<p>Hello folks :) This forum has helped me tremendously when we were finalizing the list of colleges for our firstborn two years ago, so I thought I will give it a try again .</p>
<p>Very smart, outgoing, natural born leader female, interested in majoring in chemistry or something close to. Not sure what she wants to end up doing in life, so PhD programs, Law school, Med school - they are all in the picture. Money is of a huge concern as we are a typical middle class family not qualifying for a huge financial aid.
STATS:
ACT: 35
SAT Chem - 750
SAT Spanish with listening - 800 (she is not Hispanic)
NMSF qualifying score (should find out for sure soon)
National AP Scholar (12 AP classes and tests so far)
IB Program, taking full load of most challenging classes</p>
<p>No major awards.</p>
<p>She is fluent in three languages (including English), able to converse in fourth and actively learning additional two. Language has been her passion for the last six years, eventually in her career she would like to be able to utilize her skills, but definitely does not want to be a teacher.</p>
<p>Her EC (besides foreign language) include violin (13 years + state youth orchestra), piano x 5, Varsity Cross Country (captain x 2 years), DECA (captain this year), Mock Trial - this is huge for her, loves this activity, has been leading her team for a while although the highest they went was second place in State, also a captain here. She has been volunteering on the Peer Court for the past three years, is school rep (or whatever they call it) this year. On schools math team . Girl scout with bronze and silver awards. Church group leader.
Past summer she was awarded a paid scholarship at the Chemistry lab of our state flagship. She loved it so much that she is going to continue to work there through the year. </p>
<p>Looking for schools that she can be awarded most merit money at. Looking for obscure scholarships that nobody knows about. She is going to apply to some top schools that will give us best fin aid based on need, but those schools are a lottery.
She is also Canadian , so will be applying to McGill. After college touring she really fell in love with some top liberal arts colleges.
Any more info I can provide?
Please share your thoughts/suggestions.</p>
<p>Will not be applying anywhere ED due to financial need.</p>
<p>Ivies, Stanford, et al: all of the true “meets need” schools. She has the stats, the profile, and the ECs to get in to any of them. She should pick her favorites and go for it. </p>
<p>A question is whether she will qualify for sufficient need-based aid based on your EFC at those schools–which are known to give aid to families with income up to $200K per year–or whether you have an EFC that is much higher than you can met and she will need a significant merit award instead. I think that the only way you can make this determination is to run the NPC at some schools. I believe that at Yale, for example–and she is just their type–you may be asked to pay no more than 10% or your income up to $150K. (Someone will correct me if I am wrong.) The chances of getting sufficient merit aid elsewhere to beat that are very slim.</p>
<p>Of course, it is very difficult to get in, so she should also have some merit schools, and possibly schools with significant competitive scholarships, on her list. Pitt’s Honors college would likely give her a lot of money, and would be a safety. (Apply early in the process.) I’m not sure how her citizenship would affect that, though. </p>
<p>It sounds like she is a STEM student who also has a gift for music (surprisingly common I’ve found for top engineering students) and languages (not as common, perhaps something you can leverage). </p>
<p>If she makes NMSF, take a look at Northeastern (Boston) due to scholarship potential. They have a great co-op program, with opportunities for co-ops and/or summer humanities session abroad. It may not be a liberal artsy as she’d like, but it’s worth exploring. </p>
<p>Can you please clarify her citizenship? It makes a big difference whether she is an international or not. If she is a US citizen, have you run net price calculators for her top choices? They will tell you what they would expect you to pay. Also, at many colleges, merit just knocks down need-based aid given, so the cost of attendance doesn’t change too much if you are eligible for some need-based aid.</p>
<p>4.0 GPA and 35 ACT give a lot of potential safeties (automatic full tuition to full ride scholarships) as well as eligibility for competitive full tuition to full ride scholarships (reach or match). If National Merit, there are even more automatic (safety if the amount is enough) and competitive (reach or match) scholarships available. These lists are all linked to from the post above.</p>
<p>@Kelowna - Assuming she is accepted (and I think she she would have excellent odds provided she makes a good impression), I would think that Harvard, Princeton and Stanford are liable to provide the most need-based aid, and obviously all are good fits for someone interested in the sciences and law. I’ll defer to others to provide advice on LACs.</p>
