Will you move to Texas right after HS graduation ?
Have you run the NPC on the colleges I listed above?
Would you qualify for Honors College at UHouston?
The best financial aid comes from the colleges themselves: if you’re lower income your best bet is finding colleges that will meet need or combine need and merit because you’re among the top 10% college applicants.
A big issue is applying for Spring: I get that you’re eager to start the next step in your life but Spring admits rarely get institutional financial aid since it’s been used up for Fall admits. A lot of the scholarships you listed wouldn’t disburse till Fall if you were to win one.
Two options are:
if your parents will let you live at home and home is safe for you, don’t officially graduate, jusr dual enroll at a local CC, taking General Chem, Freshman Composition, Calculus, and a fun class of your choice. Apply for Fall 2022 showing that Spring schedule, which is rigorous and will bolster your evaluation on curriculum rigor AND get you free credits toward your TX degree. Apply to all TX schools you can through commonapp or TexasApply for Fall 2022. Apply to all scholarships they offer, often the deadline is Dec 1.
move to Texas, find a place to live in Houston, start working and saving money. Investigate Tx universities that grant instate tuition to students who get $1,000 in institutional scholarship (I think Midwestern State and UNT do). Apply to all TX schools you can through commonapp or TexasApply for Fall 2022. Apply to all scholarships they offer, often the deadline is Dec 1.
Yes, I will move to Texas after high school graduation if any of my schools accept me. Baylor and UHouston net price calculator offers much more financial aid than all of the other Texas schools I’m interested in. I do not qualify for the Honors college at UHouston. I like your second option. Thanks for the advice.
You should look through the participating colleges of https://commonblackcollegeapp.com
many of which provide automatic merit aid for stats and allows you to submit a single application to all of them at the same time.
Are you putting your parents’ income and assets (as well as your own) into the net price calculators? For the Texas schools are you checking the non-resident box?
I don’t understand why you are trying to graduate early.
I would be trying to take as many free college classes as I could…either AP or Dual Enrollment (taking community college classes). Ask your Guidance Counselor about it.
Another reason I would not graduate early is that you want scholarships. You think graduating early means “I met all the requirements faster, look at me!” but to colleges it means “this person did not do as many classes and extra curriculars as other people so will look worse in comparison.”
Strategies for Affordable Colleges
If you are told there is no money, or you don’t know how much money, or there is a limited amount of money you need to choose colleges that are affordable for you family. For your parents, it used to be possible to work your way through college. This is no longer the case.
Financial Need
If your family has financial need (according to FAFSA/CSS, not what you think!), you can get need-based grants.
* Look at Net Price Calculators on colleges to see if you would get need based financial aid.
* Apply to Colleges that meet Full need https://blog.prepscholar.com/colleges-that-offer-complete-financial-aid
Merit
Another way to get scholarship is through merit scholarships. Merit scholarships are used to attract strong students to a college. Ivy League schools do not give out merit scholarships because all students are strong that go there.
* Look for scholarships
* Apply to colleges where your stats are significantly above average to get merit scholarships
* Look for colleges with auto-scholarship based on gpa/sat http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
* Study for SAT on Khan Academy to increase your SAT score
Lower Cost School
Another way to save money on colleges is look for colleges with a lower sticker price. Also you can get credits for almost free in HS and then use them in college and attend for fewer years.
Look for cheaper schools. In-state public schools are usually much cheaper than private/out of state schools
Look to get as many college credits as you can in HS.
Take AP or IB classes and do well on the AP/IB tests so you can get college credit. Find colleges that give extra credit for IB (e.g., SUNY Binghamton). If you have enough you may be able to graduate early. *Unless you want to go to medical school. Medical school don’t want you to fulfill the requirements of Bio, Chem, Org Chem, Physics with AP.
Your state may have a “running start” or “dual enrollment” program where you can take college courses for free in HS
Go to community college for two years, and then transfer to a state school
What about Loans?
