EFC of Zero

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hello parents! I decided to post here because you all really give some really good advice.
I'm a senior, nervous of course, with a widowed mother and a sibling. My mother is unemployed and takes classes online. Our EFC from her FAFSA last year was $0. We don't own property, don't have any sort of large investments or savings, and own only one car (mine. a '98 ford lol).</p>

<p>Obviously, it is most important to me to get the money I need to attend college. Some stats and all that jazz...2340 SAT, Rank 4/270, good EC's (national debater, Intel ISEF Finalist, year-round employment, etc.), 11 AP's by graduation, African-American female from a good public school in the upper Midwest.</p>

<p>Right now, my list has ballooned to a whopping 18 schools. Sounds like a lot but because of my financial situation I feel like I need lots of options. UW-Madison is my safety...but I still couldn't afford full tuition so I'm just assuming they give me extra...</p>

<p>So, basically, anybody here with an EFC of 0 have a story to tell? Am I doing the right thing by applying to alot of schools? Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated</p>

2

<ul>
<li>Need = Cost of Attendance - EFC
With an EFC of 0, you’d receive a lot of aid from generous private schools that meet need with grants (hopefully without loans). Since you’ve got high stats, you stand decent chances at those schools - MIT, Harvard, etc. You can find out about schools’ financial aid policies on their website.</li>
</ul>

<p>Is your home state WI? I don’t know if UW is a good choice financially, because UW doesn’t meet financial need, so your family might have to pay a few thousand out-of-pocket even with a zero EFC. Also, according to CollegeBoard the average indebtness of UW grads is over 20k.</p>

3

<p>@fiona_: Yes, I picked UW because I get in-state tuition. WI is my home state. I am applying to many top schools but I just worry because it’s such a crapshoot lol</p>

<p>thanks for the response!</p>

4

<p>Only a couple of hundred African American students a year achieve an SAT score as high as yours. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education each year publishes an article with the figures. On the College Board site – in the research or counselors’ area – you also can find stats about the percentage of black students scoring that high.</p>

<p>You do not need to apply to 18 schools! You will be wasting lots of time if you do that and – do to the time applications require – your applications won’t be as strong as if you apply to fewer schools. I suggest applying to no more than 8 schools. As long as you do careful applications, your problem in April should be which school to select from your acceptance pile. You also should have excellent financial aid offers.</p>

<p>Since you’re in state for Wisconsin that should be a good safety. They have a hard time attracting black students, so I bet they’ll give you a good financial aid package and probably also merit aid. Make sure you fill out any merit aid applications there (and elsewhere). Some schools’ merit aid applications have earlier deadlines than their regular decision applications. </p>

<p>Think hard about what you want in your college experience. Small college? Large college? Urban? Rural? Is the percentage of black students important for you. Keep in mind that dating options can be limited for black females who attend schools that don’t have many black males. Use your desires as a way of narrowing your list. Don’t just like at prestige.</p>

<p>For instance Amherst, Columbia, Georgetown, Grinnell, and U Chicago all are prestigious schools, but tend to attract different types of students.</p>

<p>Your stats are high enough for consideration for the top merit aid at places like Emory, Washington U, UNC, UVA, Vanderbilt and U Chicago.</p>

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<p>There also are colleges where your stats would automatically give you full rides. One of the state schools in Alabama is like that. I think you can find more specific info on the merit aid thread in this board and in the “guaranteed scholarships” in the financial aid forum. More reason for you not to apply to 18 schools!</p>

<p>In reviewing your other posts, I see you’re planning on majoring in engineering or another hard science. Females in the hard sciences are in high demand! You are the dream applicant of many top schools. I think that Smith College has a special program for engineering students.</p>

<p>University of Maryland Baltimore County also is one of the country’s best producers of students who go on to professional and graduate school in the sciences. It has excellent full ride scholarships. I visited it with my son, and I was extremely impressed with the program. He decided not to apply because he wasn’t sure he wanted to major in the sciences.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.umbc.edu/meyerhoff/[/url]”>http://www.umbc.edu/meyerhoff/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>RPI has excellent merit aid, a good reputation, and is headed by a black woman physicist.
<a href=“About Martin Schmidt | Martin A. Schmidt '81, Ph.D.”>About Martin Schmidt | Martin A. Schmidt '81, Ph.D.;

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<p>You will get lots of advice here. Just a few words. Private schools may offer you more aid than in-state publics, and more aid that is NOT made up of loans. Someone with your stats could go private and come out in four years with less debt than going public. Maybe no debt. Figure out where there are schools you are interested in that are not as diverse. They want you and will pay for you to go there. And for an additional safety or two (Ivy’s are such a crapshoot) you set your sights a little lower, where you are in the top 10% of students applying; those looking for diversity will offer you a full ride.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Schools like MIT would love you and give good aid: If you are Intel ISEF finalist, you have a passion for math and science, you are URM, you have good credentials, material for a strong essay etc. CalTech may not be a bad idea.</p>

