<p>Hi. I am a senior this year, applying for universities. My families financial situation just got trainwrecked, and I need to majorly revise my list. Before, I had Harvard, Dartmouth, ect, but I definitely to need some merit money possibilities now. If you could suggest some that would be much obliged.</p>
<p>Stats
2350 SAT
2270 signle sitting
class rank is top decile
Possible national merit finalist
live in texas</p>
<p>also tell me if any further information about me would help.</p>
<p>There are lots of threads about merit for national merit finalists. Look those up on this site. Many full tuition, some full rides possible. That is where I would start.</p>
<p>I’m having trouble searching because this site is getting flagged as malware… Would you be willing to post links?</p>
<p>Yes… do you know what you want to study? </p>
<p>How “trainwrecked” – so badly that you may get need based aid? Are there any college savings? Do you need 1/3 knocked off an expensive school, or more than that?</p>
<p>What kinds of schools are you looking for? Universities, LACs? Any restrictions on location, etc?</p>
<p>If your family’s financial situation is truly “trainwrecked,” you will most likely get a LOT more money from H and D and the like than from merit schools.</p>
<p>If the COA at a school is $50K, for example, and you get a $20K merit award–and that is a very large award–that leaves you with $30K to pay.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, you get into H, you will pay no more than 10% of the family income up to something like an income of $150K per year. So a family with an income of $100K is likely to be paying full freight or perhaps $30K+ at the merit school, and only $10K at H.</p>
<p>For the most needy students, the Ivies and other deep pockets, meets-need schools are almost always the best financial deal.</p>
<p>What you need to do is cast a wide net of both need and merit schools, and see how things shake out in April. Also, do not forget that FA awards are made on the basis of LAST year’s figures. If you know for certain that this year and next year will be grim, that will probably result in an INCREASED amount of aid at a need school, but not necessarily at a merit school.</p>
<p>well my parents are divorcing, and they’re pulling out all the money they were saving for retirement/college/everything for lawyers. which i heard comes out looking like income or something? So if that is true I don’t think I would get any need-based aid.</p>
<p>I want to study economics or possibly engineering, I never really thought about LACs but maybe… Mostly universities I think. No restrictions on location.</p>
<p>This is the thread
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html</a></p>
<p>It is hard to imagine that your parents are willing to drain their 401Ks and so on for divorce lawyers, but I suppose anything is possible. If so, one would think that there must be other extremely valuable assets to fight over.</p>
<p>I’m sorry for your situation.</p>
<p>Will your divorcing parents be able to contribute anything?</p>
<p>If you do get National Merit Finalist status, note that Texas A&M offers a scholarship that reduces your cost of attendance to about $12,500 per year if you designate it as your first choice.</p>
<p>If you need something even cheaper, you may want to go through these threads for full-ride scholarships:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html</a></p>
<p>There are also competitive full-ride scholarships at places like North Carolina State (Park), Georgia Tech (President’s), and Berkeley (Drake for mechanical engineering majors only).</p>
<p>Of the LACs, only a relatively small number of them offer engineering (e.g. Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, Bucknell, etc.). Many others offer a 3+2 program where you transfer to a college with engineering for 2 years after spending 3 at the LAC, but financial aid and scholarship uncertainty at the “2” college makes it a risky proposition.</p>
<p>This student is wise to seek merit since it’s very likely that these angry parents won’t be cooperative and pay their 'fair share" when it comes to college.</p>
<p>A family that has a very good financial situation before a divorce, often does NOT after the lawyers get paid and two households now need supporting.</p>
<p>Billy tha kid…</p>
<p>Here’s the link for NMF scholarships…</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14675811-post318.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14675811-post318.html</a></p>
<p>What will your major be?</p>
<p>Have you had a specific conversation with your parents about finances for college? I got divorced during my D1’s senior year of high school, but most of her college savings were in a 529 account – has to be spent on college anyway, so there was still some money for her. She was able to go to an LAC that gave her about 1/3 of the annual cost in merit awards, I still had most of her savings, and was able to supplement some from my income. Her dad did not pay one penny, and we still pulled off her 4 years of college at a top 50 LAC without any loans. If you are willing to take out some loans (which with an engineering or econ degree might be a reasonable thing to do), you may not be in as bad a situation as you think.</p>
<p>Since much might be unknown at this time, have a good strategy…</p>
<p>1) apply to a few top schools and see what shakes out.</p>
<p>2) apply to a few schools with big competitive merit and see what happens.</p>
<p>3) apply to a few financial safeties where your big awards are assured, so these are your “back ups” in case the other schools don’t work out.</p>
