Good Aid or Good School?

College Search & Selection
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@kinglok12 the state schools like UA, definitely need to do the quick and cheap on-line application and scholarship application (and honors - just brief write up). With your stats, you would only be paying room/board and books, misc, - it offers a great education.

Just received my Aug 17 Forbes, with cover picture “Slack Cofounder Steward Butterfield, the philosophy major with the $3 billion Startup - The New Golden Ticket, you don’t have to code to get rich. How liberal arts grads are conquering silicon valley”

Also has America’s Top 200 Colleges, best values, etc… Interestingly, there is a long article about student debt (debt and deceit - 40 M Americans are carrying nearly $1.4 Trillion in student debt, and 8 M of those borrowers are already in default)

Since you mentioned Grinnell - is is ranked #65 in their best 200. 68 is UIUC, 69 is UWMadison, 78 DePauw, 79 Emory, 82 UTAustin, 83 UFL, 85 Santa Clara, 90 GaTech, 102 UGa, 106 St Olaf, 122 VaTech, 130 U MN Twin Cities, 134 Tulane, 136 Purdue, 145 Drake Univ, 150 TAMU, 153 Fordham, 155 Ohio State, 157 Marquette, 158 Beloit College, 167 Miami U, 172 Clemson, 178 Creighton, 187 Gonzaga, 197 Baylor, 199 U of Iowa, 200 U of Arizona.

These kind of rankings are ‘flawed’ IMHO. Having UTAustin rated 82 and TAMU 150? This ranking mixes in a unique way - “We rate schools on an ROI scale, with points for low debt, high graduation rates, student satisfaction and career success.” They also have alumni giving and fiscal soundness.

It is how well you as an individual student will take advantage of all the opportunities available to you and how well you ‘use’ your brain during college - applying yourself and gaining an education (education and maturity).

Hopefully you will have some good fiscally sound choices with schools you want to attend.

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OP, you may find better value and greater merit opportunities at some of the Southern LACs like Sewanee, Rhodes, Centre, etc. There’s a thread on CC (sorry I don’t know how to link) titled “Southern LACs” that is worth checking out.

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Maybe yes, maybe no with value/merit opportunities. The GPA can hurt chances - how much, who knows. Although the book “The Gate-Keepers” was written/published in 2002, because the author had the cooperation of the Wesleyan staff, students, teachers, advisers - they were able to follow the admission process in every detail. Clarity, insight, drama. Following students and detail of what happened with them, what school options they had…

Forbes (Aug 17) has a two page “Best Value Colleges” where they devised the map by calculating total tuition and fees collected by every state’s public and private (not-for-profit) four year institutions in a single year, then dividing that amount by how many bachelor’s degrees the schools awarded in 2013 (figure does not include room and board) and the numbers published do not reflect the price schools charge students but rather the amount of tuition and fees schools receive per degree granted. Highest MA ($124,000), Vermont ($120,700) and Pennsylvania ($103,300). Lowest Wyoming ($26,000), New Mexico ($31,900), Arkansas ($40,300), Idaho ($40,100), Utah ($45,100), Mississippi ($45,900), S Dakota ($49,300) and Kansas ($49,300).

OP, you have to say to yourself “If I were an admissions person, how would I view my own application - what is it they are looking for and I can I present myself in a good light - so that my GPA is not looked at so harshly?” I would wonder how well you would be applying yourself to my institution, and why I would pick you over other candidates for merit.

Aside from this process, you need to understand and thrive in an academic environment, especially studying liberal arts. It sounds like you had great academic opportunities in HS but for a variety of reasons (like homework grades) you didn’t do what it took to make higher grades.

You know where you stand with the automatic merit.

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Anyone mention Beloit and Earlham yet?

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Yes Beloit was mentioned; I am not familiar with Earlham but will look :slight_smile:

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@SOSConcern, Slackbot’s creator was just on Forbes saying that Liberal Arts majors may be “in”, though personally I wouldn’t totally bet on everyone accepting his reasoning. He makes a good sales pitch for a humanities major in a teach field, but I don’t think many people will buy it. I’ll probably check in on that student debt article too. I love his argument, it’s one that I’ve used against EVERYONE in my grade and extended family about wishing to major in history. “You’re a smart kid, why are you wasting your potential. / What the hell does someone do in a history major? / Why are you taking the blowoff path?”

Congrats to Slackbot guy! No one seems to understand that the humanities and social sciences are about more than just specific job-related skills. Yes, it’d be mighty difficult to find a job dealing with history or politics. It’s not that hard to find a job requiring analysis, critical thinking, argumentation/debate, research, and defense of said research. That’s what they teach.
I’ll end the tangent there.

I like Forbes ratings more than US News (Is that blasphemy here? Sorry) because it measures outcomes, not inputs. I disagree with schools being “better” simply by being selective. To me, it’s the education quality, career placement, and the student reviews that determine whether or not it’s a worthwhile institution. Both Niche and USNW’s rankings weight percentage admission into their academic ratings. I use Niche for admissions info and student reviews, Naviance for continued “chancing”, and requesting information, and US News for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I’m surprised Marquette appears here, though, the discrepancy may be due to its relatively high acceptance rate vs schools of similar caliber, leading to lower ratings from other sources.