You really want to avoid taking out big loans to pay for college. Your parents have to co-sign any loan you take over the Federal Direct Loan (Starting at $5500 and going up to $7000 as a senior). Student Loans are one of the only type of loans that cannot be discharged in a bankruptcy.
I am graduating high school early for personal reasons so I can’t share them online. Most colleges do not accept AP and Dual Enrollment credits. I took as many rigorous classes and extracurriculars in high school as I could so I’m safe for admission. I calculated the net price for each college and UHouston and Baylor are able to endow more financial aid so the full cost of attendance would me cheaper than usual. I have a job right now and I am able to work my way through college so I wouldn’t have significant debt. I looked at your website and all of those schools are Ivy League Universities and my stats are not good enough to get accepted into those schools. For in state schools, I am only going to Purdue for chemical engineering, if I get accepted. If not, I’m going to Texas. In my opinion, it’s safe to take out student loans if you’re majoring in STEM, pre-med, pre-law, math related business degrees, or any degree that is useful for job security and salary that can pay back the loan. But if someone has a useless degree such as liberal arts, history, psychology, then student loans would be a burden to that student. But I’m only majoring in Chemical Engineering OR Biochemistry (pre-med) that is profitable in the long run so I’m good.
Keep in mind that you as a freshman can only take out $5500 loans in your name. Anything else would have to be cosigned with your parents.
If you can get into Purdue, check out Univ. of Alabama that has automatic scholarships based on SAT/GPA.
You are in one of these situations:
Your family is poor. Then you will be eligible for need-based grants (not a loan).
Your family is rich. Then your family can easily pay for college.
Your family is middle class. That is the worst for college. You need to find a college that has a low net cost…either itis a State U or you get merit scholarships. For engineering, any ABET college will be good…no need to go to a private U that is twice as expensive.
Even if you need to graduate early for personal reasons, you should still plan to apply for Fall 2022, not this spring because the scholarship opportunities are much better.
Even if you already applied, you can ask that these applications be withdrawn. I fully agree that your chances of significant merit aid increase as a fall accepted student.
But I guess you can wait and see how it all pans out. If it’s not affordable, you just won’t be able to attend, and you will apply again for fall admission.
If you think you’re going to do premed, you have to save every penny and reduce your debt as much as possible.
We’ve just been through this with our daughter who just graduated from her medical school program. In medical school, you don’t get a free ride; you pay the fees of ~$250k+. If you think it’s safe to take out loans, as an undergrad, planning for a medical school program, you’re really mistaken.
Everyone in med school is a phenomenal student; everyone would be a scholarship student if the med schools worked that way. They expect your fees. Parents typically pay the bills.
All of my daughter’s roommates were on loans and loans and loans. They’ll be paying their loans for at least 20 years, and driving their used cars for quite a while.
You really don’t start making any real money, as a Practitioner, until you’ve been in for at least 10 years in and that is, if you’ve paid off most of your loans.
But your opinion is not necessarily correct. As many, many posters have already pointed out, you can only take out ~$27K in total over 4 years. Your parents- who you say are low-income would have to co-sign for any more loans. If they are poor they are unlikely to be able to sign for that amount of debt.
You have so many misconceptions about college, college financing, college credits, career income, etc., and so much urgency to just get gone. People here are giving you a lot of good ideas, trying to correct misinformation you have, to help you avoid making costly mistakes, to help you find ways to be able to afford all of college. Too many students start off taking loans for college, but can’t get enough to stay in college after the first year or two, so they drop out with no degree and college loans to re-pay. Most of them plan to work for a while, save up more money and go back. Many of them don’t manage that.
Take a deep breath and go re-read all of your thread. Prove your assertion that you are
by stopping to review all your options, some of which I’m guessing were new to you on this thread.
Thank you for your response. Apparently, I didn’t think everything through. I just wanna move to Texas thats all… Thats the whole point of this thread LOL
