Help Finding Another Safety?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>So over the past year, I've been creating my list of colleges that I want to apply to in the upcoming school year (I'm going to be a senior). Below is the list, but I'm worried that I can't find another safety. I tried using the SuperMatch thing on here, but the problem is that I'm searching mainly with tuition, but too many schools have $0 put in for the most current tuition, so it "appears" to be a match for tuition when it really isn't. Anyways, here's the list:</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon University
Georgia Tech
MIT
CalTech
Case Western Reserve University
Kettering University
Marquette University
Milwaukee School of Engineering
University of Iowa</p>

<p>The last two are my current safeties, since I know I could get quite a bit of scholarship money from them and will have no problem being admitted. Obviously I have some reach schools as well. Do I have a good enough spread of schools? I was thinking of adding either Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology or Bradley University, but it depends on which is more affordable. I know I can get a decent amount for Bradley, but does Rose-Hulman offer a lot of financial aid/merit aid? </p>

<p>Basically, I feel like this is a good list, but I also feel like there's still something missing. Do you guys have suggestions? Does anyone know much about Rose-Hulman and financial information? Finally, here's some information about me. I plan on going into engineering, so if you have any good schools that would be affordable for engineering, please suggest! Thanks!</p>

<p>ACT: 32 C, 36 M, 35 E, 33 S, 25 R (retaking in the fall to get my reading score up. Hopefully I can maintain my others. Luckily some of the schools in my list superscore)</p>

<p>GPA: 4.0 UW, 4.075 W (my school doesn't offer many honors classes; the only classes that get honors credit are AP)</p>

<p>Classes by the time of graudation:
4 credits of math (including AP Calc BC and Stats)
6 credits science (including 3 years Bio, 1 year chem, 2 years physics)
4 years English (including AP English Lit, school doesn't offer AP Lang)
3 years Social Studies (includes AP US Gov.)
4 years Spanish (3rd year was taken at local CC, 4th year will be AP)</p>

<p>ECs: Too many to tell, but just a few...
A huge involvement in the music program (choir and marching band), at least 80 hours of volunteer work each year (which includes volunteer tutoring with math and science at local library, and music therapy work at the hospital, where I go there once a week to play piano in a surgery waiting room for families), involvement in the pit orchestra for two musical productions throughout the year, member of the math team, member of a competitive STEM testing team called WYSE, and running my own businesses for teaching piano and private tutoring.</p>

<p>Sorry for the long post! If you read anything, please read the middle-most paragraph!</p>

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<p>Here is how you can figure out about the financial information:</p>

<ul>
<li>If you are looking for need based aid, go to the website of each college. They have a net price calculator on their financial aid webpage. Work with your parents to run them to see what kind of need based aid you might get.</li>
<li>For merit aid, there are a couple of places to look.<br></li>
<li> Look at the financial aid webpage to see what it says about merit based scholarships.<br></li>
<li>Google “<college name=”"> Common Data Set". There is a section in the common data set that tells the % of students that get merit scholarship and what the average amount is. You can try to extrapolate by how your stats stack up to the pool of accepted students to figure out if you are in a high enough percentile to get merit aid and what they give on average.</college></li>
</ul>

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<p>What about Iowa State University – starts out a bit cheaper than University of Iowa, also has lots of merit scholarships, has the same automatic admission criteria as University of Iowa, and seems to have a higher reputation in engineering?</p>

<p>If you need cheap, take a look at this list:
<a href=“http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/”>http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For the schools already on your list, go to their web sites and use the net price calculators to get financial aid estimates.</p>

4

<p>Alabama would give you full tuition based on your GPA and ACT.</p>

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<p>@intparent I’ve already ran net price calculators on all of those. Some of them are as low as $4000 (like MSOE and, surprisingly, MIT…not sure how accurate that actually is), but some of them were between $25,000 and $30,000. That’s why I’m looking for safeties, in case these numbers don’t come down.</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus I did notice on USNews that Iowa State is ranked somewhat high (in the top 50) while U of Iowa is around 65. </p>

<p>Also, I should mention, I’m not interested at all in a party school (which is tough, because I’ve been told that U of Iowa is a party school). Any other suggestions on quality yet affordable engineering schools? I’m not looking for full tuition scholarships (although that would be nice…), but having the net price below the $25,000 that some schools showed would be ideal!</p>

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<p>MIT and some other highly selective schools (Harvard, Stanford, etc.) tend to be rather generous with need-based financial aid.</p>

<p>There will be parties at many schools that have a primarily residential student population. If you are concerned about alcohol consumption, you may want to note that lower alcohol consumption is associated with less fraternities/sorority presence, urban (versus rural) location, location other than northeast or midwest, commuter school, women’s school, or historically black school.</p>

<p>Small low cost engineering focused schools include South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. You may want to see if there are merit scholarships to bring their costs down below $25,000-$30,000 (which is where their out-of-state list prices are in the range of).</p>

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<p>All school are party schools. It’s up to the student to avoid that. Did I miss what state you live in? Also be careful of NPC estimates if your parents are self employed or own a business. That makes the calculators less accurate.</p>

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<p>@ucbalumnus, this particular “lower alcohol” factor surprises me. The rest do not. Source?</p>

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<p>@Erin’s Dad Sorry, I should I mentioned I’m in Illinois. Not many schools impress me all that much in Illinois. And if they do, they either are in Chicago (I don’t want to go to a school in the heart of a huge city) or is HUGE in size (I’m looking for a somewhat smaller school, not 30-40k undergraduate students).</p>

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<p>@intparent @ucbalumnus That surprises me as well. Where did you find out that information?</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/niaaacollegematerials/panel01/highrisk_05.aspx”>http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/niaaacollegematerials/panel01/highrisk_05.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>UAlabama at Tuscaloosa (the state’s flagship) would be a safety - you have automatic admission into the honors college and honors dorm plus a full tuition scholarship and for engineering a $2,500 stipend (the school of engineering has been growing and is considered excellent). With these stats, you may even qualify for the Stem-MBA special honors program (admission isn’t automatic for your stats though). I’d choose that over Bradley.
Lake Forest and Elmhurst are both small and near Chicago, but they don’t have engineering.</p>

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<p>Keep in mind that application fees really add up fast. Your list is a bit long, I would try to narrow it down some.</p>

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<p>@lilelmo I do agree I should cut it down some. But also, a few of these schools have no application fees at all, which helps a bit. </p>

<p>@MYOS1634 UAlabama does sound like a good option with that. I’m interested: do they send a fair number of graduates to any of the top graduate schools? If (and hopefully, when) I go into graduate school, I would really be aiming for some of the top ones, so I want to set myself up well now with a good undergrad school with plenty of resources, opportunities for research, etc. </p>

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<p>I’m actually a student at Alabama and it’s definitely a great option. You should check it out.</p>

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<p>@lilelmo Great, thank you very much for the suggestion! I’ll look into it.</p>

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<p>Don’t choose your u/g based on what you might do vis-a-vis grad school. Grad schools will care mostly about your alma mater’s accreditation, your GPA, research opps, and letters of rec. As long as the accredited school offers research opps, you’re good to go with your grad school app. </p>

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<p>Be sure to submit your Case application prior to their EA deadline for the highest $$$ consideration.</p>

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<p>@hop Thanks for the info! I was planning on applying early EA to as many schools as possible, but now I’ll be sure to do that for Case!</p>