Another part of this choice has to be whether or not it would be efficient to double major. UA will give me 20 credits if I do as well as projected next year. 20 credits, while not incredible, is fairly significant in that it facilitates more advanced classes (saves me so much time!). Compare that to Whitman or Reed where there are comps in your major, or Grinnell and Carleton who have earned a reputation for rigor. In those top LACs, a double major may not be as practical, I’m in the process of investigating just how much harder these schools would be, but that’s hard since a student at a state school is unlikely to experience such a school’s classwork, and vice versa. Though Alabama and similar schools are the opposite of what I was looking for in a school, the opportunity to squeeze much more coursework out of them is appealing.

As a side note, the X-Percentile / X-GPA bottlenecks on merit scholarships are so frustrating! Take the College of Wooster for example, I’m 5 points, FIVE (!!!) past Wooster’s $27k/yr. scholarship, but cannot get it because I’m not in the top 15%.

Thanks for the continued input. I hope college isn’t as difficult as finding one! XD

@PurpleTitan, I’ve spoken to the ad-officer from Mt. Allison. It looks promising! I’d hate to be all the way up in New Brunswick, but it’s so compelling. I cannot exactly hold my breath for admissions though, seems a bit competitive, though certainly not as much as some of the U.S.'s elites. Both Earlham and Beloit look interesting on second glance. Early in my search, when I was much more dependent upon the college ranking websites, it appears I had crossed both out because of their academic rankings. I’ll look into their career placement and student experience, but Fiske’s Guide treats them much more lovingly. I will have to investigate both, but, while I’d prefer rural, Earlham appears to offer better job placement at first-glance. Thanks for returning!

@Overtheedge, thanks for commenting. The South is trying too hard. Something’s up. Kinda’ strange that so many schools South of the Mason-Dixon are offering so much aid. That being said, I’ll definitely look into those schools.

I do believe this is my longest post yet, oh Lord.

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@SOSConcern, didn’t mean to back-to-back this. Those cash/degree stats are really interesting. Wyoming and Kansas have both been sending me loads of unrequested materials. Maybe I’ll look into their honors colleges, provided they offer them. My guess is they offer good aid, I’ll have to look into it. I suspect this because they are not in what most college students consider ideal locations, and are definitely not target schools for OOS people. Everyone says they wish they could go to UW-M, UI-UC, and all the UC’s here. I’ve not heard of any of our students going to either state. I bet they recruit for target out-of-state students, like UA, though they may not have UA’s budget to do it with.
Thanks again.

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It seems as if you’ve already gotten a lot of help here, but I wanted to pipe in as a current UA student. I chose to attend UA on the NMF scholarship (turning down Chapel Hill and other great NC and SC schools), and I have never regretted my decision. I would be happy to answer any questions about my experience! My situation in choosing a college was a bit different than yours though–I knew I wanted to attend a large public university, and a low-cost school was a must for me with my parents funding three children in college at once and being Pell grant eligible. I was worried that I wouldn’t be challenged enough at Bama as you too seem to feel, but they have attracted so many students with scholarships that I am constantly surrounded by people that are way more intelligent than myself. Definitely book a specialized UA tour through the honors college and tour as many colleges as you can. You seem to have tons of great potential options available to you and only you can make the right decision for yourself.

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@kinglok12 you can look at the various degree plans with UA’s online catalog. They have schedule building and show ‘finish in 4’ - if you are looking at a double major, can see how much ‘overlap’ the two majors have. Some students take a summer course at their home state local college to keep to the 8 semesters of UA scholarship and keep their costs down. In honors, you get scheduling priority, so usually the first semester schedule is the trickiest to get an ideal schedule, but after that, seeing an adviser early and then inputting electronically as soon as you can (you use a schedule building tool and submit your first option). DD has gotten her schedule 1 choice doing this. You can declare one major going in, and then later in your first term adding a second major or a minor.

Don’t know if I had put this on your thread or if you had seen this, to get you comfortable with the idea that you will be around bright students at UA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrV8g7kxJps

UA attracts a lot of OOS students that may have a partial scholarship, or even no scholarship.

The honors program opportunities and the degree opportunities, along with everything else the school has to offer.

And it fits your budget.

Honestly get enough safeties, make enough visits before your final decision. However you also have to be determined to apply yourself fully to college w/o slacking off on grades - you need to be committed to get the most out of any college.

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I was thinking, because my “matches” are also artificially selective and I’m relying on my essays and scores, 3 safeties. Miami-OH fits what I wanted in a school more, but it’s automatic aid leaves something to be desired. Alabama on the other hand, fits academically, provided I go Honors, and gives great financial aid and AP credit, providing me an opportunity for a quicker, cheaper degree. It’s location is its biggest downside, but if it’s network is national, then it is a great option. If it’s job network is based in the Southeast, then it may not be very easy to sell that degree.
I figure I need a third safety, but haven’t decided on one yet. Possibly Dayton, or one of the less selective LACs. Most solid LACs aren’t particularly safe for me (65th percentile at Wooster and Adolphus), so it’ll be hard to find one.
The state funding of public schools means that even ones that I could consider safeties will have great resources. It seems like LACs vary more in quality due to their massive endowment range. There’s no comparison between St. Olaf and North Central’s facilities for example.

In addition, Miami University’s merit aid may be rigged. It says 3.5 , 32+ Students get “half to full tuition per year”, and besides that massive range, they specify that it must carry “rigorous coursework”, which seems to me to be a good loophole to deny aid. I figure I’ll apply there anyways and hope for significant money.

Thanks again for the video. That guy did an impressive job!