<p>@laplatinum,</p>
<p>Not sure what type of school OP attends but many GCs don’t have “meetings” with families. My daughters didn’t. It’s incumbent upon the families to do the hw beginning in freshman year… Especially low ses families</p>
<p>How interest will those loans accrue after 2-3 years?</p>
<p>The reason I had such high hopes for scholarships is earlier on this year a girl from this scholarship program “connections 101” came to my school and gave an assembly. In the assembly she told us all these stories about kids going to school for free due to scholarships they won. At the time I didn’t realize that I would NEED this in order to go to some schools. I wish I could go back in time and start applying for scholarships as early as my freshmen year.</p>
<p>The solution to “go back in time” is the gap year. It’s not so radical - plenty of kid aiming for higher schools than their safety or needing better financial aid do it. Some go backpacking around the county/Europe/Asia, some attend high school in a country where the’ve studied the language or that is their heritage, others volunteer at home or abroad, most work and save money, perhaps taking a couple non credit courses like CPR, generally taking some test prep courses. (During a gap year, you cannot take any class for credit, from a community college or elsewhere.) You apply as a freshman, with your new test scores and your final grades showing improvement during senior year, with a wider list. The recommended list would have two colleges you’re sure you can get into and can afford (meaning you’ve run the net price calculator on each college - use the one from BigFutures since you enter your info only once and then can see how different colleges treat your situation, it will vary by a lot from college to college ), about three to five colleges you can get into, can afford and really like, and finally a few schools you wish you could get into and afford.
Until about 10 years ago the gap year used to be an option for well-off students but today it’s much more common since the college process has become so competitive and some students are so burnt out. At elite schools like Princeton, it’s even an option for admitted freshmen.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize you weren’t a direct admit to Kelley. I know you’ll step up in college but so will everybody else. The kids who got A’s in your classes in HS? They’ll want to cling to those A’s and half of them won’t get them. Kids who got B’s will stuggle to stay at the B level and that means, as soon as you get a B- or under, go to tutoring. A lot of kids who don’t do this end up with C’s or worse. In short, you can’t count on Kelley.</p>
<p>In addition, with that test score, you’ll need to retake the score since IBanking asks for them. They’ll want to see a 2100 or more. </p>
<p>The girl who came to speak probably attended a college that meets need. There are about 60 of them but I don’t think you’re competitive for them. How many AP classes do you have in that 3.23 (I assume it’s your unweighted GPA - what is it weighted?)
You don’t apply for scholarships as early as freshman year. Most financial aid is institutional, ie., it comes from the college you’re applying to. If you’re applying to a public university OOS, unless you qualify for some merit they offer, you won’t get any money. The second most important part of your financial aid package is federal, is., direct loans (federal loans also called “Stafford”), and Pell. Third is your state’s aid, if you stay in state/ go to an instate public university. Outside scholarships contribute very little. That’s why it’s important to apply strategically to in-state and private colleges in and out of state where you’re in the top 25 or even 10% of applicants, etc.</p>
<p>Other options include merit scholarships but you’d need to get your test score much higher to compete for them and your GPA will be problem. Hopefully you aced all your finals (or will study very hard and ace your finals).
