<p>What do you want to major in, and what is it about BU that you like, that you would want to find in an alternative school?</p>
<p>Dickinson.edu ¶ Bowdoin.edu (ME) maybe Haverford ¶ and Grinnell (Iowa, huge endowment.) Holy Cross (MA, part of an 11-school consortium.) Dig into their web pages. You’re looking for how up front they are about how much they want to support students. (Contrast that with the lukewarm statements at BU.) Most tell % of students getting aid. Most give an “average amount” but average means some get more, some get less. Key words, obviously, are “guarantee to meet all need.” But, you research, then you can inquire. Check for your major and other interests. See how extensive courses are and see faculty bios. Types of clubs, internships, everything.
There are more schools with good aid. Go to the media “rankings of top LACs” and run through the list.</p>
<p>I love the city. I love the architecture and the kinds of people at BU. I dont know about my major, but not math or science.</p>
<p>I’m looking at GWU. Do I have a chance at getting in there/Whats there FA like?</p>
<p>As happymom said, until you fully understand your family’s EFC and college “budget”, you are running blind here…you MUST understand this first as schools have different FA poicies; for example, BU gives generous aid but typically most goes to its top applicants whereas other schools meet 100% of need even if you are the last applicant accepted at the school!! Merit is well merit – you must be a top applicant at that particular school to get consideration for merit – and those 100% need-based schools typically don’t give any merit aid!! Confusing isn’t it?</p>
<p>Get your EFC figured out and your family budget and then come back for further help…</p>
<p>Read post #2 again. It is spot on. BU does not guarantee to meet full need. It’s full scholarships are HIGHLY competitive. Your SAT scores are OK…but your GPA is not up there as you know. The likelihood of you getting a Trustees Scholarship or a Presidential Scholarship…well…seem low to me. Trustees takes a special application so keep an eye out for the deadline for that…it his HIGHLY competitive with an early deadline.</p>
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<p>Do you want to get a college degree or not? There are some wonderful colleges that YOU might view as beneath you…but aim for the goal…that degree. You might garner significant aid for GRAD school at a dream school.</p>
<p>Bottom line…you need a wide range of college application options…not JUST a school where your aid options might not line up with your actual need. SOMEONE has to pay the college bills. If BU comes up short, you want to have at least a couple of other options in your pile of acceptances that hopefully will be affordable to you.</p>
<p>Have you considered Questbridge (though BU is not one of the partner colleges)? The deadline is September 30th.</p>
<p>[QuestBridge</a> Home Page](<a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/]QuestBridge”>http://www.questbridge.org/)</p>
<p>Is that your weighted GPA? It’s low for your SAT score.</p>
<p>What is your M+CR SAT?</p>
<p>mom…somewhere in thread its 1310…</p>
<p>jayeen - I think people are giving you good advice about applying to LAC’s that give good financial aid. I didn’t see you mention what you’re interested in studying, and that’s important. They have a different vibe than the mostly medium to large urban schools you listed, but give yourself a chance to like them! My son applied to some of the schools you mentioned, with stats pretty similar to yours. Our EFC was about $6,000 - yours will be much lower if your parents make $30,000 per year. A lot of schools are very generous with intelligent, accomplished, first generation, under-represented minority students like yourself. If you want to study something they offer and write a good “why X University” essay, your stats prove that you can succeed - they will love you! I think you’re going to have better luck with financial aid than with merit aid, although you’ll get a mix of the two from most schools you apply to. </p>
<p>Here’s how my son’s financial aid opportunities ended up. Once all offers were in, we made a spreadsheet that totaled the COA (cost of attendance = tuition + room & board + a couple thousand), and subtracted the actual aid offered (scholarships and need-based). i completely ignored the loans offered in my calculations - a loan is money out of your pocket, either now or later, so it’s not really aid in my opinion.</p>
<p>So what you see here is how much we had to pay per year to attend. As you can see, Boston, American, and Northeastern all lived up to their reputation as being pretty low on financial aid for a student good enough to be accepted but not good enough to be helped much financially. Keep in mind - our EFC was around $6,000, maybe a little higher.</p>
<p>Clark - we pay $15,750 per year
Willamette - $17,282
George Washington U - $18,480 (they’re cool because they lock in your amount all four years - you’ll never pay more even if your income goes up)
Beloit - $19,222
University of Pittsburgh - $24,678
American - $27,974
Boston - $27,974
Northeastern - $35,806.</p>
<p>he also applied to three in state schools, and would have had to pay between $14,348 and $19,113 to attend those. </p>
<p>So - apply to Boston by all means! but start getting excited about the schools out there that will actually make it possible for you to attend, because there are some great ones! </p>
<p>Can anyone find and link the thread about finding full tuition scholarships -the mom wrote in about her two kids getting great scholarships with stats lower than jayeen’s.</p>
<p>My family’s EFC is low (haven’t calculated it yet) but both my parents are over 60, we put nearly all our money into our home (constantly renovating), combined income is like 30,000ish, both self employed, and my dad is retired.</p>
<p>You also mention that they put another sibling thru college which also suggests that they are savers since they couldn’t likely have done that with current income.</p>
