
The Pitt situation is unfortunate. I have never heard of a public university that has harder requirements for in state students which is absurd. Do you know how competitive the Nordenberg scholarship is? The website only says what’s require/what they are looking for. I searched up the stamps one and I don’t think it requires a separate application or nomination. For the stamps, do they automatically pick you?
I believe Ohio State has a strong business school, their MBA program is ranked #27 in USNWR. With your stats, you would likely receive an academic scholarship that would knock over $17,000 off of OOS tuition, so you’d pay a little more than $10,000 per year in tuition. Ohio State also gives out 300-350 Morrill Scholarships each year. These are 4 year, full-tuition scholarships. Last year’s prompt was “based on your own knowledge, awareness, and experience, in what ways is diversity important to your personal, academic, or career goals and how have you successfully leveraged, enhanced, and promoted diversity and other cross-cultural relationships among your peers and non-peers.” If your experiences/leadership/community service are a fit, it’s definitely worth writing a thoughtful essay! There are several posts on the College Confidential Ohio State page about the Morrill Scholarship, you can do a search to learn more.
@momfactfinder Wow that actually sounds like a great deal of I can get such a scholarship. If I end up having to pay $10k/year for tuition, that’s already about half the price of Pitt or Penn State(my in states). A full tuition would be even better if possible. If the prompt is similar this year, I could easily write about diversity for personal reasons and especially for a career in business. How would you say Ohoo State compares to Penn State or Pitt? I hadn’t considered OOS publics because the general lack of money given to OOS students but that would be a great deal.
Unfortunately, I really can’t claim to have the depth of knowledge that other posters may have to be able to compare the 3 schools. My D is an incoming OOS freshman at Ohio State this fall and received the Morrill Scholarship. @osuprof@adlgel@trackmbe3 may be able to speak with more knowledge about how Ohio State compares academically to Penn State or Pitt. You could also spend some time looking at Niche, Uni go (no space) and Red dit (no space) - they can give you a student perspective about different aspects of each school.
The Nordenberg scholarship is new, but it says that your principal can nominate you so I would look into that.
The way it works with the Stamps Leadership scholarship, once you apply to Pitt and receive your acceptance letter you will get an email inviting you to apply for the Stamps (if you match the criteria) then later you might be invited for a skype interview and the finalists have an in person interview.
It is not that the requirements for full tuition as instate student are higher at Pitt, but that OOS students seem to be more likely to get (higher) scholarships because they pay more to begin with.
That’s why you need some schools with automatic merit like U Alabama, Temple on your list and some other ones with likely/possible merit like Ohio State, Ohio University, U Richmond, etc
My son is in state for PA and was looking at Penn State, Pitt and tOSU. He was undecided as far as major goes so we were effectively comparing the schools at a more generic level in terms of academics. Since we knew he wasn’t going to apply to any honors colleges we felt academically that the schools were comparable. tOSU was his first choice going in and he received the National Buckeye and Maximus scholarships which brought the cost of attendance down below either Penn State or Pitt. So he picked tOSU with our full support. We are driving back from his orientation as I am typing this and I continue to think tOSU was a great choice for him.