Another option is an in-state public. Yet another option but riskier is to look for a college where your GPA is within range but your test scores are much higher than their average and apply for a merit scholarship. </p>
<p>Colleges where you may get a good financial aid package if you raised your test scores by 150 points and with a 3.2 include Lynchburg, Doane, Mitchell, Lynn, College of Idaho, Elmhurst (near Chicago), Millikin, Rider, Alma, Augsburg (in the Twin Cities, home to more Fortune 500 companies than about anywhere), Roanoke, Guilford, Muskingum, Duquesne (in Pittsburgh, lots of companies too), Radford (good business school).</p>
<p>Colleges that would be within range include CUNY Baruch, Manhattan (good business), Flagler (gorgeous campus), Barry (good location if you like the beach :p), Bradley (good business school), Bryant (business school, great recruiting), Lake Forest (near Chicago), Valparaiso (good business school), University of Louisville, Ole Miss, Carroll of Montana (in the capital of Montana), Hartwick, Hiram. </p>
<p>Look into those. The fastest for IB at a decent cost would be Baruch but schools such as Bryant, Manhattan, Bradley, Augsburg, Duquesne, Lake Forest, Valparaiso… shouldn’t be discounted. They won’t get you to IB but neither will an 1860 on the SAT so right now it’s not within the picture. You can get into banking from there though. If you apply to private schools 400 miles from home you get a nudge for admission and if they practice preferential packaging you get better financial offers because you bring geographical diversity.</p>
<p>It’s hard to say, after the fact, that you didn’t get revved up in the right ways before, but somehow now you can scurry to pull it all together at the last minute and achieve your immediate goals for this Fall. It’s May. Senior final grades are almost in the hopper. You still really don’t “get it,” not in enough ways. </p>
<p>Go to cc, blow them out of the water, transfer. Or stay, graduate at the top of your class. Eyes wide open. Learning from past mistakes and driven to move forward in a rational way. </p>
<p>IU was, in its own way, a “win.” Enjoy that. But no school stays a “dream school,” if the right aid isn’t there, if the family can’t pay the bills. Worse than starting at cc is when a kid cobbles together just enough money for freshman year and then finds out he can’t manage sophomore expenses. It doesn’t matter whether you and your friends love or hate your cc options. It does matter what you accomplish over the next four years. Forget what everyone else in your hs thinks. After the little rush in hs, to see where everyone is headed for college, the next checkpoint is four years from now- when you get the job offers, when you have the grades and experiences (and faculty recommendations) to get into a great MBA program. That’s the new goal, the one that will last longer, sit higher, and bring you what you want.</p>
<p>"“In the assembly she told us all these stories about kids going to school for free due to scholarships they won.”"
"</p>
<p><<<</p>
<p>Connections 101 is a student success company. We provide motovational assemblies in schools in PA, NJ, NY and CT. Specializing in assisting students with college planning, career and scholarship strategies, our reputation has positively grown and student’s lives have been changed. Students who have attended our programs and applied our scholarship strategies have won hundreds of thousands of dollars. We change lives!<<<</p>
<p>She represented this company. who knows what their strategies are. I doubt that they are applying to random scholarships. the strategies probably are:</p>
<p>top students with low incomes need to apply to schools that give great need-based aid.
top students with unaffordable EFCs need to apply to schools that give super merit aid.
top students who are minorities need to apply to Gates MS
and so forth.</p>
<p>her company would not likely have success with a student like you wanting to go to IU. I can practically promise that because your need is too great, your stats were modest, and there aren’t random entities out there who will fund your education.</p>
<p>If last fall you had just wrote a bunch of essays to random scholarships you would still be in the same situation.</p>
<p>start at a CC or do a gap year. If you do the gap year, then come back here for help with a proper app list.</p>
<p>^I agree that going to CC and being on top of things to get a 4.0 (3.7+required, and that’s HARD in college, much harder than in HS) then transferring is a good option if you don’t want the gap year. Then you’d really get an opportunity to get into Kelley and you would graduate from it.
Some NJ community colleges are better at preparing transfers so look into it. I think Bergen is good and Sussex County , Cumberland, Gloucester, and BUrlington all have a very good track record too( 45% students get into a 4-year school).
PLUS parent loans don’t work the way co-signed loans work. PLUS loans are better because their shackles aren’t so horrible, but if your parents are 90 days late on any loan or credit card, the loan is lost for the following year. And if you stop being in good standing or full-time at a college, you need to reimburse immediately. An issue is that this amount of debt means your parents won’t be able to buy a car or anything big, and I hope they own their house with no mortgage.
Try to get your deposit back from IU on Monday. The more you wait, the unlikelier it gets that you’ll get it back.</p>
<p>IU will likely never be affordable. Instead, the student can get top grades at a CC and then try to transfer to a top school that gives great aid to low income students. Cornell takes transfers, dont know if Columbia does.</p>
<p>Maybe I am misunderstanding, but the goal seems to be for the parents to borrow/co-sign, but the student thinks that he is going to pay all the loans back (not his low-income parents). The parents are likely considering doing this because they think this will help their son make lots of money and pull the whole family out of poverty.</p>
<p>Here’s a novel idea. Get a job. Go to school part-time. Many employers have tuition assistance that can help pay for college as you earn money. Save as much as you can and hopefully in a few years you will have enough put away to pay for 2 years at a good school.</p>
<p>Oh, and yes…learn about personal finance. For a kid interested in business, you seem to know very little about how money works.</p>
<p>They make 50-80k so they’re middle class not poor. OP lives in an affluent area of NJ so that’s considered low income (by his peers I assume) lol.</p>
<p>IU will never be affordable but if OP gets his grades up, he may actually get into Kelley from CC and only pay for 2 years of these insane loans. If he chooses to go to CC, Rutgers, TCNJ, Rowan… may then lead him to internships and jobs with reasonable debt. He may also do a gap year and apply to a wide variety of colleges, including Baruch (which would be his best chance for the career he wants.)
