Help me narrow down my college list

College Search & Selection
1

<p>This is very long but bear with me here. If you read through the whole thing I will be forever grateful to you.</p>

<p>Stats:
4.65 GPA W, 3.92 UW
Class rank 12/684
2250 SAT (730 CR 730 M 790 W)
33 ACT (36 M 35 E 34 W 28 S 10 essay)
SAT subject tests: 780 math 2, 770 US history, 640 chem (I took this before I finished honors chem last year... big mistake. I will be retaking in October), also taking the physics subject test in October
Good/Okay public high school in CA
White
Male
Senior (in case you haven't guessed that already)
Taking "most difficult" course load at my school, whatever that means. I've taken AP everything except Spanish, which I took 2 years of at my high school and then took a summer class for the community college that my counselor put on my transcript as being equivalent to a third year of Spanish.</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
JV Lacrosse 9-10, Varsity Tennis 11
Key Club president (11-12), Key club treasurer (10-11)
Science National Honors Society treasurer (12)
NHS
CSF
Red Cross Club
Hiking club (lol??)
Tutoring math and physics for $$$
Part time job where I work weekends and sometimes Fridays busing tables at a restaurant
Collectively have 250+ volunteer hours
Did a summer engineering program at ASU</p>

<p>Awards I got: Academic top 20 and I think that's about it </p>

<p>My situation:
Divorced parents. Dad makes $155K/yr and pays ~45K/yr to my mom for child support, she barely makes any money on her own since she is enrolled in online college right now. Mom would be my custodial parent on the FAFSA. </p>

<p><strong><em>Both parents won't help out for college so I need to get into a school with a full ride or close to it, or one that doesn't consider my dad's income so I can get financial aid based off my mom's income.</em></strong>*</p>

<p>My intended major is chemical engineering but I am also interested in other types of engineering as well as business/finance so I would like a school that has strong reputation in both fields in case I decide Chem E isn't for me.</p>

<p>My list:</p>

<p>University of Alabama- Guaranteed full ride, applying here as a safety</p>

<p>Case Western Reserve University- Good school that doesn't require a noncustodial profile, match</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon- They will match financial aid from competitor schools such as Rensselaer (who doesn't require a NCP and I'm fairly confident I could get into). Getting in would be the hard part, reach</p>

<p>Georgia Tech- Hoping for the Presidential Scholarship. No NCP. It doesn't hurt that my ACT is nearly perfect according to them. I've researched this school a lot and I would really love going there, I think the co-op program is great too, match/safety???</p>

<p>Northeastern- Once again hoping for a full ride from here and I like the co-op. Great location, match</p>

<p>Rensselaer- Hard to spell but it's a great engineering school and aside from the CMU plan I would actually enjoy going here from what I've seen.</p>

<p>UC schools: UC Berkeley, UCD, UCI, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB. Hoping for Regents but I could live without it. I'm a CA resident and these schools are FAFSA only. I visited all of them in SoCal and I liked them all a lot. UCLA and UCB are reaches, the rest are matches. They're all on the same application so I might as well apply to a lot.</p>

<p>University of Minnesota: Twin Cities: Ranked #3 chemical engineering program in the country, cheap out of state tuition, FAFSA only. Once again skirting the match/safety line.</p>

<p>University of Pittsburgh: Hoping for a full ride, don't know much about this school but it has a strong academic record. Safety I think.</p>

<p>USC: I know that the odds of me getting a scholarship here are slim to none but if I had to attend one school this would be it. I visited the campus and it was amazing and I spoke to some of the engineering professors and I was really impressed with the program. This school is great in every discipline. Also engineering isn't impacted there. If anything I want to apply just to say I got in and hope for a scholarship. Reach</p>

<p>Vanderbilt: Ivy league of the south, very highly ranked school. Doesn't require NCP. Not sure how good it is for engineering though. Reach.</p>

<p>Which schools should I cut out??? My mom will pay for 8 application fees and the rest I have to cover. I can afford it but of course it would be better if I condensed my list.</p>

<p>If you take the time to respond you're great, sorry for the Berlin Wall of text.</p>

2

<p>Consider U Delaware as an option. Great Chem E program (right near Dupont) and some merit aid available. It’s great you have the UCs in-state. Any chance you will be NMF for the 50% scholarship at USC? I would drop Vandy with all your other reaches. I like your reasoning for the schools you have.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the response. I know U Delaware has a great Chem E program but other than that they seem pretty mediocre, so if I switched out of chemical engineering I feel like I would have been better off at another school. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know much about it.</p>

<p>Not a NMF, didn’t even take the PSAT. </p>

<p>Why should I drop Vandy in particular?</p>

4

<p>Is Alabama an automatic full ride for you? The well known scholarship for engineering majors with 3.5 GPA and 30 ACT is full tuition + $2,500 per year, which leaves a residual cost on the high side of self-fundability (direct loan + work earnings).</p>

5

<p>Lol I thought full ride = full tuition. My life is a lie. </p>

<p>@ucbalumnus they seem to have raised the bar for that scholarship: <a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html&lt;/a&gt;.
But yeah I don’t know how I will pay for the rest of my room and board, I guess I could take out loans for that and work part time. The good news is Bama is a FAFSA only school so maybe I could get financial aid from them.</p>

6

<p>bump</p>

7

<p>Alabama give no need based financial aid (other than repackaging federal aid), in-state or out-of-state. Everything it gives is merit scholarships.</p>

<p>With the engineering scholarship of full tuition + $2,500, Alabama’s residual cost would be $12,360. You can borrow up to $5,500 with a federal direct loan; the remaining $6,860 would be a stretch to cover from work earnings in your first year (though you may find well paying summer internships in later years). If you get a Pell grant and Alabama allows you to “stack” it on top of the scholarship, that can reduce the residual cost to a more manageable level.</p>

