I am a junior this year from Louisiana and I just found out that I am going to have a 6th sibling in November (a surprise to us all) and, partially as a result, I will not be getting as much money for college as I expected. What are some good outside scholarships? We will not qualify for hardly any financial aid and I won’t have “demonstrated financial need” for scholarship purposes since my dad makes 250-300k. I do have really high stats. Basically, my whole resume in a nutshell is as follows: 35 ACT, 1500 PSAT–not official yet but will definitely qualify for NMSF, will have taken 12 APs once I graduate, scores high at piano competitions locally but not really good enough to compete above that, won a local instrumental music composition competition, won a writing competition, my mock trial team won our region of the state and will be competing at the state competition in 2 weeks, and I teach 4 students piano ages 4, 5, 7, and 7 30 mins each per week. I have nothing that stands out a lot–I’m smart but an average smart person I guess, so I’m not confident I’ll get enough money, if any, at my dream colleges even if I do somehow manage to get in. I’m not asking for colleges that offer a lot of merit aid because I’ve already gotten responses in other threads for that but for private scholarships outside of a particular college. Whenever I go to look them up the scholarship search engines are filled with the no-essay scholarships that are practically a lottery. What would be some that I should apply to? I am planning on applying to the coca-cola one once I can.
Thanks
Hugs to you. That is definitely a game changer.
You may want to check out threads in this forum. Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums
The Posse Scholarship may be worth a look. As far as I know it is available to anyone, regardless of family income (unlike Questbridge, for example, which supports high stat, low income kids). However, it is looking for the leaders of tomorrow. Do you have significant leadership experience? @MWolf has experience with Posse, I believe.
But to be frank, your best bet by far is to adjust your application list to schools that offer significant merit aid. I know you have plenty of those suggestions in your other thread. You will need to evaluate your chances and decide where to put your efforts with the best chance of a payoff. Best of luck!
HS GPA?
If you can get NMF (most NMSFs to get to NMF), then there is a decent number of colleges that will give large scholarships.
35 ACT in combination with a high enough HS GPA can also qualify for some colleges’ large scholarships (in a few cases, 36 ACT will give a better scholarship).
How low do you need to get the net price down to for a college to be affordable?
4.0 as of now but it’s been hard so I may get a B. Hopefully stays 4.0 though
What is your budget? For reach schools have you run the NPCs to see what # comes out? Would that be doable (acknowledging that acceptance is a long shot)? If not, what is the shortfall? It is hard to suggest scholarships if we don’t know how big they need to be. Also, I’m not sure what scholarships are renewable which begs the question of what happens after year 1.
I agree with previous poster that you may find success by adjusting your list. You have great Stats and lots of schools will offer merit for high stats and also NMF. Both of my kids recieved scholarships that cover tuition+ at programs they love. But, outside scholarships are much more challenging, we found much better success applying through schools. Be sure to take your time with each application, scholarships often have deadlines earlier in the fall or Dec. 1 and many require additional essays.
If you can get off the prestige train then there are plenty of schools where you can get full/close to a full ride while getting a fantastic education and experience. Since you are from the south, I assume staying in the south is not an issue? In which case, look at Bama, Ole Miss, USF, FGCU, New College Florida, Louisville, Tulsa, LA-Lafayette etc. Don’t worry about external scholarships – that is a long shot. You can get big money just based on stats.
Also, have @AustenNut give you some suggestions.
I’d actually really prefer to get out of the deep south, but I’ll likely end up staying here because I’ll get the most aid.
We haven’t but we plan to do that this summer. I have divorced parents which makes getting them to sit down and talk about money together about as easy as trying to bathe a cat lol. Also messes up financial aid. My dad and stepdad both make $250-350k. My dad has 40k total (10k per year) in a college fund for me and I think that’s all I’ll have towards tuition and most of my living expenses but he said if tuition is under that and locket expenses put it a bit over that he’ll help.
All of my siblings are younger than me too so I’m expecting basically No need based aid
I’m sorry to hear about your situation. It sounds as though things are tough right now.
I want to make sure I’m understanding correctly: your budget is now $10k/year (inclusive of tuition, room & board), though there might be a little wiggle room (perhaps a couple thousand). Is that correct?
