I think you need to apply widely. If your curriculum rigor is good ( honors/ APs) your odds at the Lacs you listed are good, provided you demonstrate interest. I would add Denison, Dickinson, college of Wooster. Apply EA wherever you can.
Once you have your offers post again with your “wants” and “needs” since a good fit mattters but not to the extent of major debt. (Federal loans are the limit you should give yourself.) Talk with your parents: how much can they afford from income and savings, not from loans?
“Have offered?” I assume you mean you are qualified based on published requirements, because offers won’t be coming until later.
You must have misunderstood something about LSU or used old information, because they no longer have automatic merit scholarships.
Very true. The last report I saw said Alabama enrollment was over 36,000, only 15,700 seats were allocated for students, and even all of those were not all claimed. That adds up to less than half the students at the games.
@BobWallace, thanks for the heads-up. I was using a web document made from an automatic tuition thread from this very website. The thread’s a few years old though. I bet there’s been some other changes though.
All of these are automatic. It’s impossible to tell what aid I would get in terms of non-automatic scholarships because my mediocre GPA doesn’t make me a competitive candidate. Most schools will have better students by the numbers than I appear to be, it seems difficult for me to really compete for the full rides or full-tuition scholarships that have a select few winners.
@MYOS1634, Thanks, my school, for whatever reason, only offers 2 AP Classes to students before Senior year, APUSH and AP Euro. I took both. Next year I have 4 lined up, not that it totally matters. The schools probably won’t see my grades since our finals are not finished until the 15th of January. Otherwise, our school is the toughest in our part of the Chicagoland, but I’ve only 2 Honors classes under my belt. I took none during Sophomore year, unfortunately. Basically, I’m holding hope on my essays to express my attitude on learning, among other things, and my test scores, though a 34 doesn’t mean as much at any of the good LACs as it does at an average state school like 'Bama. Those LACs have enough academics crawling for every slot that they can select the cream of the crop. So that scares me a bit. XD
But yes, I will look into those schools. I need to stop adding colleges, my “big list” is getting bigger, not smaller. -_-
Let me say this… For Baylor test scores are the most important and getting a 34 is only a $16,000/yr scholarship… unless you get additional need-based aid. You only get full tuition if you were a NMF and even then, you would owe $16,000 (56-40). [approx]
Out of your curiosity , is your GPA weighted or unweighted ? IMO, GPA is a better indication to predict college performance that standardized test scores. With each post, it appears more and more that you will only be comfortable attending one of the LACs on your original list. If that is the case, do your best and see what happens and hopefully you’ll find a school that you will be accepted into that you will be happy to attend.
@courtneykur, yeah, well, I have no idea why I subtitled that full-tuition. I must have said I was NMF when I first did the cost calculator. Well then, that’s no fun. I’m not a finalist. Though not wonderful, it may still fall under “significant”, though. XD
@carolinamom2boys, ~3.53 unweighted, ~3.65 weighted. I’d certainly be more comfortable at most of them than any of the state schools I’ve visited (Iowa, UMN, UW-Madison). The problem is deciding whether not not comfort is worth the debt, and whether or not state education or having debt is more prohibitive in furthering education and whether or not the state schools would have markedly career placement. Thanks for the input, good to see new voices in this thread.
Not at Baylor. I wanted to go there this fall and it was a loooot of money. All the awards are pretty similar except NMF. @kinglok12 I don’t mean this rudely… I mean this to inform you because booooy, I wish I knew all this earlier.
Unless you are Pell eligible, in which case it would probably be cheaper (not sure how much). But to be pell eligible you have to be VERY low income and almost in poverty.
I can only speak for SC schools and they have very good career placement opportunities . Unfortunately , I think state schools especially those with good honors programs are underappreciated and not recognized as a viable and reasonable way to achive one’s goals . IMO .
Looked in to Mount Allison and NCF?
@carolinamom2boys, Honors Colleges are not appreciated enough by students or by academia? I’d assume the former since you mention they have good career placement. Thanks again.
@courtneykur, Thanks again for dropping in! I’m most certainly not Pell eligible. Your post was not rude at all, it was well-informed and well-intended. To say it was rude would be, well, rude. : )
@PurpleTitan, This sounds strange, with such small schools (Grinnell, Carleton, Oberlin?) on my list, but NCF may be too small. Other than that, it looks like a pretty great school. Niche has it rated fairly poorly, but for the life of me, I cannot figure why. The students’ reviews are fantastic!
As for Mount Allison, it looks promising as well, except that I did not take AP English, which I assume is what is meant by “college-preparatory” as required for admissions. It’s a subjective term and I hope they use it flexibly. I will probably email them and see if Honors English counts. Thank again!
