Hi there! I’m looking for some advice for college scholarship potential for my son. He scored 1530 on SAT (math section was 800), 5s on 7 different SAT AP tests, 36 on ACT composite, has a weighted GPA of 4.35. I’m pretty sure we won’t qualify for need based scholarships. His goal is to find one of the top rated computer science programs that would also cover him financially. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!
For a top rated school he will be an average applicant. If he is looking for a full ride he will have to look lower than the top tier. Full rides are hard to come by. Full tuition might be more realistic. Are there schools he can commute to to save on R&B?
He would probably prefer to stay on campus even if he is able to commute. What schools do you think are with in his reach with full ride? Thanks for the prompt response!
UA-Huntsville
Has he ever considered a service academy?
Your challenge is that the top programs don’t give major merit scholarships: they give need-based scholarships. MIT & Stanford, Harvard don’t need to attract top applicants; University of Alabama does. CMU has a couple of highly selective merit scholarships, but even they are not full-rides.
Look at the following top schools for merit:
Ga Tech
Rice
USCalifornia
Vandy
Duke
Harvey Mudd
WashU
UChicago
Duke has a full ride The Robertson. Perhaps Chicago does with the Stamps. The others have up to Full Tuition. All of the merit is really hard to get. Rice, Vandy, WashU and Chicago will really like the 36 ACT which might help with merit.
We are in Texas so he might lean more towards UTexas or Texas A&M, even if those are not the best option financially.
He has talked about service academy and needs to explore that at a bit more.
What top schools do you think might be good targets for full-tuition, and possibly other opportunities for scholarships to cover part of his R&B?
Have you run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of the places on his list? That will give you a notion of whether or not they can be made affordable.
Look at honors programs at state schools as one option. NMF? That gets you money at several good schools. I think you need to figure out what your budget is if you can’t get full ride. UofSC has great honors program and that plus NMF gets you below in-state list price. Alabama as noted. The quality of students in these programs is high.
There are privates with good aid, but might not have CS. For instance, Washington & Lee has a pretty large number of full ride competitive scholarships but not sure CS is a strength. Or like Duke which has some full rides, but only a few, highly competitive and your kid would be average in that student pool - but a girl from our church got one so possible. Try some of these schools, but be realistic about chances of good money.
If you list your state and budget cap, you might get more suggestions.
Most top schools for CS simply don’t give any merit scholarships, let alone full rides (those are very rare). MIT, Stanford, CMU, wouldn’t.
He’d have a good shot at UT/TAMU of course.
UAlabama, Pitt would likely give him some scholarships, I think full tuition is possible.
Case Western, Vanderbilt, UChicago, WashU like act 36’s but it doesn’t mean they will offer a full tuition scholarship.
Why does he want a full ride if you can afford to pay something - have you told him what you can afford (which, if you’re sure you’re ineligible for financial aid anywhere, is a logical inference)? Can you pay for his tuition if he gets a scholarship that covers the equivalent of room and board?
Look into UT Dallas. Their AES awards for high stats are very generous!
UT Austin is highly regarded for CS and does offer a full ride Forty Acres scholarship, but the scholarship should be considered a high reach since it is highly competitive. Note that the CS major is more competitive than the school overall, and admission to the CS major is not guaranteed even for applicants who get automatic admission to the school (top 7% Texas applicants).
Here are some lists of big scholarships:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20798968/#Comment_20798968 (safety candidates)
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/ (reach candidates)
If he has National Merit status, look here as well:
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/ (some automatic, some competitive)
But verify on school web sites, since some may have changed since the lists were made.
He is NMF and we are on the guaranteed tuition program in texas, so if he goes to state schools in texas, his tuition is covered, R&B is on us.
@collegemom3717 - what CMU scholarships are you referring to?
@Dolemite - We will look at Robertson and Stamps. Thanks for the list!
@happymomof1 - we are looking at the net price calculators for various schools. Affordability will certainly be a factor for some schools. Our focus is to balance the cost to the name of the school. For instance, are we willing to pay +55K for MIT vs ~15K for UTexas (with tuition covered via prepaid guaranteed tuition program), 40K/year extra?
@scmom12 - Yes, he is NMF. He is only wanting to consider better known CS programs. What honors programs do you recommend? As I mentioned earlier in this post, we are on the guaranteed tuition program in texas, so if he goes to state schools in texas, his tuition is covered, R&B is on us. Our primary goal is to minimize overall cost of his undergraduate education, $10K/Y is $0/Y is better :). We really have no budget cap in mind.
UTD NMF gives enough to cover room and board too!
With tuition covered in Texas, you would likely have about 15-16k for the rest of his costs.
MIT has no merit scholarships (all students admitted are worthy of merit at other Universities; they don’t need to have merit scholarships to attract brilliant students. ) and so you’d be looking at UT 15-16k v. MIT 65-70k. Run the NPC on MIT to see if you’d be eligible for any financial aid (it’ll be purely based on your income and assets.)
I’m checking for clarity…you will somehow have $55,000 or more for MIT…but you won’t cover the full cost of attendance anywhere else? Please explain that.
Your kid as a NMF would get an extremely generous merit award from University of Alabama…extremely generous.
@mom2collegekids could you please post this again…
ETA…he can submit his application and the scholarship application forms NOW…and he will have an admissions decision with merit aid within about 3 weeks.
What does your son want to do after finishing UG? If he wants to work in industry I wouldn’t get too hung up on prestige of the CS program. If he’s good the big dogs will hire him no matter where he went.
@thumper1 - what I’m saying is that we have to find a good balance between reputation and cost incurred to us. In other words, what is the value of a school’s reputation? Is spending 50K/Y extra at MIT worth the cost? Put differently, is saving 50K to go a lot less reputed school worth it in the long run? I know its probably subjective but wanted to see if there was any analysis of “true cost of education” or rather “true cost of saving on education” over say a 10-year period after graduation, in terms of your value to an organization or to other schools for MS/PhD programs.
Also, thanks for the lead on UA.
@Dolemite - he will likely go for advanced degrees but that could change as he pursues his undergraduate education.
It’s not the prestige (doesn’t matter in CS) but rather the resources, contacts/networking, general “ethos” and peer quality with whom to form teams or be pushed. So, your son may not earn more but he may have access to a different alumni network and different peers, have different support for his ideas. Basically, what a massive endowment can buy plus everything money can’t buy. It really depends on the student - some thrive being constantly stimulated by amazing peers and can take advantage of all the resources, others thrive being in a more balanced, less high pressure environment, some want to move away and others like to stay instate, etc.
(UT Plan II is a fantastic program).
If he goes for a PHD, any PHD worth completing will be funded.
If he wants law school, depending on what law school he attends he can be full pay as well as get a scholarship.
Med school is almost always full pay unless MD/PHD.