<p>I was hoping that you all could help me come up with a list of "mediocre" colleges that offer great merit scholarships. My parents, although they earn a decent amount, refuse to pay for my undergraduate years but they have promised to pay for all of medical school. In that situation, I've given up hope for any Ivies, since they don't offer any merit scholarships. So, I was thinking that somewhat "mediocre" (hopefully with pretty good science departments) would offer me good merit scholarships...</p>
<p>STATS:
Junior
Female
- Asian (Tibetan)
- 4.0
Course Load:
IB English
IB HOA
IB Chem II*
IB Physics II*
IB Bio I
IB French
IB Math Methods
* electives</p>
<p>I'm getting an IB Diploma + 2 certificates in Chemistry and Physics </p>
<p>Took my SATs on March 12, and I will be getting results on April 11.
PSATS: (not so good) VERBAL: 640 Math: 760 Writing: 670</p>
<p>Extra-curriculars:
Volunteering:
Fridays - 1 hour at local elementary school's autism department
Saturdays -- 4 hours in the morning - teaching autistic children how to swim
-- 3.5 hours in the night - local teen shelter
Teen Shelter Youth Council
Student Leadership Council for CPP </p>
<p>Clubs:
FAAD/SADD (officer)
NHS (officer)
SHS
MHS
FHS
EarthForce (treasurer)
College Partnership Program (CPP)
Interact Club (volunteering club) (president)</p>
<p>also, first year on Varsity Girls LAX
(past 2 years on JV) </p>
<p>Intended Majors:
Biochemistry or Biomedical engineering
French</p>
<p>Grinnell gives good merit aid, but you probably won't get a full ride. You won't be a nat'l merit finalist, will you? A bunch of schools give full rides+ for those. Are you an int'l or just from Tibet and living in the US? It will be much harder to get that kind of aid as an int'l. Look into your state schools. They often give good money to great students they want to keep instate.</p>
<p>You could apply for the generous scholarships Bard offers to prospective science majors. I'm pretty sure int.'l students are eligible. It's a good school.</p>
<p>Kenyon gives good merit scholarships, I think. What state do you live in? There are a lot of good honors programs at state universities that you can explore.</p>
<p>You should think about LACs in smaller towns in the midwest and the south, where your background would be a great selling point. They are not "mediocre" schools. In fact, you might like them much more than a big, anonymous state school. Look at Davidson, Oberlin, Beloit, Lawrence, Denison and Knox, for a start.</p>
<p>Your best bet is probably your state university system. If you get into the honors program, that may give you an experience that approximates being in a LAC. It is very hard to get a completely full ride anywhere, so I don't know how realistic it is to have that as your goal. </p>
<p>I also would be concerned that any place that might offer you a completely full ride might be so mediocre that the science departments wouldnt' be good enough to give you excellent chances for med school. The problem is that the less competitive a college is, the fewer students there are premed and the less sophisticated the faculty and university are about preparing students for med school. </p>
<p>The tips that are considered "common sense" at a place like an Ivy or a very strong LAC are things that no one knows at the mediocre schools. This includes faculty's not knowing how to write recommendations that best support students' applications to med school. </p>
<p>Your stats, ECs to me look good enough to possibly qualify for full aid at one of your state's public universities or perhaps at a local private university. I think you can get partial merit scholarships from many places, but I think full merit aid would be difficult to get from out of state public or from private colleges because such aid tends to go to students who otherwise would be clear admits to HPYS -- the type of students who get into Harvard EA.</p>
<p>Such students tend to have scores 1520 and higher, National Merit, weighted gpas above 4.0, valedictorian/salutatorian, rigorous curriculum and they tend to have ECs that got them state or national recognition. These are the kind of students who get the full scholarships offered by places like Emory, UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt and Rhodes. The competition for such scholarships is fierce.</p>
<p>"Mediocre" is a poor description for the schools offered here: Vanderbilt, Bard, Kenyon et al are very good schools. So lower your sights for this poster.</p>
<p>No med school is going to take you from a mediocre school. You want a good school that will give you money and you think that by ruling out the Ivy's you have ruled out all the good schools but there are a lot of people here to tell you that is not true.</p>
<p>I would suggest looking for generous colleges that have decent science departments. I know that Lake Forest near Chicago has some decent merit scholarships, but I can't comment on the med school acceptance rate. That is a statistic you may want to keep in mind. Unless your parents are making over $60,000 a year there is some generous need based aid out there too. I have heard of schools giving need based aid to students whose parents are doing well by most standards. Until you find your expected family contribution don't rule out need based grants which can combine nicely with merit aid.</p>
<p>I'm from Fairfax County, which has really great schools, and I think I'm probably <i>at least</i> one of the top ten in my class even though we don't have the ranking system here. I also got into the NIH summer research program, but I'll be going to Governor's School for Medicine instead if I get that (since that one is pretty much binding..). </p>
<p>Is there anything I can do to make myself more appealing to accelerated medical programs other than volunteering at a hospital..?</p>
<p>Agree with comment about staying in state to keep costs down...you can probably borrow enough to get by. How about UVA, William and Mary, JMU,etc. Also St Mary's in Maryland gives out merit aid and is strong in bio.</p>