Allison has much of what I wanted in a school, but it’s harder to find hard stats on them than it is for the American universities. It’s not on any of the college searches I frequent. So far, so good, though.
I was speaking primarily about students, but also generally as well. IMO , there seems to be an opinion that the only way to get a " great" or “valuable” education is to attend an Ivy , highly ranked LAC , UC . Because Honors colleges are part of state run institutions, that they would be “settling.” I think many times these opinions are formed with very little research or first hand knowledge . I think it’s important to investigate all options with an open mind so that valuable , attainable opportunities are not missed.
I think you have realized that some OOS/LAC merit may be lower than if you were NMS. Not sure if that also applied to your first viewing of Baylor.
You will have to be sure you really love Grinnell, because it is a small town about an hour out of Des Moines. And the student body, and the general feel of the school and what you want to study…I have been to Grinnell with a relative that lives there. It is very attractive to a very particular kind of student. Many retired faculty like to stay in the area and the college does influence the community. My nephew played football on scholarship (and graduated with a business degree) for Carroll College (near Milwaukee) and Grinnell has a team that is in their conference. I have another nephew that graduated in CS from TN Tech and they had a football team too, but football there didn’t generate a lot of campus excitement either. Due to Grinnell endowments, I can see why they have some of the athletic programs they do.
I can say the same for Baylor (about needing to visit to see if it somewhere you really would love to go to) but it has a much larger student body (are you sure about the merit?); Waco is bigger than Grinnell, very opposite in that Baylor has the Baptist influence versus largely atheist (there are local churches in Grinnell and some students have some kind of Christian faith, but have to visit to get a true idea). No idea about Baylor with humanities. Waco is in some ways kind of remote for someone OOS.
I have worked for two universities and attended schools in three non-contiguous states. For UG, stayed in-state LAC, but the dynamics and costs/scholarships etc were different then than now.
Be sure to get your applications (admission and scholarship) in on a timely basis to the schools likely to fit your budget and stats. You want to include enough w/o including those that will not likely fit your budget and stats.
Studying humanities, I definitely would agree with Mom2 about not considering UAH, or even UAB (Birmingham as a large city offers some attractive things, but UA/Tuscaloosa is only an hour out of B’ham for certain weekend type of events). UA with the honors programs and so much more course offerings/degree plans/diversity of students from around the country/large segment of high stat students. I have a DD studying engineering at UA, and my older DD is graduating in nursing from UAB.
UA offers honors programs and a lot of diversity for people wanting humanities - you need to view the on-line college catalog to see all the variety of courses and degree plans. Yes they have beautiful facilities. It offers the combination of the benefits of a large student body/larger school and honors programs/more individual attention. UA offers small classes for some subjects that need small classes.
Sounds like you may want diversity, but you also want to consider a small private school that may provide you with the education you are looking for? As post #45 says checking out the affordable LACs on your list. Visiting will have you decide if you want to apply or not.
What is your home state - IL?
Don’t know how much you have looked at some of the LACs in WI. There are several with excellent reputations, but again you have to like what the school has to offer and it needs to fit with your budget. Beloit College for example.
How tough was your HS - GPA weighted and unweighted is below what I would expect with with your ACT 34.
One of my nephews decided to go to a LAC instead of using full tuition at his state school with honors program, but now years later is attending their well rated law school with a scholarship. His parents cash flowed about half of his overall UG costs.
Food for thought!
@SOSConcern, that ~3.5 is just barely less awful in context. It’s the 70th percentile, my weighted percentile is lower because I’ve only 4 weighted classes. My school is filled with incredible students, our Val and Sal have 36ACTs, most of our top 20% is around 30. It’s a rather impressive public in the Chicagoland.
I had to sell a house and was in sports during high school. I didn’t spend enough time worrying about school to quit my teams for more time. Couple the lack of time with serious familial issues, exhaustion from the practices, and the ability to withhold the material without the homework…it equals Bad News.
I was happy learning and understanding material, but always found it difficult to do the busywork that never helped me. I know that’s bad. My test average is about 94, so HW is about 75. Oops.
Thanks for the background! It seems like people on both paths have succeeded. Obviously it’s more about excelling in your envionment than the school itself, but the choice is still difficult.
" My school is filled with incredible students" Your peers’ GPA would affect your rank in the class, not your GPA. Without trying to be negative or critical, your GPA is based on the work that you put into it. Your course rigor where you had 4 weighted classes affected your GPA, but not completing assignments affected it more. I understand that you had some very legitimate family stressors, and that your grades may have suffered because of those stressors.