But I think OP has come to terms will the fact he won’t be starting at IU in the Fall.
Right now his choices are gap year or CC.</p>
<p>^^^
oh, missed his income. He wrote: ““at due to my families low income I””</p>
<p><<<
would like to think that after I pay off my debts I could help my parent out as much as possible and help solve their financial issues as well. Hopefully I can land a career where that its possible to support them on top of myself. T
<<<</p>
<p>what financial problems do they have? and I did suspect that the plan is for you to eventually support them…perhaps during their retirement years which likely arent well-funded now.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>NJ schools are not bad. your stats are really too modest to have confidence that you’d make it in investment banking. What talents do you have that you think you’d be a success with that career?</p>
<p>is it true that you have NOT been admitted to Kelley? if so, this whole thread is just insane.</p>
<p>One reason why your interest in these big loans is selfish is because YOU are not likely going to be able to pay them back…and then your parents will get hurt.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not very many of them have this for entry level jobs (high school education only)…</p>
<p>Some tuition assistance requires a longer work period before they shell out. Some require your studies be central to what their biz is. Some have a max number of courses per year, like 2-4. There is no generalizing. A gap to restudy for SATs is not much pull into a “better” college. They like to see it makes sense and is responsible. And, the average job a kid gets during a gap year will help with cc costs, not a more expensive sleep-away. </p>
<p>And, yes, NJ colleges are fine! It’s just that NJ kids like to put them down. A particularly NJ thing, on CC. Get past it.</p>
<p>IB or finance careers require a certain aggressiveness. That is so different than pushing and pushing for one particular school when the aid isn’t there and the family can’t afford it. The aggressiveness OP needs is the sort that says, by gummy, I will succeed over the next four years, do what it takes and show them, even if it means starting at cc. Not, I will take the dang loans and risk everything just to go to an OOS public in another region.</p>
<p>For those here who are still suggesting privates: we don’t know if OP will ever get enough aid from them to pay the balance after whatever aid he gets. OP has to run NPCs. No more assumptions. And, find out exactly what the parents can contribute. CC FA 101.</p>
<p>^I think a gap year and restudy for a higher SAT would make an equivalent college THAT IS AFFORDABLE a real possibility. The point is NOT getting into a “better college” but into a college that makes sense price-wise while being good for a B/B+ student. Taking a gap year would be to maintain equivalent academic level in the institution chosen (vs. a CC) while prospecting for colleges that would make more sense financially than the current 2 choices.
While applying to in-state publics makes sense (and no one suggested otherwise), if OP wants a choice or getting out of NJ, OOS privates are a good choice <em>after running the net price calculators</em>. At this point, I sure hope OP has figured out that needs to be done before any college is applied to.
OP needs time to dig aroud. For instance, Flagler was founded on the premise tuition should be kept low and attracts mostly B/B+ students, so tuition is under $20K, and it’s in a gorgeous former luxury resort in Florida. Baruch has even lower tuition and apparently OP could commute to the city. But with a higher SAT OP would have many more choices, as Baruch is just a match with these stats and for Zicklin higher would be expected.
ITA that OP needs another perspective on things/attitude if he wants a likelihood of success in the professional field he purports to want. Your description of the qualities needed was spot on.</p>
<p>The OP is too immature to go away to college. </p>
<p>The OP is a disappointed high school senior. He was likely thrilled that he even got accepted to IU. The financial issues were addressed prior to applying…and unfortunately the money was not forthcoming. </p>
<p>He made a list of schools to apply to…and now they are not working out financially.</p>
<p>He is not immature…he is disappointed, and needs to regroup. </p>
<p>Thank you ^. My biggest issue with a gap year is that while I could increase my SAT score, my SAT is not my biggest issue. Rather, my GPA was the main reason while I either got rejected from schools or given little to no merit aid.</p>
<p>@thumper1: the op said
</p>
<p>That sounds immature to me. </p>
<p>he is a typical naive high school student who didn’t know how FA works, and his parents were equally naive. if he had posted here last fall, he would have been better advised.</p>
<p>Fair enough to say, has not yet proven himself. Take that as fact, OP. Let it motivate you. You have a summer job lined up?</p>