<p>Hi,
I am a rising senior this fall and will be applying to colleges. I mostly look at the New England+NY colleges (I'm from CT) like UConn, WPI, Cornell, RPI. This is mostly because my parents don't want me to go anywhere farther than that. Recently, I was advised to look at colleges like Drexel, Duke, UT. They all have good business and engineering programs (Drexel is a safety school for me). Duke is more like a reach for me, UT is sort of a match. I just wanted to know, what are my chances to get lots of financial aid and scholarships in these universities?
My family and I moved to the states almost 3 years ago and we(family of 4) are all permanent residents with green cards. So we're qualified. Our yearly income is somewhat between 45k-55k. We have about 18k in savings. In addition, we have a house in our old country (is this going to affect my fin aid at all?, do they ask about it?) </p>
<p>And this are my stats:</p>
<p>I have a 3.7-ish GPA (unweighted, on a 4.0 scale) and 4.0 weighted and have taken 4 AP classes so far:
AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Computer Science and AP US History. I am taking 3 more APs this upcoming year: AP Physics and AP Economics + Calculus BC. Haven't received my AP scores.</p>
<p>I participate in Math League(4 years, including my senior year) and an engineering club(3 years, including next year) at school. I also play volleyball (3 years so far+next year (varsity)).</p>
<p>My SAT scores are 1900/2400 (520 Reading, 640 Writing, 740 Math)+ 10/12 on the essay part. Taking another SAT I test in October again.
My Chem SAT II score is 640 and math 2 SAT II is 730.
I also took TOEFL iBT and got 109/120. I read that TOEFL scores may help if your native language is not English (but it's required for international students).</p>
<p>I also have a couple awards for academic achievements in math and science, NHS.</p>
<p>Financially, the instate universities in CT would be good for you. If you want to major in engineering you should also consider University of Hartford. UHart has a fine engineering program. It is a private university and more expensive than UConn…but you might also get some merit aid there. The private schools you are looking at are also quite expensive.</p>
<p>You will be paying out of state costs at UT and those are pricey. It’s not likely that you will receive significant need based aid as an out of state student.</p>
<p>WPI, Drexel, RPI, Duke and Cornell are all expensive private schools. Cornell meets full need, but I will venture that Cornell is a reach for you admissions wise. Cornell only gives need based aid. The others give need and merit aid but they do not guarantee to meet full need of accepted students. Therefore, it’s very hard to say how much aid you will receive from them.</p>
<p>Do you plan to take the SAT again? Is there any way you can raise that critical reading score? That would be a huge boost to your stats.</p>
<p>Yes, I will be in October. But don’t colleges look at students’s backgrounds? I mean, English is not my first language and it’s not likely that I can get 750 on cr even though I will try. </p>
<p>From what I heard private schools are likely to give away more money than public so I hope that if I get into Cornell (I know) or RPI I will have at least 60-70% covered. </p>
<p>Do I have to apply for each scholarship individually and not just by sending my resume to a college?</p>
<p>For need-based financial aid, all you will need to do is check the appropriate box on the application and submit the FAFSA (and maybe the CSS Profile) on time. You’ll select the schools that receive the FAFSA and CSS Profile results at the time you fill out those forms on line. You will need to check with each college’s web site to find out if they require just the FAFSA or both the FAFSA and the CSS Profile. Note that many schools do NOT promise to meet the full financial need for all students. You will want to read each college’s web pages for as much detailed information about how that college determines its financial aid packages.</p>
<p>For merit-based scholarships, it depends on each college. At some colleges (UAlabama is often cited here) there are automatic merit awards for students with sufficiently high stats who apply sufficiently early. (This kind of information will be on the web page.) At other schools, all applicants will be considered for the merit awards and you’ll be notified if you are selected when you receive the letter offering admission. Other schools will require a separate application for consideration of merit that will typically require you to write an additional essay and may require you to complete your whole application by an earlier deadline than the usual RD deadline. So read the web pages very, very carefully for the information concerning merit awards.</p>
<p>EA is a good idea if it won’t be too much a rush for you. It usually doesn’t help with need-based financial aid, or merit aid that depends on the FAFSA since you have to fill out the FAFSA after January 1 anyway.</p>