<p>Have you checked the net price calculators at all of your schools’ web sites? Do not expect good need-based financial aid at most out-of-state public schools; you would be aiming for big merit scholarships (which could move them from match to reach, since admission would not be sufficient).</p>

<p>Are any CSUs with chemical engineering (Pomona, Long Beach, San Jose) within commuting range? They may be very low cost to low income commuter students.</p>

<p>UC Riverside also has chemical engineering. You might have a better chance at Regents’ or other scholarships there than at the more selective UCs, so you may want to include it in your UC application.</p>

<p><a href=“http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/”>http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/&lt;/a&gt; lists some automatic full ride scholarships that you may qualify for (potential safeties):
Tuskegee
Howard
Louisiana Tech
Prairie View A&M</p>

<p><a href=“Competitive Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #50 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Competitive Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #50 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums; lists additional competitive full rides that you can try for (reach or match). Noteworthy ones:
Alabama
USC
Delaware
Georgia Tech
Illinois Institute of Technology
Kentucky
Louisville
LSU
Tulane
Maryland
Michigan State
Mississippi State
Mississippi
Stevens Institute of Technology
New Mexico
SUNY Buffalo
Ohio State
North Carolina A&T
North Carolina State
Pittsburgh
Clemson
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Texas
Texas A&M
Houston
Virginia</p>

8

<p>@ucbalumnus thanks so much for that post! I guess Alabama may not be so cheap after all.</p>

<p>Closest accredited CSU to me is CSULB which is 45 mins away excluding traffic. I would really prefer to not live at home either. I will add UCR to my list, I noticed they give out a $10K Regents scholarship. I feel like I’m making my list even bigger.</p>

9

<p>45 minutes without traffic jams that are common in the area sounds rather unpleasant. Might be tolerable on public transit, but it looks like public transit to CSULB is mostly buses, which also can get stuck in traffic jams and may take even longer stopping everywhere.</p>

<p>If you get a Pell grant and Alabama allows stacking it on the scholarship, it becomes a more affordable option. Alabama also has a competitive full ride scholarship.</p>

10

<p>Congratulations on this great high school performance. @ucbalumnus has given you great advice. I’d only add that schools from which you might expect need-based aid will want to include your father’s income in their figures regardless of whether or not dad will pay. That’s one reason you’ve been directed toward the schools you have. They may also, however, consider the fact that your mom’s in college and so you have those expenses, too. Do ask your mom if in their divorce agreement Dad didn’t agree to pay something toward your college education. A decent lawyer would probably have made it difficult for your mom to agree to your getting nothing for college. So check. And there’s also the work you can do by communicating to your father his responsibility for your education. </p>

<p>It’s unfortunate that for financial reasons you cannot “divorce” your father or find a legal means to force him to pay his share of your education.</p>

11

<p>@jkeil911 Apparently there was no agreement made towards securing a college fund for me or my brother. My parents are kind of on the same page regarding paying for college so I’m not surprised. I already showed my dad what most schools would expect him to pay with his income but he won’t budge because he believes it’s my responsibility and he is somehow in debt right now. </p>

12

<p>I would not be surprised if your divorced parents spent all of their money on lawyers, so they have little or no money to contribute to your college even if they wanted to.</p>

13

<p>That’s pretty much spot on </p>

14

<p>OP, I mentioned taking Vandy off the list only because you have better reasons to have the other colleges on your list. You’re not sure about Vandy and have it on because it’s “Ivy league of the south”. If you want to trim the list start there. Too bad about not getting NMF for USC. I’m surprised you didn’t take the PSAT. I thought pretty much all students did.</p>

15

<p>most unfortunate, OP. In this case, merit seems like the best way to go. I encourage you to re-take the SAT with the goal of raising your score above 1400, or taking the ACT and getting a 32 or above. I’m thinking that Alabama’s Presidential Scholarship is still a really good opportunity if you can do one of these two things. </p>

16

<p>I respectfully disagree with Erin’s Dad about removing Vanderbilt from your list, for two reasons:</p>

<ol>
<li>Its financial aid consists only of grants and work/study–no loans.</li>
<li>In most cases, when parents are divorced Vanderbilt only considers the custodial parent’s resources (and custodial step-parent’s) when determining financial aid. This is unusual and a real blessing for students like you. Have you run their EFC based on your mother’s financials? I’m betting Vanderbilt could end up being significantly less costly than the other schools you’ve mentioned. </li>
</ol>

<p>So, considering these two points and the fact that Vanderbilt students (including my son) tend to be very happy there (rated “Happiest Students” by Princeton Guide) I would suggest keeping Vanderbilt on the list. Your credentials make you a viable candidate–particularly your class rank and geographic location.</p>

17

<p>this is very interesting about Vandy if you’re correct, @fondmemories‌. Another reason to re-take the SAT or sit for the ACT. I was watching Vandy admissions this year and 33 seemed to be the cutoff for the great majority of applicants I followed.</p>

18

<p>

</p>

<p>Huh? OP has a 1460 on the SAT CR+M and 33 on the ACT already (and will get the Alabama presidential scholarship plus the extra $2,500 for engineering majors).</p>

19

<p>My daughter graduated from Vandy last year with a degree in Chemical Engineering. She was very pleased with her education and found a great job in her field. My son is currently a student there as well.
I can also confirm that in my case Vandy did not ask for the NCP info. Definitely a plus for us. They did ask for the step-parent info when I remarried. Good luck with your search!</p>

20

<p>oops, my bad. I confused this OP with another, of course. good thing you have my back, @ucbalumnus.</p>