I live in Michigan, and while I have siblings who are out of state and such, I would rather stay within the state for undergrad at least. I’ve just finished my sophomore year at a public high school, and I was wondering if there’s any way for me to go to a college within the state of Michigan completely free of cost? I understand that full ride scholarships are extremely difficult to earn- I’m just wondering if there are any available to me in my state and what I can do during my junior year to prepare myself for them.
Just some data on me:
I took all IA/Honors courses throughout freshman year, and my unweighted GPA was a 3.7
I took two APs (APUSH and AP Physics 1) my sophomore year, and my unweighted GPA was a 3.5
My PSAT 10 score was a 1520.
I’m a part of my school’s JV tennis and JV cross country team (Varsity is limited to Juniors and Seniors-try outs for both will be in the Fall of 2016, and it’s Summer ‘16 right now)
I’m the Secretary of IB Student Council, as well as a member of HOSA, Model UN, Link Crew (Freshman Orientation), Student Ambassadors (Leadership program), Michigan Homeless Youth, and my school’s top girls’ choir. Outside of school I tutor my classmates 2-3 times a week, I work at a pharmacy biweekly, and I volunteer at a Health Clinic every other weekend.
If you’re wondering when I sleep, I don’t lol
I can handle the work if I’m doing something I love, I just would like to know if I’m on the right track and if there is any way for me to be able to lift the burden of college tuition off my parents’ shoulders.
UofM guarantees to “meet need”, but for colleges “need” is defined by a thing called FAFSA. Each college private and public will also have a calculator on their website so you can sit down with your parents and fill out the calculators and see what your costs might be. Tuition costs increase slightly every year, I think this year it was 4% at UofM so what you will see will not necessarily be what it will cost in a couple years, but it will give you an idea. Search for net price calculator on college websites. Here’s the link to Michigan’s.
https://finaid.umich.edu/tag/net-price-calculator/
It’s really good you are starting “young” thinking about this and it will help you to have your parents working with you. The Financial Aid & Scholarship forum is a really good place to ask questions. Your high school guidance counselor will know about local scholarships and is a good source for that type of question.
A few pieces of advice (I’ve put two kids into college so far for very little oop):
- Ask your parents to check out the net price calculator or find a sample FAFSA calculator. This will give you an idea of what grant aid you might qualify for. That’s your best bet for money at U of M.
- MSU and some of the other Michigan universities (EMU, etc.) offer full tuition scholarships. At MSU (and some others) you need to apply early in the fall to meet the deadline to compete for them.
- Study for the ACT, SAT, subjects test, AP exams, etc. Make sure each year’s grades and difficulty level are better than the last year’s. Numbers matter on many scholarships.
- Look to make a package full ride, rather than pinning your hopes on one source. You can put together a few thousand here, a grant there, and some local scholarships, and end up covering all your expenses. This is more common than one big full ride.