- Apply for History, English as a second choice major. Top colleges love these applicants when they have strong stats to back it up.
- NESCACs and the Ivy League will likely come in cheaper than UAlabama or UTK. All in, their package will likely cover full tuition, half of room&board, leaving you with transportation costs, books, incidentals. They are very generous and their package will remain the same all 4 years unless your parents win the lottery or get a high paying job - $10,000 to $15,000 is the most likely final cost, all included. Many of these colleges don’t even require loans, it’d be all grants plus a small part-time job for 8-10 hours a week.
Remember to look at the NET COST, not the amount of scholarship. An 18K scholarship for a 38K school still leaves you with 20K to pay, for instance. And compare apples to apples: to calculate net cost, calculate (tuition, room, board, fees) - (scholarships, grants) = … Now if you add the estimate cost of books, travel, and incidentals (allocate the same amount for incidentals) are various colleges within the same range?
Just run the NPC right now (or MyinTuition) on every college among: Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Middlebury, Haverford, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Davidson, Holy Cross, Amherst, Williams, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, UPenn, Vanderbilt, Emory. One by one. Report here which are the 6-8 cheapest so we can describe them in more detail for “vibe” and you can pick your favorites.
For someone who likes English and History, I think NESCAC and Davidson would be no-brainers. No big football but… at worst, pick Haverford ED2 and cheer for the Eagles (or the Flyers).
After we help you narrow this down to 6-8, join their mailing list, start “visiting” the campuses virtually and try to see if there’s one you like best.
ED2 is typically Jan 1 or 2. It means that if the financial aid package is good, you promise to attend. In exchange, you have priority and get a boost for admission compared to other applicants who apply “regular”.
Definitely apply to UAlabama though. Better than UTK and likely cheaper. So that, if NESCAC and the Ivy League don’t pan out, you have a solid, inexpensive choice.
That 36/4.0 is very valuable. 