<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am a junior in Illinois, and I am getting pretty stressed out while going through my list of colleges. I would love to attend a private school, however, my parents can not afford them. My parents make a pretty good living, however, they don't see much of it due to taxes and poor choices in the past. Can anyone give me some good schools to check out that give good merit and financial aid for my situation. </p>
<p>My stats:</p>
<p>30 Composite ACT
-34E
-35M
-25R
-25S</p>
<p>4.83/5 UW GPA</p>
<p>Top 10% of graduating class.</p>
<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.</p>
<p>Have your parents told you how much they can pay each year? You need to find that out.</p>
<p>You also should ask them to help you run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of some of the colleges and universities you are interested in. If your parents don’t own land or buildings other than your family home, and don’t own businesses, the NPCs should give decent estimates of what your final costs will be like.</p>
<p>The best aid comes from the colleges and universities themselves, so you should look for places that will offer you merit based on your stats that will bring the cost of attendance down to whatever it is you and your parents can pay. Your ACT score is on the edge of what will get you some merit money. You may want to try the SAT and see if your score is relatively better and/or you may want to work on the parts of the ACT that are pulling your overall score down and then re-take it.</p>
<p>You need to know how much your parents will pay each year.</p>
<p>for instance, if your parents can pay about $15k per year, then that would only cover room, board and books. You would need a full tuition scholarship. </p>
<p>Why are you insisting on a private school? To get a lot of merit from a private your stats would probably have to be higher OR the private would likely be very lowly ranked.</p>
<p>It sounds like you’d need more than “good merit”. “Good merit” can mean only $15k per year towards a school that costs $55k per year. That would still mean that your parents would have to pay $40k per year…which doesn’t sound likely.</p>
<p>You have to be careful or you may end up with merit awards, but not enough to attend the schools.</p>
<p>You need to make sure that you have at least TWO financial safety schools…schools that you know FOR SURE that you have all costs covered with ASSURED merit and family funds.</p>
<p>What is your major or career goal?</p>
<p>Ask your parents how much they’ll pay each year.</p>
<p>*I am a high school junior from Illinois. I plan to either go the PreMed route or major in engineering. *</p>
<p>You can do BOTH. My son just graduated from college on Friday with a Chemical Engineering degree and he’s going to med school in August. </p>
<p>From your previous posts you’re looking at some private schools that are not going to give you much merit (if any). Again, you need to first find out how much your family will pay and then find schools that will give you enough merit to cover ALL the rest.</p>
<p>First you need to take the SAT. Your ACT English and Math scores are outstanding, and if you can hit scores like that on the SAT a lot more merit possibilities will open up.</p>
<p>For engineering, private schools are not necessarily the best. A couple of the very best in the country are private (MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford), but most of the best engineering schools in the country are public.</p>
<p>Suggest you read the Financial Aid FAQ, particularly the Merit Aid section.</p>
<p>They make upwards of <$200,000 before taxes, and they can pay about $20K a year for me. Really need some help with this.</p>
<p>Ok…so you really need a full tuition scholarship because you don’t qualify for any need based aid.</p>
<p>Did both of your parents say that they can pay $20k per year or are you guessing? The reason I ask is because that amount would require them to pay about $1600 per month and from your post it doesn’t sound like they have an extra $1600 per month. Please sit down and go over these details with them.</p>
<p>If you major in eng’g or CS, then Bama would give you free tuition plus 2500 per year.</p>
<p>If you major in something else, then Bama would give you 2/3 tuition scholarship.</p>
<p>I agree that you need to take the SAT because you’d likely get a high M+CR score.</p>
<p>BTW…merit awards usually aren’t based on super scores.</p>
<p>Why should I take the SAT? I took the PSAT and only got a 173 on it…</p>
<p>Read the posts above… because you had strong math and English scores on the ACT. That is what the SAT focuses on. Your ACT score is good, but not outstanding. You might do better on the SAT. If you counting on merit aid, that is critical. You can, by the way, study for the SAT or ACT and bring your scores up, too. Lots of students out here have done that.</p>
<p>What people are telling you is (1) pin your parent down on the $20K/year to at least be sure they will do that, and (2) find some options where you can pay close to that without taking out tons of loans. Realistically that means look at in state schools or any state schools where you have reciprocity, or schools on the list Erin’s dad posted with big scholarships. No one has an easy answer for how to pay for a $60K/year school if your parents make a lot and will only pay $20K a year.</p>