<p>There’s something odd about this…</p>
<p>Father is retired, so does that mean he has a retirement income or income from savings/investments?</p>
<p>The family is “always renovating” so that doesn’t sound like a poor family. It sounds like a family who has lots of savings since income is too low to pay for such improvements.</p>
<p>Also, you say that both are self-employed…yet combined income is VERY low. So, does that mean that their gross income is much higher but they take a lot of business deductions…including home-office renovations? </p>
<p>Anyway…Have your parents use an online EFC calculator to determine their EFC.</p>
<p>Be prepared that BU will not meet need. Your stats aren’t high enough to inspire BU to put together a preferential aid package for you.</p>
<p>You need to get a job BEFORE you get to campus. You need to also work the summer before school starts to save money for things like books, etc. If possible, you should also get a part-time THIS year to set aside some money. </p>
<p>I’ve already fallen in love with BU though and I don’t want to fall out of love </p>
<p>Uhhh…what would be the DOWNSIDE if you fell out of love with BU? The upside would be that you’d be opening your possibilities for other schools that you might like as well (or even more) AND also get better money packages. </p>
<p>So, far BU has done NOTHING to deserve your loving devotion. Make your school(s) earn such love.</p>
<p>*And as for schools where I’ll get alot of merit money…I’m starting to see that maybe I don’t want to go to these schools, just because they are schools that are far below my GPA. I would probably get a ton of aid at the college in my town that’s a step above the community college…but, the thing is, I want to go somewhere where I’m intellectually and socially fulfilled. *</p>
<p>You’ve set up a false scenario.</p>
<p>Your only choices are NOT…BU and some school that is “one step above a CC”. NO one is saying that you need to go to schools that are “far beneath your GPA”. </p>
<p>*BU aid is so sporadic… And I have my heart set on going there. Which is terrible for me I heard that they either give you a lot of aid or they give you none. *</p>
<p>Very true…You need to think of BU as a “super financial reach” for you and ASSUME that it won’t work out. Then, if by some special good luck it does, then you can happily go. But, assume that it will be too expensive and start thinking about finding a very good Plan B and Plan C. </p>
<p>BTW…many kids often don’t end up liking their "dream schools"once they get there…so keep an open mind. :)</p>
<p>apply to schools that promise to meet your full need, there are plenty of them, around boston too!</p>
<p>"apply to schools that promise to meet your full need, there are plenty of them, around boston too! "</p>
<p>There aren’t plenty of such schools. Most schools do not promise to meet full need. Most schools that promise to meet full need are places like Harvard, MIT, and Wellesley that are among the country’s most difficult to gain admission to.</p>
<p>“There aren’t plenty of such schools. Most schools do not promise to meet full need. Most schools that promise to meet full need are places like Harvard, MIT, and Wellesley that are among the country’s most difficult to gain admission to.”</p>
<p>While I agree that it’s mostly top schools that claim to meet full need, I would not discourage anyone from seeking such colleges. Take a look at this list compiled by US News. Although the number of these schools is limited, there are colleges on the list with higher than 50% acceptance rates.</p>
<p>[Colleges</a> That Claim to Meet the Full Financial Needs of Students - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/paying-for-college/2010/02/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-the-full-financial-needs-of-students.html]Colleges”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/paying-for-college/2010/02/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-the-full-financial-needs-of-students.html)</p>
<p>I think NSM means that there aren’t plenty of schools around Boston that meet need.</p>
<p>And…when you compare the overall number of schools vs the number of schools that meet need, there aren’t a lot of them.</p>
<p>As for those with 50% admit rates…are any/many of them “need aware”? If so, then for a person with great need, the admit rate may not be 50%.</p>
<p>BTW…looking over that list, I’m not seeing many with 50% admittance rates.</p>
<p>According to collegeboard.com: Adrian College: 58%, Bryn Mawr College: 49%, Chapman University: 56%, Connecticut College 37%…Please let me stop here. Many of these colleges have acceptance rates above 30% (which is far from the Harvard-MIT level).
I did correct myself in my last post, saying that that there are not many of these schools. But there are such schools.</p>
<p>And need-awareness is a completely other question. When citing acceptance rates to compare different colleges’ competitiveness, I don’t see why I should take need-awareness into account. Yes, we all know that need-blind schools will more likely offer aid. Yes, we all know that getting financial aid isn’t easy. Yes, we all know that there are only few schools that promise to meet full need. Still, if there are such schools, they are worth considering.</p>
<p>And with the OPs stats I think it is not completely out of the question to consider these better schools that meet full need-based aid (in case his EFC is low enough), so go ahead jayeen!</p>
<p>ksanyee…many of the colleges you list (not Bryn Mawr but the others) use loans to full their financial aid packages. Some schools that claim to “meet full need” actually count the Parent Plus loan as partially doing so.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids:
My brother went to an INCREDIBLY cheap school. And he is paying for most of it himself.</p>
<p>We are ‘constantly renovating’ because my dad likes building on the house. He’s good at finding things for cheap.</p>
<p>And, my major I’m thinking is undeclared. :/</p>
<p>Also, PinotNoir, thank you for your exact aid stats. What was your son’s GPA/SAT?</p>