<p>I agree with the decision not to apply ED, as we were in the same boat a year ago and I adviced my daughter not to apply ED for that reason. I’d highly recommend she consider applying SCEA to one of the above colleges (or Yale) if she’s interested in any of them, otherwise she should investigate top liberal arts colleges such as Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, and Pomona to see if any of them are good fits.</p>
What does that mean? That you need more than the calculator says you will receive? If so look at the link @ucbalumnus posted, and look at the pinned threads in the Financial Aid forum.</p>
<p>If she has a 224, she is qualified in any State. All state cut offs are already available in the national merit thread. As UCB said, there are lots and lots of scholarships available for national merit. However, she will need an SAT score to move on to next step.</p>
<p>If she already completed 12 APs by end of 11th grade that is quite impressive.</p>
<p>There’s no reason this child cannot go to college for next to nothing if she applies to enough schools. However, these schools will not be the top 25 with the possible exception of Vandy and WashU (who will fall all over themselves to get her high stats if her interview and essays go well). So choose your top 25s carefully but know that you have likelihoods at Vandy and WashU. Then look at schools with full ride for applicants like your D: Tulane, USC, Washington & Lee, Richmond, Wake, Syracuse, Emory possibly, Rochester, and so forth. I’ve left a lot out. There will be LACs out there with full rides or something like it that don’t advertise these awards, so look around at the Claremonts and others. Look also at schools that have a gender imbalance.</p>
<p>“Looking for schools that she can be awarded most merit money at”
3 schools have awarded my D. the most money. D. did not apply to a wide range, she did not care to be far from home and still would like to stay close (applying for residency now). She is a home body. So, it depends. She also absolutely knew what she was going for - Med. School. It is impossible to choose the right place with such a wide range as " PhD programs, Law school, Med school ". While it may be important where she will attend her UG for PhD programs, Law school, it absolutely does not matter for Med. School.<br>
Ahyway, with these differences, there are certain similarilties between our D’s. Well, as we live in OH and D. wanted to be close from home and her position was “I will do fine everywhere”, she applied only close by. As I said, 3 schools gave her a lot: Case Western (known for engineering and pre-med) gave her $27k / year for 4 years in Merit awards, our home town school gave her full tuition (I do not count that, since it was her hometown and they really want kids from D’s HS) and Miami U (OH) - public in-state gave her full tuition Merit for 4 years and then she got more in junior and senior year. Well, Miami was a clear choice for her, she fell in love with the campus and she was accepted to bs/md program there that had only 10 spots. She still loves it (4th year Med. student) and said that she had chosen the best for herself, she also happened to graduate #1 from her private HS and as #1 pre-med in her UG class. She was not even NMF, she took PSAT without any prep. She also loves languages, placed in 3rd year college Spanish and was able to speak after one semester, did not have time to take more, it was one of her best classes. She knows couple others, but not well. At Miami she was also able to graduate with the Music Minor (she said it was her R&R, loved it, developed great voice and recorded her own music in real recording studio). Went to NZ with organized group, which was her life long dream. Overall great experiences. But if you are not in OH, Miami is very expensive, more than privates, but Case does not care about IS/OOS, it is private.
Not paying for UG gave us an opportunity to pay for D’s Med. School.</p>
<p>Has she taken a TOFFEL? If she went to Quebec schools (which I’m guessing since you specifically mention McGill) she may have to for some schools in the US, you should look into that. Presumably because she got a 35 on the ACT and the ACT is in English she’ll have no problem at all with it, but it might still need to be taken. </p>
<p>If you’re looking for a US perspective on colleges in Canada which are held in high esteem in the US, I’d say the ones I’ve heard of are McGill, UToronto, Waterloo, and UBC.</p>
<p>Many of the traditional women’s colleges are strong in science and offer merit money. Case is a good recommendation. I would recommend University of Rochester. There are many fine schools that are strong in science and offer merit money.</p>
<p>I’m a girl with pretty similar stats as your daughter. Last year, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Rochester, and BU gave me particularly good merit scholarships - I don’t remember what the need-based for the different schools was. She’s very likely to get into any/all of these, and probably also get a great scholarship (thought I’ve heard that, in general, BU doesn’t give great scholarships). Be aware that you have to apply to BU RD by December 1 to be considered for the trustee and presidential scholarships. If you have specific questions about the aid, feel free to PM me.</p>