<p>I would suggest: 3 or 4 Reaches
2-3 Target Schools
2-4 Safeties/Financial safeties</p>

<p>i.e. between 7-11 schools. If you publish your list, people here could help you. You have very strong credentials, do not sell yourself short.</p>

8

<p>Please look at Questbridge - deadline is Sept. 30, so don’t delay looking into it.</p>

<p>You will probably do better out of state than in-state. Look at schools that meet full need. My D is at one (Wellesley) and even though I get half-off tuition for her at the public university where I am employed, we did much better at this expensive private school. Our EFC is not 0, but still pretty low.</p>

<p>You can get waivers for the application fees from your school counselor’s office and also through College Board for sending test scores.</p>

9

<p>I’m guessing that U Wisconsin would love to have you, and will offer you an excellent package. A few years ago when my older son (Af Am) – with excellent (but not as good as yours) scores, mediocre (B+ gpa due to laziness), prospective social sciences major, turned down U Wisconsin, (OOS), a top administrator called him and talked to him for 40 mins. trying to get him to reconsider.</p>

<p>U Wis. had offered my son some merit aid. For you – instate, with better scores, grades, and planning on majoring in the hard sciences – they’ll probably offer you a full ride.</p>

10

<p>Are you set on engineering as a major, or do you think you want to explore other options? Engineering generally means a larger school, or a small school devoted to engineering and related fields. As others have said, you would be golden to this type of school.</p>

<p>Do you feel you need to stay in the midwest because of your family situation? You should sort out this issue before you narrow your school list. A rural school like Cornell would take $400, two plane trips and a bus ride to get to from Wisconsin. </p>

<p>Northwestern should be on your short list for many reasons (the other top school in Illinois, U of Chicago, does not offer engineering). Vanderbilt is another, because of their solid engineering and no loans policy. I think you are looking at 100% aid from many schools, but don’t ignore local scholarships; these can mean surplus money, depending on the school rules.</p>

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<p>You should search the term “full ride” and “wisconsin full ride” on this board in Title Only and you will be able to read all those full ride advises you want and there are 100’s of them. I think you are qualified for all kinds of scholarships and grants from all over, pick and choose them to your advantage.</p>

<p>You should also explore Questbridge and ROTC scholarships from the Financial Aid section on this board.</p>

<p>Good Luck…</p>

12

<p>You are a perfect person to apply to colleges through the QuestBridge program! QB is a non-profit program designed to help high-achieving, low-income students get into selective colleges which have chosen to be part of the program. These 29 colleges include institutions such as Stanford, Princeton, Amherst, Williams, MIT, etc. Thoroughly read the website here to learn about their College Match program: [QuestBridge</a> National College Match Program](<a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/students/program.html]QuestBridge”>http://www.questbridge.org/students/program.html)</p>

<p>What QB does is kind of serve as a clearinghouse. You can think of their process as a three-stage one.

  1. Students apply to QB using the application found on its website. You also have to submit your transcript, 2 teacher recs, and guidance counselor rec. From the applications received, QB selects students to participate in its program. These students are referred to as finalists. All finalists qualify for application fee waivers from the QB partner schools</p>

<ol>
<li>All finalists have the option to be considered for admission to the partner schools through a process called the College Match. This is like an early decision process. You can pick up to 8 schools to apply to during the Match round. You rank them in order of preference. If more than one school wants you as one of their College Match selections, you are matched with the school wanting you which you ranked the highest. For most of the QB partner schools, if you are matched it is binding–you MUST go to that college. However, for five schools you can still opt to apply to other schools and decide by May where you want to go. The non-binding schools in the program are Stanford, MIT, Notre Dame, Yale and Princeton. </li>
</ol>

<p>You are never rejected as part of the College Match process. While not many students are selected as part of the College Match round, all students (except those matched to binding admissions schools) can move on to the Regular Decision round.</p>

<ol>
<li>During Regular Decision you are considered again for admission to the schools. You can apply RD to more than just eight.</li>
</ol>

<p>Read through the QB website thoroughly to understand the process. There is a forum here on CC (<a href=“Questbridge Programs - College Confidential Forums)where%5B/url%5D”>Questbridge Programs - College Confidential Forums)where</a> you can ask questions if still confused or, of course, you could email QB with questions. Everything for QB applications including teacher rec letters, etc. must be submitted by Sept. 30, so I recommend getting going on this right away. I think you will do extremely well with the program.</p>

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<p>Being a URM with stats like that, you are in at Harvard, or which ever school you want to attend.</p>

