<p>I was wondering which schools would be able to give me good merit aid. I'm kind of in that area where you don't get much financial aid (around 100k), but my mom just lost her job. I'm a good student</p>
<p>gpa: 3.9
ACT 33
have 3 sat II 760+
have good ec's</p>
<p>I want to go to a good school, but one where i could get merit aid or if possible financial aid. Any suggestions???</p>
<p>If you apply NOW (deadline is in ONE WEEK - Dec 1), The University of Alabama will give you full OOS tuition. No essays or recs required. 
see below.</p>
<p>Presidential Scholar [Out-of-State</a> Scholarships - Undergraduate Scholarships - The University of Alabama](<a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html]Out-of-State”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html)</p>
<p>An out-of-state first-time freshman student who meets the December 1st scholarship priority deadline, has a 32-36 ACT or 1400-1600 SAT score and at least a 3.5 cumulative GPA will be selected as a Presidential Scholar and will receive the value of out-of-state tuition for four years. [my note: this scholarship is worth about $80,000]</p>
<p>Since you must apply to the school, then receive the follow-up email for logon instructions for scholarship app, you must apply now. </p>
<p>Also, if you’re going to major in Engineering or Computer Science, you’ll get an additional $2500 per year ($10k total This will be added to the other scholarship) Both of these scholarships are awarded for your stats.</p>
<p>Do you have an area of the country you’re interested in?</p>
<p>wow… thats incredible. Thanks for that information, i will look into that for sure.</p>
<p>Ideally i am looking to go to school on the west coast, but that doesn’t have that much significance.</p>
<p>^ If you have any questions, just send me a pm…</p>
<p>I should have included the website link above [The</a> University of Alabama](<a href=“Page Not Found | The University of Alabama”>http://www.ua.edu/)</p>
<p>You’d also qualify for entrance into the Honors College and Honors housing.
<a href=“http://honors.cbhp.ua.edu/index.php?page=uhp[/url]”>http://honors.cbhp.ua.edu/index.php?page=uhp</a></p>
<p>Surprise surprise… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>OP: Be sure to file FAFSA even if don’t think you’ll qualify for any need-based aid. Some schools require it for merit-based aid.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Yes, there are some schools that require FAFSA submittal for merit, I think Santa Clara is one. They seem to want to be sure that they give their bigger merit packages to lower income kids.</p>
<p>The schools that require FAFSA submittal typically say so on the page with their scholarship info.</p>
<p>I don’t think (I could be wrong) that many of the scholarships from the larger publics require FAFSAs.</p>
<p>What do you want to major in?</p>
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<p>Oh I don’t know that that’s the case at all. I think the reason that some schools require FAFSA for merit aid is that they don’t want to be giving away scarce scholarship money to the children of millionaires. That is not the same thing as reserving merit money for “lower income kids.” Unless, I suppose, you’re a millionaire.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I was writing about SCU. They don’t give big merit to good income families. They tend to want to give big merit to lowish incomes. My nephews’ and nieces’ schools have many applicants to SCU, and those kids are from homes of incomes of about $80k plus. They don’t get the big merits from SCU. Typically, they get nothing or just a token.</p>
<p>But, yes, the FAFSA requirement is so that they don’t give their big merits to those who are likely able to pay for themselves. :)</p>
<p>A west coast school that gives a lot of merit is St. Mary’s in Moraga, CA.</p>
<p>On another post it said that Santa Clara no longer reguires the CSs or FAFSa for merit based aid. FYI.</p>
<p>The other post must be mistaken: FAFSA and Profile are both required for merit aid, according to the SCU website:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Santa</a> Clara University - Financial AidSCU Merit-based Awards](<a href=“http://www.scu.edu/financialaid/SCU-Merit-based-Awards.cfm]Santa”>Financial Aid - Santa Clara University)</p>
<p>I know from my son’s experience that the non-custodial Profile is not required at SCU.</p>
<p>I agree with LasMa. In my personal experience, SCU awards merit aid to students with merit.</p>
<p>Grinnell, a top ranked LAC, offers generous financial and merit aid. Based on your grades and test scores, it looks like you’d probably quality for the merit scholarships. Of course, you’d have to be happy about being in a LAC in the rural mid-west.</p>
<p>Santa Clara did not require the CSS or FAFSA to make a merit award … that was our experience this year. Just fyi.</p>
<p>^ We have the same experience as yours with Santa Clara this year. </p>
<p>And this is not something new for SCU. Recently, I got in touch with a parent whose son is a senior in SCU, they didn’t submit CSS or FAFSA four years ago and the son still got a small award for all four years.</p>
<p>Well, it’s water under the bridge, but I sure wish I’d known that last year when I scrambled to estimate my AGI & taxes so I could send the Profile to SCU. It was the only school requiring it (or saying they required it, anyway) that S1 applied to. He ended up elsewhere, so it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>This year S2 is applying to a variety of privates, but none so far require Profile.</p>
<p>but I sure wish I’d known that last year when I scrambled to estimate my AGI & taxes so I could send the Profile to SCU. It was the only school requiring it (or saying they required it, anyway) that S1 applied to.</p>
<p>Yes, the website does say that they require it. But, maybe they mean that for their big full-tuition, half-tuition scholarships - because they do indicate that they subtract from their scholarships the amounts that a student receives in other grants (So, if a kid gets half-tuition, but also gets Pell, the Pell amount is subtracted from the half Tuition scholarship. At least that’s what their website says).</p>
<p>I’ve also noticed that some schools do not always follow what their websites say in regards to deadlines, req’ts, etc. I’m not suggesting that people ignore deadlines or anything like that. Absolutely follow deadlines.</p>