Just to clarify, I’m not questioning my decision to go to college, I just want to make sure that I’m making a smart financial decision and not wasting my time applying to multiple schools way out of my price range, especially since I’d have to spend a considerable amount of additional time trying to get scholarships.
I’m sure that Alabama is a great option, but I’d really prefer to stay reasonably close to home, and Alabama is about 11 hours away. I could get similar scholarship money from local state universities too.
Scholarships come from the colleges themselves. In most cases, the supplemental essays for meet need colleges find their equivalent in the merit scholarship essays.
I just looked at your planned application list again. One of your top factors is proximity by car to Kansas City, and yet Kansas State and the University of Kansas are not on the list at this point. Have you already ruled them out?
Washburn University in Topeka - they have an accredited business school. They offer in-state tuition to residents of neighboring states. Your GPA/test scores will qualify you for merit scholarships. For more $, sign up to take the Garvey Scholarship exam (offered Dec. 3 in Kansas City; other dates/cities available). They also offer scholarships for participants in their Honors Program and Leadership Program.
`How about Notre Dame or Univ of Indiana? Not sure whether they would be affordable. The other option is trying to get merit money from a school such as DePaul which could be affordable with a mix of aid and scholarships?
“Considerable time for scholarships”, no. Most schools award merit in conjunction with admissions decisions.
Outside scholarships are the ones that are a PITA, and they often pay only relatively token amounts and often only for one year.
Take Trinity U, a school I suggested up-thread. They have a matrix that they publish and freely disseminate with grades on one axis and test scores on the other. You find your grades and score and THAT is what they will give you for merit. End of story.
Now, if you want to try for the full ride Tower Scholarship, you do have to go to San Antonio and spend a day down there in a competition, but the primary scholarship is essentially automatic.
Creighton, same thing. They award you the scholarship with the admissions decision. At Creighton, I would highly recommend trying for their Honors program which does require a trip to campus and an interview, but is a terrific program and gives many advantages to the best students.
Hope this helps clarify Merit aid awards from the schools themselves.
Good luck!
I have more interest in Mizzou and U of Arkansas than U of Kansas and K State.
I will look into the colleges mentioned to see if they’d be a good fit.
As for scholarships, I’m concerned about applying for the top, full tuition scholarships (which typically require separate applications) because most colleges that I’ve looked into will still be $30-$40k even with automatic merit aid. Do you think I would have a realistic chance at getting any full tuition scholarships?
For these schools, you need to estimate reach/match/safety on the basis of earning a large enough scholarship, not admission. Admission without enough scholarship is equivalent to rejection in these cases.
Look here for some options: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
UKansas used to have excellent merit scholarships (not sure now, with the drastic cuts) and they also have an excellent Honors College, so it’d be worth a try.
You can compete for merit at Hendrix, and be within budget range. No extra essays to write unless you’re a semi finalist (and at that point, it’s definitely worth the effort).
Check out the automatic full scholarships linked above. Automatic means automatic, so if you qualify you get the scholarship money.