Hello, people of CollegeConfidential! I am a U.S. citizen living abroad. I am enrolled in a distance-learning online high school, so I do not have the best resources and information for college, which is why I’m thankful I discovered CC a few months ago.
This is my “profile”:
4.0 GPA UW
SAT: 2200 (750 CR/710 M/740 W)
SAT II: 750 Korean, ? Lit, ? Math II
No class ranking
Jr. year courses: AP Lang, regular others
Sr. year courses: AP Gov, AP Calc AB, AP Lit, AP something (my online school offers 10 AP courses), Spanish IV, Fine Arts (grad. req.)
EC/personal:
founded/taught 10-week-long English classes to college students in this country (9, 11, will continue)
co-founded/co-serve at the local church’s Sunday school (11, will continue)
international youth group leader (11, will continue)
TA’d for a Korean language class in California for four months (10)
QuestBridge College Prep Scholar 2015
LOW-INCOME
Pomona
Williams
Claremont McKenna
Brown
Wesleyan
Middlebury
USC
Boston C
Reed
Pepperdine
University of Richmond
Lafayette College (can this be a safety???)
St. Olaf College
Troy University/Alabama State University/Howard University
I want to study political science or international relations.
I’m very worried because if I am not admitted into a college that meets 100% need, I will not be able to afford college. I don’t think I have any “true” safeties yet.
Please help me edit (add/remove/suggest) my list to 10 schools so that I can have a balanced mix when I apply this year!
Are you a resident of a state in the US? If so, the state flagship may be a good safety, academically and financially, particularly if you are unlikely to get need based aid and are seeking merit based support.
Your list seems very eclectic. I’m curious to know how you created it. It includes schools that are very different from each other. That’s not a bad thing, but perhaps a little confusing.
Lafayette is expensive and does not claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need. So I don’t think you can consider it a safety.
Alabama at Tuscaloosa (the state flagship) might be a better safety choice than Alabama State. Check out the UA merit scholarship criteria (and award amounts) for OOS students. Depending on how low your family income is, the net cost may or may not be lower than the net cost at a so-called “full need” school such as Pomona. http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html
Be sure to run the online Net Price Calculators for each school that interests you. Talk to your parents about whether they can cover the Expected Family Contributions. Do consider your in-state public universities as possible safety/match schools.
@NorthernMom61 I am not a resident of a state, although my parents pay taxes to California. I think that this disqualifies me for all the UCs.
@urbanslaughter I started with 100% needs-meeting LACs and some universities in the west and east coasts. West because I am from CA and more familiar, and east, because of this fantasy I have that doesn’t have to necessarily happen. I also want to stay away from a prominent greek life. But as for atmosphere, I don’t really know what I like, except that I like smaller schools!
These three schools have automatic full rides for your stats, so they would be true safeties if you like them. Howard probably has the most favorable location for a political science or international relations major (Washington, DC). http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ lists a few other automatic full rides for your stats (Tuskegee, Louisiana Tech, North Carolina Central, Prairie View A&M), though you would have to evaluate suitability for your intended academics.
For schools whose aid is mainly or exclusively need-based, have you run the net price calculators on their web sites?
If you have a large enough Pell grant eligibility, then a full tuition merit scholarship (like that at the University of Alabama, Temple, Utah State) may be doable with the Pell grant + federal direct loan + some work earnings to cover the costs not covered by the full tuition merit scholarship.
Updated list (probably will change):
Pomona
Williams
Brown
Tufts
Occidental
Pepperdine
Loyola Marymount University/Santa Clara University
Dickinson College
Troy University/Alabama State University/Howard University
With places like:
Wesleyan
Bates
St. Olaf
Middlebury
Colby
Connecticut College
Trinity College
University of Richmond
also in consideration!
(Basically-- mostly colleges with 25-40% acceptance rates that meet 100% need.)
Trinity, from your tentative list, has a robust fraternity presence which should be considered.
Hamilton could be a good addition for you. On paper, Hamilton has Greek organizations, but they are non-residential and therefore substantially different from those at other colleges. The school’s former fraternity houses are now beautiful residence halls.
@merc81 Thank you! I did not know that about Trinity. @MidwestDad3 I will check them out! @happy1 In general, even though a school is a safety in terms of admissions, if I rely on any form of aid to attend, is the school not a safety school?
@Aralis Have you run the Net Price Calculators on each of these school’s websites? In your financial situation, that is crucial before you settle on a shortlist.
I’m not sure if Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount, or Santa Clara will be affordable. When you take out the unaffordable, your list might become too reachy. Richmond is wealthy and less selective than many 100% need-met schools, and it’s also need-blind. Macalester, Davidson, Grinnell, Vassar, Wesleyan, Haverford… run the NPCs on all of these schools. You need more affordable matches/semi-reaches. Get a spreadsheet going with all of the financial data that you learn from the NPCs.
A school can only be considered a safety if: 1) you know you will get in and 2) you know you will be able to afford it and 3) you would be happy to attend the school.
If the aid is a sufficiently large merit scholarship guaranteed for your stats, or the net price calculator result shows comfortable affordability and you have no unusual family finances (e.g. small business or rental income, fluctuating income, uncooperative parents (more common if divorced), etc.), then you may be able to assume that the cost is safe.
If you need to earn a competitive merit scholarship to be able to afford the school, then it cannot be a safety (even if you are certain of admission, you cannot be certain of the scholarship).
@Dunboyne I have checked the net price calculators of colleges that are on my updated list. Only Pepperdine, Oxy, and LMU/SCU have prices that I won’t be able to afford. I will look into the schools you recommended! Also, I am not a male. @saskatchewan Wow, I guess SCU is off my list! @happy1@ucbalumnus Thank you for the clarification!
Also note that you have religious schools of various denominations and levels of religious influence on your list, so you may want to make sure that each one is a reasonable match for your religious beliefs.
Your list is now top and bottom heavy, but affordability is the most important criterion, so you’re making progress. Make sure your inputs into the NPCs are bang on because they will only spit out good estimates if you feed them the correct data. If possible, get your parents to sit in on a few trials.
Would you consider women’s colleges? The beauty of WCs like Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley is that they’re relatively wealthy, meet 100% need, and have a higher acceptance rate (from their dudelessness), so they can be great options for a student in your stat range looking for matchy/semi-reachy schools with good aid. WCs, like most LACs, have a well-defined culture, though, so you have to research the heck out of them to assess fit. Their lack of men is obviously a deal-breaker for some, but a blessing for others.