1280
That is not high enough for any decent sized merit at the schools you would likely consider.
What are your instate public choices?
I live in a small state with one decent state university but it hours from a city. It’s surrounded by cornfields and when I visited I really did not like it. Do you know of any schools that do super score for scholarships? Or any universities with low enough tuition that a small scholarship would be enough?
Generally speaking, $25-30K is doable with those stats, but $20K is probably tough.
For your majors, take a look at Elon, run the financial aid calculator. Also, Trinity University strong in those majors, and they have a “grid” where you can cross reference GPA and test scores and they will tell you right out what you will get for merit aid.
Good luck!
Let’s assume that Allegheny College does offer merit aid to a very high percentage of accepted, “no need” students (although, as BobWallace suggests, we really don’t know how many no-need students received no merit offers and decided not to attend).
Still, the question remains, how likely is the OP to get a merit award that is ~double the average (enough to bring the net cost below $20K)? I’ll buy the argument that we cannot tell how the qualifications of the enrolled merit recipients line up against the qualifications for all enrolled students. It may be the case that the OP would be a stand-out among the merit recipients, enough to justify an unusually large award. Or, it may be the case that Allegheny gives out very few (or no) very large awards, preferring to spread out the discounts fairly evenly among the admitted no-need applicants as an incentive to boost admission yields.
We really don’t know, do we? Maybe if the OP contacted the admission/aid people, they’d be willing to disclose how many merit awards are offered in the amounts s/he needs. Or, one could just go ahead and apply to a few similar colleges, then see what shakes out. Without more information, though, I sure wouldn’t consider them “safe”.
I certainly hope that when I wrote “…You could be competitive for merit aid at many of the CTCL schools …” that I didn’t give the impression I thought it was a safe bet. The financial safeties are the ones I listed previously with guaranteed merit aid for stats. The CTCL schools would be a source of financial matches and maybe some reaches. Birmingham-Southern, for instance, is a place where an average merit award would bring the price in line with the student’s budget. It’s also located in a city, but falls short on the size criterion, as will most LACs.
With your criteria and the 1280 SAT, you’ve painted yourself into a box that is not going to have a lot of “name” schools.
Some to consider:
Alabama-Birmingham
U of South Florida
Cleveland State
Arkansas-Little Rock
“Generally speaking, $25-30K is doable with those stats”
Do you know of any universities this would be doable for?
Please check the “colleges with good merit aid” thread which lists a ton of good info. As others have said, it would be worthwhile to at least take a practice ACT test to see if you tend to score higher on that format. Many students do better on one v. the other. You are on the threshold of higher merit aid, so every point can help here.
The merit aid tends to be the smaller schools. Creighton at almost 5K would be worth looking at, as are some of the other Jesuit schools that generally have some of the lower initial sticker prices to work off of.
Good luck!
With its total price of about $28,000, you are getting close to being able to afford a school such as SUNY-New Paltz. The school emphasizes programs in your areas of interest. They offer limited merit aid, but to the extent that it is available, you should be well qualified for it.
Temple is urban, run the net price calculator and look up the scholarship chart, I think you might qualify for $14,000 Dean’s scholarship. Would that bring the price down enough?
Also last year Duquesne in Pittsburgh gave $10,000 to $20,000 merit scholarships. COA is around $40k, you might get enough merit to make it affordable.
ST Vincent in Latrobe PA is very generous. Looks like you could get $18,000 there https://www.stvincent.edu/Admission_and_Aid/Undergraduate/Costs_and_Financial_Aid/Grants_and_Scholarships/
Also check out Clark University.
With most selective colleges costing $50,000 a year minimum, you are expecting to get non-need based merit aid of $30,000 a year or more.
I don’t think that is s possibility with your stats. Even if you had higher stats and could qualify for additional merit in talent areas, I think that expecting that kind of aid is unreasonable.
When people talk of receiving “good” non- need based merit aid, I’d say they are hoping for more like $15K a year these days.
To get much more $ you’d have to be an absolute top candidate at a particular school and nail a full ride kind of scholarship. And to do that with your stats, you would have to look at much lower tier schools.
@kta171316 Your 1280 SAT (M & CR) in one sitting (and assuming your 3.6 gpa puts you in the top 40% of your class) would automatically qualify you for the National Buckeye scholarship (assuming you are out of state) and trustee scholarship ($14000) merit aid at Ohio State, which would bring down your total cost per year to about $27,000. Ohio State’s Fisher college of business (marketing) and Lantern school of communications would be excellent choices. Ohio State is ranked higher than any of the schools you are considering, as listed in your first post. Checkout USNWR (national universities) and Bloomberg News (for business schools) ratings.
Are you planning to take the SAT again?
You could look at Truman State.