Not without your budget. Is it $20k/year? $40k? $80k? That will determine where to look.
SMU might be a nice option. They offer a nice range of scholarships. Your D would probably get enough to put it around $40k/year (unless things have changed in the last year). Is that acceptable? They offer some full tuition scholarships but they are very competitive. If your D wins a President’s award that would be full tuition.
There is always a bit of a dilemma here. Do you save up the money for medical school by taking a scholarship at a lower ranked but still good institution, or do you maximize the educational and social opportunities, flexibility, and support structure available at a top-ranked college?
We went through this with my D. Back when she was about to become a high school senior, she was thinking about pre-med. We had saved up enough for our kids such that we could fully fund four years of any college for each of them. When she was thinking about medical school, I had her apply to Pitt and Alabama, both of which offered her merit scholarships. The upside for her was that we could then pay for her medical school, and she could graduate from medical school debt-free.
But when it came to decision time, I told her to only choose those colleges if she was really sure about medical school. She wasn’t sure, and instead chose a higher ranked college instead that stretched her academically and allowed her to switch majors freely. In the ended she completely gave up the idea of medicine, so the decision was the right call for her.
This is not a decision your D has to make now. But your D should think about this carefully between now and next April.
True, S22 is still working on this one as I type!
Agree. You really need to know your kid and the conditions that will make them thrive at a school. S20 tends to play at the level of his competition. We knew he needed a more challenging school. S21 not as much. He has different needs.
Apart from the merit issue, does your daughter have a couple of safeties that she really likes? Many of these schools are reaches for all students apart from the intense competition for scholarships. For example, does she like Pitt and some of the less challenging admits enough to attend if she doesn’t get their biggest merit awards?
Has she shown demonstrated interest where required— Tulane, GW etc?
See Class of 2022 National Merit Discussion - Scores Release - Financial Aid & Scholarships / National Merit Scholarships - College Confidential Forums (and post just above)
As others have told you, the competitive scholarships at top colleges are very hard to get. There’s no need to “out” your daughter, but one reason we can’t really assess is that we have inadequate infomation. All we know about her ECs is that they are “interesting.” Again, no need to tell us what they are, but for many of these scholarships, they have to be IMPRESSIVE. We also only know that you think her community service is “great.” Is it great in a national context? We also know she’s in the top 3 at her school. How many kids are in her class? What’s the median SAT? Again, no need to tell us, but how impressive her class rank is depends in part on the answers to those questions.
Again, please understand that I’m not asking you to post this information. I’m just explaining that the answers to all those questions will impact how likely she is to get a top merit scholarship.
What is going to happen if she does get into one of these schools, but gets no merit? If you won’t let her enroll without it, please make that clear to her in advance.
Finally, I agree that how certain she is about being a doctor matters. I know so many people who have gone to a second tier school for merit and then decided they didn’t want to be a doctor or don’t get in. I know 2 students who took merit money, didn’t get into med school, and then spent 1-2 years improving their credentials and applied again. They were rejected the second time. So, at least think about whether if you took med school out of the equation your choice would be the same. Moreover, while everyone talks about how expensive med school is, there is a small, but growing group of schools which wavies tuition (usually not other expenses) for some or a substantial percentage of students. Who knows what the landscape will look like by the time she applies?
As others have said, do not underestimate the time it takes to complete the applications for the number of schools on your list. My daughter ran out of steam part way through the application process and started crossing schools off her list that were not top choices (plus a couple of safeties). It’s exhausting and time consuming and she was not able to reuse essays as much as we had hoped since most needed to be customized to each school. Add in the scholarship applications, which I honestly think were worse than the admissions applications, and you have one overworked kid!
What about these schools make them a good fit for your daughter?
Beyond a desire to maximize prestige at the lowest possible cost I don’t see the common theme. Previously you mentioned you wouldn’t be eligible for FA at need blind schools. This being the case you may (as previously mentioned) need to define whether you prioritize cost or prestige.
It is fine to take a shot at the extremely selective and elusive prestige scholarships but relying on one coming through is not a viable strategy and over indulging in this approach will likely come at the broader expense of the quality of her applications. While her credentials are impressive they are typical at the most elite of schools and consequently her applications will require time, effort and specificity.
I would strongly recommend you define and contemplate your priorities and build a strategy that juxtaposes those priorities against a more in depth discussion of what college experience attributes best fit your child’s needs.
I think you must mean schools that meet full need for all. The vast majority of colleges are need blind…admissions and financial aid are in separate places and don’t communicate at most colleges.
Need blind simply means that financial need is not considered in the admissions review. It has nothing to do with financial aid awards.
in regards to a post above about types of top students:
@jonri - you’d think i’d know this after 3 kids already; but i am curious about this statement:
“We also know she’s in the top 3 at her school. How many kids are in her class? What’s the median SAT? . . . how impressive her class rank is depends in part on the answers to those questions.”
my question is - how does this all matter? For example: is #1/500 (34 ACT) in a low SES school (av. ACT 17.5 and abysmal AP pass rate) – impressive? Do admins think “Wow - that kid persevered despite all the circumstances around them and is a diamond in the rough?”
or might admins think the opposite . . like "school is making classes easy, score inflation to get kids to graduate, and kid hasn’t been taught well or really challenged? "
would love to hear your thoughts and how that fits together.
I was actually trying to identify if OP had run the numbers to see what the cost would be for some of the more selective (prestige) schools that tend to be of the 100 or so need blind and confirm that no FA would be available.
These schools seem to be at the intersection of OPs primary priorities.
Again…just because a school is need blind does NOT mean it gives generous financial aid to all accepted students.
Need Blind is an admissions term…not a financial aid term. Being need blind doesn’t guarantee better financial aid.
I’ll move on because this is a bit off topic to this thread.
I’m not an expert; just another parent. But I think gpa and scores are looked at separately and together. The kid who scored a 34 ACT coming out of a high school with a 17.5 would be impressive. But if only 25% of the class goes to a 2 or 4 year college and almost nobody goes to anything “better” than a directional state U, being 3rd in the class probably isn’t that impressive. If that same class had a total of 25 students, then being 3rd wouldn’t be impressive at all. If the median SAT at a high school is 980 and there are 50 kids in the class and you’re 3rd, that’s less impressive than if the median SAT is a 1300 and you are 3/1000.
The OP hasn’t given us any context. Heck, we don’t even have an unweighted gpa. Daughter has a 4.55 gpa—but what’s the highest possible and what’s the weighting? Is this at an elite private school where everyone goes on to college? Or at a regular public high school in a blue collar town which hasn’t sent a kid to a college in the top 50 in 10 years?
Again, I don’t expect OP to answer these questions. I’m just saying that the OP hasn’t given us much context. I hope that helps.
There are many more than 105 need-blind colleges in the US.
Most of them do not provide good financial aid to all students, however.
Can you provide a list please. I was only able to find the three I previously linked and all indicated 105.
Sorry for deferring to the internet and would be interested to see beyond those listed.
That would be thousands of colleges long, since it looks like about 70% of colleges had need-blind admissions when I last did a web scrape of the college entries on the College Board web site. Unfortunately, the statements about need-blind admissions are no longer present on the college entries on the College Board web site.
Remember that need-blind admission policies do not:
Hi. For context, the student goes to a small private school in Puerto Rico. Most, if not all, students go to a 4 year college. The average SAT is probably 1200, though I’m unsure about that. The school does not rank, but she’s probably somewhere among the top 3.
Which applications are you referring to are due on Oct. 15?