I am having trouble deciding what colleges to apply to. My family is not very well off (high income, but significant debt) so I don’t want to apply to too many schools and waste a lot of money. I have Florida and Virginia residency. I am currently decided on applying the UF, UNF, UCF, JMU, and VTECH. I feel like my knowledge of colleges and my decisions to apply are narrowly scoped in certain areas-I don’t have a broad view of all my options and I’d hate to settle when I had other options. I am not an exceptional candidate-top 20s are a reach for me (4.4 GPA, 13 APs, no Cs, good ECs, but nothing extraordinary-I have my share of Bs) but I am a good candidate for some competitive colleges. I’m hopefully looking for a college with a really strong nursing program that offers significant merit-based financial aid. I was just curious since this is a big community if there is any knowledge to be shared =) I would certainly settle for a non-competitive university if I could find anywhere to receive a COA scholarship (though I know that’s basically a miracle). Thank you in advance.
A scholarship is definitely possible, especially in the south and southwest. Assuming your GPA is on a 5.0 scale, it configures to 3.5. That’s excellent. Merit aid is based more on SAT/ACT scores. If you can score over 30 on your ACT, you would qualify for a near full tuition scholarship at University of AL and University of AZ. There’s lots more. Texas State University and UTSA are other ones that offer excellent scholarships. SUU is a small school in Utah that does good merit aid as well. Those are the ones I know off the top of my head. The less selective, the more likely the possibility of merit aid.
How do you have FL and VA residency? Where do you attend HS? If parents are perhaps divorced and live in different states, not sure that automatically lets you declare both states as residences,
@allie1013 How was your PSAT? The state of Florida offers the Benacquisto Scholarship. Full rides (tuition + room & board) are available to both out of state and in-state students in many of the schools, including the flagship UF, along with UCF, USF, and Florida State. If you prefer the smaller LACs, the choices include two public 100% honors colleges, New College of Florida in Sarasota and FAU/Wilkes HC in Jupiter. UCF and Wilkes have BS/MD programs worth looking at.
@onthewestfence I didn’t do very well on my PSAT. I only got 1310, and I got my SAT score from the August SAT back Friday and only got 1370.
My family is military @jym626 . I have reviewed the residency requirements and I fulfill both.
@coolguy40 I didn’t take the ACT but I got a 1370 on my SAT. How does that measure up? I know it’s not a particularly strong score but it’s not awful either.
Both Florida and Virginia have very good in-state public universities. This is a very good pair of states to be from if you really qualify for in-state status in both.
Here’s the websites. The merit aid comes out to be about the same as going to school in your home state. I’d say they could be top contenders, since the cost of living in either area is low. FL has the lowest tuition costs in the country.
https://financialaid.arizona.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/freshman-transfer
Your grades and scores are fine. If you want nursing you don’t have to go to the highest ranked schools. Look at schools with a hospital affiliation or close by so you have clinical opportunities. I would think there are plenty of schools in FL or VA. Maybe USF too?
UCF and UF have strong nursing programs, but as the poster before me said, nursing is so ubiquitous that you don’t have to get into debt in order to get a nursing degree. No, not all nursing programs are equal, but like teaching, if one has the degree and (in the case of nursing) passes the NCLEX exam, then one is qualified to work as a nurse. UNF has a perfectly good nursing program, so let’s say that UNF comes in at a much lower price than other schools. Then go to UNF, I say.
If you are undecided, your choices might change, but for now I’d look more at individual nursing programs than I would the college overall (not that you shouldn’t consider the college overall as well). Also, as I am sure you know, OP, nursing programs can be much tougher to gain admission to than the university as a whole, especially if you are looking for direct admission. If you do not get direct admission, you’ll need to look at the nursing program’s acceptance rate for undergrads who have completed their first two years at the school and then apply to the school’s nursing program. Typically, one has to do pretty well freshman and sophomore year to gain entry into the nursing school.