<p>Do you have college funds in a 529? Are they controlled by a cooperative parent? (there was a parent who posted last year whose Ex had control of the 529 and somehow wouldn’t let the child use the money for college.) Is it possible for a parent to insist that the 529 money be saved for someone else…such a new spouse’s child???</p>
<p>These things can get ugly if parents (one or both) go into an uncooperative mode or revenge mode…especially if one parent earns a lot more than the other.</p>
<p>At this point, any “promises” made by the parents might not come true. It’s not that they’d be lying, but they may not fully understand the financial ramifications of the divorce.</p>
<p>The amount each parent is willing to pay toward your college expenses needs to be determined soon and should be included as part of their final divorce agreement. </p>
<p>Wishing, hoping, and thinking that college expenses will ‘probably’ somehow work out is never a good plan. Definitely focus a lot more on your match and safety colleges. Take advantage of lower tuition at the public colleges. </p>
<p>Are you doing AP or IB? College credits for great scores on those tests can go a long way toward cutting your expenses at a public college in Texas. It can help you shave off 1-2 semesters of college which will help to cut your costs. It can also help you tap into some of the higher financial aid awards. You can usually get AP and IB credits at private colleges also but some state universities will be very generous. Make sure you’re taking that into account when you’re trying to figure out affordability for your final college decision.</p>
<p>What was your PSAT score? Is it at least as high as last year’s cutoff score? If you end up being a NM finalist, the Univ of Oklahoma has a great financial aid package waiting for you with lots of perks.</p>
<p>There are quite a few scholarships for NMFs, as well as for other high academic scoring/ High GPA kids. </p>
<p>Baylor offers a full-tuition scholarship for NMFs and Univ of Alabama offers a full tuition scholarship based on grades and SAT/ACT scores, it looks like you’d qualify for both.</p>
<p>Apply to LOTS of schools because you dont know what scholarships may be offered to you, and some that you aren’t really interested in now may be more appealing once you get their offer of financial aid.</p>
<p>Even though you might spend $500-700 in application fees, you should get that back, many times over, in scholarship offers.</p>
<p>Also be sure you apply to matches, reaches and safeties – both in terms academic and in terms of financial. (eg choose a school you know you will get accepted into based on your grades and SAT/ACT scores – and that you can afford financially if no scholarship offers comes through that you want to accept).</p>
<p>Besides the TX schools and U Alabama (apply to them all to have choices), if you want to get away from home you can apply to U Pittsburgh (great chance for full merit aid), U Rochester (decent chance for decent merit aid) and probably a few others not coming to mind right now. High stats kids often have a good chance (not guaranteed) at many schools, so give them a try to see what works out for you. But, do have a guarantee in the bag to give you peace of mind. You don’t know what will happen as the year progresses. For you, merit would be preferable to need-based (if you even get any of the latter).</p>
<p>First, hugs to you…this has to be a hard way for you to feel this important year.</p>
<p>With your stats, you have the luxury of picking an interesting college list where you can most likely get a good amount of merit $$$ while finding what you want, as long as you consider what the schools offer as well as their names.</p>
<p>Definitely look at Alabama, Pitt and University of Rochester. I would also add Case Western to that list. Maybe Arizona or Arizona State as well?</p>
<p>Texas parents could give you more info on your in-state options.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your thoughts. By “possible nmf” I mean I’ve been notified I’m a semifinalist and am doing the application now. I will add alabama I think as it’s guaranteed (thanks mom2collegekids for your PM, I can’t answer because of my post count!). Right now I’m leaning towards applying to my original schools, +alabama +some competitive scholarships. I like the sounds of the Georgia tech one (the deadline is oct. 15 though :eek: ) so I will probably apply for that. Are there others like that? Also, does anyone know about merit possibilities at ut austin?</p>
<p>oh, i don’t know how much my parents are going to be able to pay right now as everything is pretty much up in the air so i’m hoping for the best while preparing for the worst i guess.</p>
<p>also, I would prefer to go to school in the north or somewhere cold but being hot isn’t a deal breaker.</p>
<p>UT Austin doesn’t give NMF scholarships. I think at one time it moved away from merit, but then some wealthy person started the 40 Acres merit scholarship, so look at that.</p>
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<p>Rochester offers NMFs a guaranteed scholarship of $20,000/year; however, UR’s COA for 2012-13 is close to $57,000/year. Which leaves a big gap for this student to come up with. </p>
<p>URochester is a “meets full need” school but requires the CSS Profile to determine need.</p>
<p>But, billy, if you want cold weather–Rochester definitely has that!</p>
<p>If your parents have to pull money out of their retirement funds for this, most colleges have a form they can fill out explaining why the funds were withdrawn and the colleges will reconsider your aid package. It’s also something you can bring to their attention after you are accepted or after you apply.</p>
<p>Also, you should have a good list of safety schools on your list anyway–financial and admissions. It sounds like you are only applying to reach schools, is that true?</p>