If that is correct, then you primarily need to look at schools that will offer you a full ride, and there are several that will do so for a National Merit Finalist.
If your family would consider up to $15-16k, then schools that will offer you a full tuition scholarship (but not a full ride) can be considered as well.
I would look at Washington & Lee. About 10% of its students are awarded the Johnson scholarship, which would be a full ride. It likely has a similar caliber of student as those at your “dream” schools but it has big merit aid offers, unlike most of your “dream” schools.
Additionally, I would stay away from thinking of any school as a dream school. You want to find a school that will be affordable, where you can study what interests you, and that preferably feels like a fit in other ways (geography, particular interest, etc). Leaving college debt free would be a huge gift and really life-changing. Your strong academic preparation so far has made that a possibility. Every college has students who are super strong academically, whether they’re ranking #3 or #333 by a famous (now-defunct) magazine. The schools that are lower-ranked get them by paying them to attend. Take advantage of that opportunity.
Also, I don’t know if you’re a hugger, but if you are, I’m sending you lots of them. 
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Our 5 kids had about $40,000 each in their 529’s, we are not eligible for FA, so my higher stats kids knew prestige was off the table, even OOS publics required merit. The middle one had a 34 act and 3.9 gpa (only B freshman year), got merit at a university with a 72% acceptance rate, honors, but still had to take out loans. She kicked butt and got into great DPT programs for grad school. Her top choice for undergrad was Villanova, totally not affordable, shouldn’t have even applied. There are many bright hard working students in this situation, unfortunately.
That’s the right mindset. If you can get to NMF, there are dozens of schools that will give you a free education. If you can boost your ACT to 36, then take a look at Presidential Elite at Alabama:
https://scholarships.ua.edu/freshman/out-of-state/
Here is the kicker, Alabama has the highest number of National Merit Scholars in the country, more than Harvard! Also, >20% of the students have SAT/ACT above 1400/31. That’s about 8000 students on campus with very strong academic profiles.
One of the issues with outside scholarships is the timing of when you find out if you are a winner. Many don’t announce until after applications are due so you can’t adjust your application strategy based upon their results.
That sounds correct. I could probably get it to 15 if I can get my mom to help some. My stepdad makes a lot of money but she only makes 30k. She believes my stepdad shouldn’t have to help which I understand, but my stepdad can cover almost all the bills so she can generally do whatever she wants with what she makes. Still not expecting a whole lot, but 5k sounds possible. I’ll also make some money and I’m saving as much as possible between now and then
My dad said if tuition is paid for he’ll cover all living expenses so I guess living expenses are more than he thought
This an extremely misleading statement. The Harvard National Merit Finalist (NMF) students are only eligible for one of the 2,500 NMSC or approx 1,100 corporate scholarships. Whereas all of the Alabama NMF students get a scholarship from Alabama. If you look at NMF’s, a much better population to look at, there are way more at places like Harvard than Alabama.
I’m not considering alabama anyway. I could get a full ride or very low tuition to Arkansas and I would like Fayetteville much better than alabama. I’m sure alabama has slightly better programs but I would still rather be with mountains
Lots of kids. Parents need to save. In addition to Bama, you’d get a full ride at Tulsa. And big money at others like UTD, Maine, Fordham.
Even without NMF an Arizona will be cheap relative to full price. Miami, U of SC too.
A bit old but you can check each school. You can go on a strong merit or just flat out cash in…your choice. SMU, W&L, Seattle and a few others have Hail Mary’s.
As for private scholarships, they’re near impossible to get. Better to take school money. Have your folks check with their employer too. Some offer $1-5k. Better than nothing. My kids got $2k and $1k.
Good luck.
Edit - PS Arkansas is not worse than Bama. It’s another flagship. It’s fine. But if you need to save expense - sometimes you have to make trade offs it you’ll have options all over the country. Even solid smaller publics like Truman State will be low cost. But the NMF is the golden ticket.
Good luck
Schools to check out…
University of New Mexico
Arizona State and University of Arizona
Iowa
Miami (Ohio)
Apply to University of Pittsburg early and perhaps you will get sufficient merit aid to attend.
Look at some smaller schools where you would garner merit aid. Check Colleges that Change Lives, and some of the smaller LACs like Denison.