<p>Hi everyone,
I'm looking to apply to a lot of schools next year (and hopefully attending one!) that have a high price tag. My family would not qualify for financial aid so I am on the search for scholarships. Are there any scholarships that you won/got money for? I heard that you are much more likely to get money for a scholarship that takes a lot of work. Any recommendations? Thanks so much!</p>
<p>Well, there are major specific scholarships, scholarships for women, scholarships for redheads (no joke), etc. Think about yourself and what makes you different. Are you Jewish? There are specific scholarships for you. Try all the big companies like Coca Cola and Target who offer scholarships. My best bet was to literally type into Google “fashion scholarship” or as an another example “lesbian writing scholarship” (real thing).</p>
<p>haha ok ill try! thanks!</p>
<p>You need to decide whether you should focus on merit aid schools based on what your parents will pay. If you don’t qualify for need based aid, you will not qualify for many of the large outside scholarships as they consider need.</p>
<p>It is rare, especially if you’re not a URM, to get large amounts of outside scholarships that will make a dent in the 4 year price tag at $50K private colleges.</p>
<p>Most students who have an EFC their family can’t afford need merit aid, and can get significant amounts with strong stats. The big issue is they need to go down in terms of rankings by a lot to achieve this.</p>
<p>So if you have the stats for Penn you are looking at schools like USC for half tuition (still costs over $30K) or Alabama if you need more.</p>
<p>Are you looking to reduce your EFC because your parents can’t pay it? Or, are you just looking for some scholarships to help your parents out a bit - but they can still afford the full rate?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is this…</p>
<p>If your parents cannot afford their EFC and can only pay a limited amount, then looking for outside scholarships is NOT the answer.</p>
<p>Most outside (private) scholarships are small and for only ONE YEAR. You’d be screwed for your soph, junior, and senior years. And, many only accept apps from seniors in high school. So, that would also limit scholarships for your remaining years.</p>
<p>Besides, who wants the stress every year wondering if you’ll cobble together enough scholarships for the next year? </p>
<p>You can try and see if you’ll get any outside scholarships for 4 years to a pricey school, but PLEASE, have some back-up schools in case you don’t get big 4 year scholarships from outside sources.</p>
<p>Also apply to some COLLEGES that will give you big scholarships for your stats…those are usually for 4 years. </p>
<p>Another important point. If you get some big scholarships from colleges, those are only awarded to incoming freshmen for the 4 years. You can’t get them later as a transfer student. Schools offer those big 4-year scholarships to incoming freshmen to get the best freshmen class possible since rankings are affected by such.</p>
<p>What are your stats?</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year? If you don’t know ASK. You need to know that info NOW. Your application list will vary depending on your parents’ answer and your stats.</p>
<p>I know my parents have 100K saved up for me. I also know I am the first of six kids to attend college. Even though we are a wealthy family, they definitely are not even close to being able to pay full way for each kid. My parents are encouraging me to try to find outside scholarships to pay for college (I am planning on now attending medical school also).
Here are my stats:</p>
<p>ACT: 33
SAT2: Literature (670), Spanish (670)
GPA: 4.2/4
APs taken: AP English 11, AP Calc BC (Haven’t gotten scores back)
Next year APs: AP English 12, AP Spanish, AP Stats, AP Psych, AP Bio
I have quite a few extra curricular such as varsity tennis, mini-thon planning committee, NHS, lacrosse, yearbook, key club.
Anything else you need to know?
I am a Penn legacy so I’m really pushing for Penn right now.
Thanks for all of your suggestions. They really help a lot.
I heard from someone that even getting one $500 scholarship is still worth applying for because it’s $500 of free money my family doesn’t have to worry about.</p>
<p>Well, you have an OK chance at Penn. As you can see from below, you can’t count on Penn or any other Ivy/elite. And, as a resident of PA, you’re not from an unusual state. </p>
<p>UPenn</p>
<p>Test Scores - Middle 50% of First-Year Students – Percent Who Submitted Scores
SAT Critical Reading: … 660 - 750 89%
SAT Math: … 690 - 780 89%
SAT Writing: … 670 - 760 89%
ACT Composite: … 30 - 34 … 36%</p>
<p>Legacies don’t count for a whole lot these days unless your parents have been super donors.</p>
<p>Since you’re considering med school, you might want to ask your parents if they will help with med school if you get good scholarships for undergrad. </p>
<p>Penn is your big reach school. What other schools will be your reach/match/safeties?</p>
<p>Assuming that you can put $25k each year towards your college costs, how much more can they give you each year?</p>
<p>Your parents really have to work the numbers. If you are a wealthy family with one in college, Penn won’t give you a cent. Finding outside scholarships to “pay for college” is highly unlikely. Getting a few $500 dollar scholarships is much mmore possible, and every little bit helps, but those are usually for 1 year and don’t make much of a dent.</p>
<p>The reality is that what your parents are asking is highly unlikely to happen. You have good enough stats to get substantial merit aid, but it’s not likely to be at a school that ranks near Penn.</p>
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<p>How wealthy is wealthy? You should run your families finances through one of the online EFC calculators. If your family is wealthy, they will not qualify for federally funded need based aid at all…except loans. SO…use the institutional methodology. It will give you a GUESTIMATE on how much your family will be expected to pay. </p>
<p>Agreed with others. If you have competitive stats for Penn, you could receive some significant merit aid from other schools (not in the Ivies…they don’t give merit aid anyway).</p>
<p>One thing to consider is that some well-endowed colleges use their own methodology for determining the amount of money your parents can contribute–and some are much more generous than those who rely solely on FAFSA. You can check the websites of colleges in which you’re most interested to see if there are online calculators that might be more generous than FAFSA. Princeton has one.</p>
<p>OK thanks. Yeah I know that I can’t just assume Penn will admit me so I am definitely doing other research. For example, I am considering honors colleges at many schools that would give me large merit scholarships.
Penn State and Pitt are two state schools that I would definitely be happy attending as long as I were in the honors college.
And I definitely need to have a talk with my parents about college.</p>
<p>Penn will only give you a legacy advantage if you apply ED. Applying ED would rule out applying to other schools so that’s not an option. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get merit aid from Penn State or Pitt and those are both fines schools. With that many APs, you should also investigate now what scores you need for credit and how much AP credit they will give you. Many of the top schools are very stingy about giving AP credit but many state schools are more generous; so if you test well, the APs can mean 1 or even 2 semesters of tuition. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t rule out applying for outside scholarships. They do tend to be smaller but sometimes, you hit the jackpot. One of my kids received one of the major outside scholarships (she also received many smaller scholarships but she received one national ‘name’ scholarship)-- but her application was completely ignored at many others. The thing about outside scholarships is to recognize they will have a LOT of applicants and you really need to hit the nail on the head. If they say they are looking for kids interested in science careers, it is not enough to have taken a bunch of science classes. They want the kid who has been winning science competitions since middle school. So look at outside scholarships and apply but you will probably do better by targeting the right schools.</p>
<p>A 100k college fund plus summer jobs and part-time school year jobs would come awfully close to covering in-state expenses at a public university. Sit down and read through the catalogues and find out what they offer.</p>
<p>Also look at this thread for some school options: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed</a></p>