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<p>My D’s friend was in a situation similar to yours - he’s a URM and I don’t think his scores were as high as yours but I can’t be sure. He did have a rigorous courseload and is really a great kid. He applied to so many schools (close to 20, I think) - application fees were waived because of his financial situation. Was offered a full ride at Macalaster, Williams, Wesleyan, Bard, SUNY Geneseo (top school in our system) and so many schools. He just started at Williams. I am so proud of him.</p>

<p>Good luck to you during this process!!!</p>

15

<p>Wow. Thanks a lot for all the responses.
I am planning on majoring in Chem or Bio Engineering. </p>

<p>@northstarmom: thank you for the suggestions. The thing is, I’m not really picky except for the money, slight preference for location, smaller in size (UW being the BIG exception lol) and strength in my probable major. Because my mom can’t help at all really, if it came down to college A vs. college B, both equally strong in engineering with one giving me more money, 9 times out of 10 i’d take the money regardless of anything else. </p>

<p>@midwesterner: I do not need to stay in state. My mom usually works as a consultant so when my sibling and I leave for college she will be all over the place lol. </p>

<p>@ 2blue, college_query, and artloversplus: I will definitely look into Questbridge. I’ve already started applying to a couple schools, but I will check it out. </p>

<p>Right now, the list looks like this.
REACHES: MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Cooper Union, Caltech, Stanford, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Brown
(about Brown and Dartmouth: mom wants at least 5 ivy league lol ‘rolls eyes’, and i heard Cornell engineering makes people suicidal…)
MATCHES(?): Harvey Mudd, Swathmore
SAFETYish: Georgia Tech, Loyola Maryland, Case Western, Union College, UW-Madison
Special Situation/SAFETY: Calvin College and Clemson < basically, I’m done once I send the transcript so I figure, might as well.</p>

<p>I’ve got free fly-in diversity-type visits to MIT, Harvey Mudd, and Williams this fall. Maybe Amherst, Cornell, Columbia, Wash and Lee, and Swat as well (I’m applying for the visits). So, we’ll see. </p>

<p>Thanks so much for the encouragement. I feel so much better lol</p>

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<p>Spend some time figuring out what you want in a school. You will have some excellent and ivy league acceptances come Spring. You don’t need that many safeties-- really. You can safely pair your list down to 8 or so and have good choices. Your profile is VERY strong. Without being a URM, you would have some excellent acceptances (it is rare for a 0 EFC, single-parent household kid to have that kind of profile). Being URM and a female interested in engineering sort of seals it. </p>

<p>The UMBC link is an excellent program. If you really want engineering, look at graduation rates, especially for African-Americans. I don’t think engineering is offered at some of those lacs. I’m not saying you have to do engineering; just be sure to pick a school that meets your needs. Cooper Union will commit you to engineering (and will they meet full room and board without loans?) while I didn’t think Amherst or Williams even had engineering. I think I’ve read some talk on threads here that most kids don’t end up finishing 3/2 programs and you still have to apply for financial aid at the 2nd school. (In other words, the 2 part of the 3/2 won’t necessarily meet the financial aid package of the first school). </p>

<p>Frankly, I would also advise you to focus on no loan schools.</p>

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<p>Your stats, GPA and URM status have Ivy league and very top schools within your grasp. I hope your list has included as many as these schools that appeal to you. You will do far better financially at these schools than you will at state schools or those who do not promise to meet full aid. Just set your eye on the schools that are sure to meet the aid that you need. Many blessings and lots of luck to you! You should be very happy and proud to be sitting in such a great spot at this time of the year…you have alot to look forward to.</p>

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<p>My husband (black) is a Calvin College grad, and had an excellent education from it, and has been active in alumni affairs. Our younger S visited it and considered it, but is an agnostic, and felt it was too Christian for him.</p>

<p>I grew up a mile away from Union College, and my mother worked there with one of their diversity programs. The college is a wonderful liberal arts college. The city is crumbling – due to the economy and lack of factory jobs – and is and increasingly dangerous. </p>

<p>If you have questions about either school that I might be able to answer, feel free to post or PM me.</p>

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<p>By the way, the Ivys and other top schools have a no loan policy for students with a zero EFC. Just check each school you are applying to to be sure they all have it. I know for sure that MIT, Cornell, Harvard and Princeton do, so I would think the others probably do as well.</p>

<p>I don’t think you need to apply to more than 10 to 12 schools with your stats. Applying to more would just be too much of a drain. Be sure to let your GC know that you would like a fee waiver for your applications.</p>

<p>Another side note…you mentioned your concern regarding Cornell Engineering “making people suicidal”. Mental illness makes people suicidal, not Cornell. It is one of the best engineering schools in the country so you may want to give it a serious look.</p>

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<p>You need to do a thorough finanical aid calculation to see exactly where you stand. If your mom works for herself as a consultant, you may not necessarily have a “0” EFC. Some expenses that she might be able to write off for tax purposes are usually added back in for financial aid purposes when people are self employed so your “0” Efc would change.</p>