<p>Yes, the house in the old country will be considered an asset for both FAFSA and Profile. You’ll be asked to provide a net asset value, which is basically an amount you’d be left with if your parents had to sell it on the day you file, after paying any outstanding mortgages and selling costs.</p>
<p>Your parents are required to report all of their assets on the financial aid forms (FAFSA & Profile) that they submit. They will have to sign a statement, as you will, that they are providing true and complete information. If they don’t, that’s considered fraud and there are potentially some pretty heavy consequences, so they’re not going to want to deal with that. That’s how colleges know…it’s an honor system, with some checks (ie. verification via tax returns) and a big stick!</p>
<p>Please do NOT plan to withhold this information. It is considered fraud (as noted above) to do so. In addition to running the risk of losing your aid…you also would run the risk of losing your college admission(s). </p>
<p>Be honest…your family will put this on the form.</p>
<p>thank you, I was just wondering. About tax return verification… it’s in Asia, and we never put anything on the tax return form since the house (apartment) is in that country. We pay for it in our country, not from here. I don’t see any connection. So how are they going to find out whether we sold the apartment or still have it? Not that I want to lie, I just want to know about the process.</p>
<p>The process is as I described above…your parents are not going to want to sign statements saying that they are providing true info if they intend to lie about it and, if you’re smart, you won’t either. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So you are not a US citizen? FAFSA will not apply to you but you will likely be required to provide bank information from your own country, as well as verification that assets are available which are sufficient to pay for college.</p>
<p>Okay, so FAFSA does apply…what’s up with the wanting to commit fraud before you even get to college?! You need to sign up for an ethics class methinks…there are better LEGAL ways to get financial aid than to have a big fat lie hanging over your head!</p>
<p>I wasn’t going to do anything bad. It’s all new to me and my family. I just wanted to find out more information about colleges. Sometimes people just don’t understand what it is to live in a new country with completely different standards. I just need some advice since my parents don’t help me with all this stuff. </p>
<p>I have another question, will colleges/FAFSA want us to sell our apartment in our country to pay for education? We don’t really want to do that because we haven’t bought a house here and my parents don’t have desired jobs due to their language skills. So in case something goes wrong we can go back, which is pretty much unlikely because I’m making a lot of progress in school.</p>
<p>What country are you from that deceiving the government and schools are the norm?! I thought that honesty was a character attribute worldwide!</p>
<p>Look, your family income is not terribly high. I think you may be over the qualifications for federal grants, which aren’t that much money anyway, but state aid programs often have higher cutoffs. If you’re a first gen student or have good stats you can look for merit aid…doing research along those lines is more likely to subsidize your education than federal/state need based grants. Your instate public schools are automatically going to subsidized your education, courtesy of the CT taxpayers. You can borrow money, as most students do at some point, and you can also work to help pay for your education.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean that, as I had said before I just wanted to know about the process, that’s it. This is just a pure misunderstanding, I’m sorry if I offended anyone.</p>
<p>How do I sign up for “doing research” in college? Is it the same as an honors program? And are you saying that UConn, for example, is going to pay/subsidize 10k for me?</p>
<p>I’m saying you should do some research, on your own, to identify schools that would be likely to offer you merit scholarships. You can find this information from a wide variety of sources…on college websites, on collegeboard, and on various threads here on CC. </p>
<p>The price that public institutions charge instate residents is always subsidized, no matter what the income level. To get an idea of what the subsidy is, just look at the difference between instate costs and OOS charges…UConn charges CT residents $10,400 versus $26,880 for residents of other states. They are, in effect, subsidizing every instate student in the amount of $16,480 before awarding any financial aid at all. Then they also have merit scholarships, which seem quite generous:</p>
<p>I believe you are also eligible for New England Regional tuition exchange, which would provide you with subsidized rates at other schools outside of CT. The point is, if you can find schools that either have great financial aid or have low costs to begin with, or a combination of both, college is going to be a lot more affordable to you and your family.</p>