Hey, I have a 3.24 GPA (I am taking two years of dual enrollment classes so content is way more difficult) and a 1450 SAT score. Does anyone know any colleges/universities that would give a decent merit scholarship for these stats? Thanks.
What is your college budget? How much can your family contribute?
EFC?
Home state? Why Out of State?
Intended major?
Geographic location preference?
College type preferences?
With a 3.24 GPA significant merit aid would only come from lower tier colleges.
Not sure what would be considered significant aid or lower ranked, but both my kids got decent ($25-35k) merit with similar stats. Most were colleges ranked in the top 100. Some just under that. It really comes down to your high school, rigor, ECs, and essay. It’s more than just a gpa and test score.
This is CC, remember? Anything below T-30 is “lower ranked” ?
Decent merit as compared to COA, always the problem on CC. 25K merit $ off a COA of 60k? 35K off a COA of 40K?
OP needs to know his budget. Merit discount might just be pandering $$ for a higher COA. OP’s GPA is not going to help get merit money, so picking schools within a budget would be a better question.
How much merit aid do you need?
My EFC is $50,004.
Some colleges have charts showing what you’d likely get with specific GPA/test score combinations. I did a quick search and it looks like you’d be under $35,000 at U Alabama and closer to $25,000 at West Virginia U. Ohio U is changing its merit awards, but in past years, those stats would have your final cost at around $27,000 (or less).
If you like smaller schools and Catholic isn’t a problem, you might look at Duquesne, U Dayton, Xavier, maybe Scranton and St. Joe’s. Note: my info is from 4 years ago when my son with lower stats than you was looking for merit to bring our costs under $33,000/year. Some of these schools may not be as generous now as they were then.
You are full pay at almost any school with your stats and with a fafsa EFC of 50K, , how much is your actual budget? How much will your parents pay for college? So when asked about your merit $ needs, you need to know how much you have to spend, your FAFSA EFC means nothing.
What is your home state?
would you mind telling me which ones ?
thanks so much
25k and under
What is your home state? How did you do with your DE courses? Will they give you transferable credit? That is often only useful in your own higher ed system.
The issue here is that you might get merit $ (e.g UA might give you 15K a year), but you still have a coa of well over 30K a year. What can you afford?
Do you have a weighted GPA?
my home state is New York
Are you applying to any of the SUNYs?
If you answer Gumbymom’s questions in post 1 we’ll be able to help more.
What major are you interested in?
Why do you want to go out of state?
What geographic areas do you like?
What type of school? State universities or liberal arts colleges? Large or small student body? Rural area or city?
Miami University (OH) will re-calculate your gpa for rigor for their scholarships. You’ll probably end up in one of their scholarship tiers.
“1Miami recalculates each applicant’s GPA, adding weight based on coursework difficulty. If your school already weights your GPA, your recalculated and high school GPAs likely will be similar. If your school does not add weight and you have taken rigorous classes, your recalculated GPA likely will be higher than your high school GPA.”
https://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-guarantee/
They also have tuition guarantee that applies to all students, so you get the same price for four years.
"Miami’s Tuition Promise will provide all First-Time undergraduate students and their families the certainty that Tuition, Room and Board, Special Purpose Fees, and Course Fees will be frozen over the four years of a student’s Miami experience. "
You can also try Ohio State. Your SAT puts you in range of National Buckeye ($13,500) and Provost scholarships assuming you are top 10%. You can try the net price calculator again for higher/lower class ranking. https://sfa.osu.edu/incoming-freshmen/about-aid/net-price-calculator
Their calculator includes a lot of indirect costs ($5,000) and sometimes other college calculators include just a few hundred for misc. Our family focused on the direct costs (tuition, fees, room and board - the actual items we’d be billed) when making comparisons. That worked for us because we have room in our daily budget that travel to college isn’t a burden and our health insurance is good in every state.
They seem to reward dual enrollment students and you should be able to utilize the credits you’ve already earned. Their tuition guarantee is for in state students only. But they do have merit scholarships you can apply for each year awarded by colleges and departments.
$25k is your max budget? That may be hard. State directionals would be a good start. Does the $25k include the subsidized loan? There are a lot of schools I could recommend in the $30-$35k range.
I think that range may work, especially if I can get it down from there with other aspects of my application. Also do you know of any private schools that could give alot ? Thanks so much