That being said, it is somewhat concerning that your GPA is what it is without a rigorous course schedule. I understand about wanting to attend certain schools, but IMO you need to step back and look at your day to day academic performance ( without looking at your ACT score) I think that your GPA is more indicative of how you will function in college . You yourself have indicated that time management, following through with outside assignments was not a strength that you had in HS. Transitioning to college is a very stressful time. It would be my advice to look at schools that you would excel in rather than set yourself up for added stress, but it is truly up to you and your family. Again, I’m not trying to be critical, but trying to offer you some advice to prevent you from adding stress to your college experience.
@carolinamom2boys, I didn’t mean that particular sentence as a defense. There’s not much defense I can make for it I just meant it’s an impressive place. I enjoyed being pitted against such insanely gifted people.
As a side note, I’ve had solid A’s, my highest grades, in all my AP courses because there’s always some level of difficulty, something to engage with. It’s much harder for me to sit down and do nonsense work than it is for me to spend an hour reading a history text for APUSH because I seek that challenge. I cannot engage as well with frivolous work.
I understand that college work is demanding, I’ve taken one independently through a local community college and two A.P. classes, which, according to their syllabuses (syllabi? I don’t even-) are taught at the pace of one “100-level” course a semester. I have excelled in the AP classes comprehensive exams, my scores put me at roughly the top 10 and top 6 percent of students in those courses. I know this is really bad for an application, but I always enjoyed learning, I was more concerned about learning new things and proving it on the tests than playing the game. It wasn’t until I found out how far behind I had fallen, after selling our house, that I got my act together. My Junior GPA was, if I remember correctly 3.86 / 3.67 (Track Season). Our house went on the market the second week of school, we moved out the night before our last two finals…
Your post didn’t come off as overly-critical. It would be hard to be positive about a C average. It’s a measure of failure and I understand that. I have good safeties, but I really want to reach some of those “Tier-2” Schools listed. I’m prepared to defend my profile, to write compelling essays, and have demonstrated interest in these schools. I understand they’re selective, I know my strengths are not as outstanding at these schools, and that my weaknesses are much more damning there. I’ve also not found a big ol’ state school that matches what I wanted in a school that offers the advantage of the public schools. I am continuing to research them, but that’s just what I’ve found (not found?). I understand my chances are fairly low at these schools, I can recognize that.
If I find a school that understands me through my application and accepts me, then this thread’s initial question will be revived. If not, then I needed to know I wasn’t good enough for them anyways and hopefully eventually laugh at them for their mistake. =P
Thanks to all of you for returning to the conversation. It means quite a bit to see people are so invested in what’s going on!
I’m glad that I wasn’t overly critical . It’s very hard for me to give feedback sometimes . I really do want you to find the right fit for for you and for you to excel . I do believe that you are a smart person. I know some things that you are expected to do are mundane , tedious and seem like busy work. It’s like that once you start working too at times. That being said, don’t let that sabotage all your hard work. Go through the motions now to get where you where you need to be in the future . Good luck.
You can ‘gamble’ to try to get pretty good merit from a smaller private school - out of the schools that seem to match what you are looking for, you may decide which ones may have the best opportunity. A visit to them beforehand could help your chances. You have to put the work in to pursue, knowing you may come up empty or you may get one of their few really good merit awards.
Of course put in for all the ones where you know you can get the merit to keep the costs down for you.
Then see what happens.
When all is said and done, let us know what works out for you. Good luck landing in the right place for you.
@SOSConcern, thanks. I have been looking at schools on Niche where I rank well over average. I cannot find very good-fitting schools that I rank above the 75th percentile, however.
Surprisingly, I’m at the 70th for Miami, though it’s a bit selective, so I cannot really expect much more than the automatic merit. Less surprisingly, for the most part there aren’t very many schools that fit every, or even most, of my qualifications that I am overly-qualified for and would receive significant aid. That being said, I’ve had a hard time choosing what to let go in that equation for safety school, “What to settle for” rather.
I plan on revisiting Grinnell for an interview, which their common data suggests is actually relevant there. More importantly, I’m giving it a second chance, it seemed like a charming place, but maybe too small, even as someone lookin’ at LACs.
I have spoken with Olaf’s admission officer for our area (area or alphabet section? However they’re divided…), and have had a great conversation with my area’s rep with both Chicago (YES, I know this is like a stratospheric reach, lay off! XD) and Miami University. I dunno if it will actually help, but it wasn’t a waste of time either way, they seem like nice enough people. Though my views may change come decision time… =/