<p>Hello
I am a hispanic female that's graduating in 2015. I want to major in computer science engineering.
I've been told by a few teachers that I could easily get full rides or lots of money from scholarships to some colleges for just being a hispanic female majoring in computer science engineering.
Is this true? If so, what uni's would be good to apply at for good scholarships?
I'm looking into Syracuse, SMU, Purdue, and Georgia Tech. Are these places easy to get scholarships for me being a female in computer science engineering?</p>
<p>Easily getting full rides or lots of money is over stating it. What are your GPA and SAT/ACT scores? They are going to have to be good enough to be admitted in the first place and higher than that for large merit aid. Female and Hispanic will likely help but they aren’t magic if your stats aren’t high enough. Giving your stats will give folks here a better idea of where you may find what you are looking for.</p>
<p>ETA: What state do you live in, what’s the highest level of math you will have taken before graduation and how much can your parents afford to contribute each year for college?</p>
<p>We are Mexican American. My daughter graduated with an EE degree from SUNY buffalo, she did receive scholarships but these were based on her having phenomenal stats in 2008. (She also got into Johns Hopkins). </p>
<p>My middle daughter with good stats, but not NMF, received offers of half tuition in 2012 at non preferred universities, and ultimately chose to go in state, UC, at full fees, minus a book award of $300. She’s a neurobiology major.</p>
<p>My son was a national merit winner and graduated from high school this spring. His scholarships were based on his stats, but in 2014, the monies have changed dramatically. He was given some scholarships, but because he did not want to go to the Midwest or south, where they were offering full rides, we’re paying more than half tuition and fees. He is a computer engineering major</p>
<p>Yes there are scholarships and full rides available, but there are caveats: if you are middle class, you won’t get a whole lot of offers of scholarships that cover your full fees. Everything goes through the FAFSA filters. You have to be flat broke and perfect SAT scores and GPA, and you must be willing to move to the south or Midwest if you want a full ride. But every school is different, ask at the schools, that you hope to attend, if they have URM scholarships. Be prepared to fill out a boatload of financial questionnaires.</p>
<p>If you have high grades and test scores, take a look at these lists:</p>
<p><a href=“http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/”>http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/</a> (possible safeties)
<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; (non-safeties)
<a href=“http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/”>http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/</a> (if you have National Merit status)</p>
<p>There are also some large scholarships available at public schools for their in-state students only.</p>
<p>“Easily” , “full rides”… I don’t think so unless your scores are up there and your grades. You can very likely get that at say the Maritime schools, maybe, you gotta have the goods to get the money. MIT, for example, won’t give you a dime unless your family has financial need by formula. So at some schools, those that have no merit awards, just financial aid, won’t give unless you have need. </p>
<p>None of the schools you mention guarantee to meet full need, and their scholarships are competitive. With good test scores and grades, you would be in the running for some merit money. Don’t know how it would work in terms of need based awards for those schools. I know a hispanic female engineering major who did get some award offers from two of those schools. Great student, top 5 in her class at a competitive high school, very high math SATs, high CR scors, but did not get ANY full rides. Got turned down by MIT and some other highly selective engineering programs. Got into a few selective but didn’t get a dime from them. No full rides from any schools, but then no need was in the picture.</p>
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<p>lol…uh, no. </p>
<p>A few schools may offer some merit for that status, but most will not…certainly not full rides or anything close to that. (why do teachers say such silly stuff?..next time ask them to show you IN WRITING some examples.)</p>
<p>If you will be offered merit money from some schools, it will be because of your stats, not your ethnicity. And, many schools dont offer merit money or dont offer many awards. </p>
<p>Your list of schools include some OOS publics. GT has some merit, but it is HIGHLY competitive. Purdue has reduced its merit in recent years…awards are like $10k per year for high stats OOS students, for a school that costs $40k. </p>
<p>What are your stats? </p>
<p>What is your home state?</p>
<p>SMU (Southern Methodist University) offers the President’s Scholarship for tuition and fees, which I believe is their best merit award. These links describe the award, and also provide profiles of current scholars. You can compare your stats to the current scholars and see if you would be competitive.
<a href=“http://www.smu.edu/Academics/PS/Benefits”>http://www.smu.edu/Academics/PS/Benefits</a>
<a href=“http://www.smu.edu/Academics/PS/CurrentScholars”>http://www.smu.edu/Academics/PS/CurrentScholars</a></p>
<p>It would be a lot easier to get admitted as a Hispanic girl going for engineering. But the chance for getting scholarship would only be slightly improved (eligible for a few more scholarships). You still need to have good stat to get the merit aid. </p>
<p>^^^
True at privates. At many/most publics, ethnicity cannot be a consideration for admission. </p>
<p>Yes to the point that high stats are needed for merit. </p>
<p>Many publics still give admission advantage to URM for the diversity reason even after the affirmative act verdict. Nevertheless, female students applying to engineering also appear to have higher admission rate at many schools.</p>
<p>It maybe better to go through the Financial aid route. Many people confused getting financial aid and scholardships. But we need your stats first. </p>
<p>Your ethnicity/gender/major combo should help with scholarships that are evaluated holistically, but those are usually uber competitive.</p>
<p>If you want a full-ride scholarship, you’re REALLY going to have to market yourself and the fact that you’re graduating this coming year, I can already tell you that it’s far too late to really improve on what you can market–you’re going to have to pick up what you’ve got and roll with it.</p>
<p>As a personal story, all of my teachers from high school told me that with my talent and being legally and visibly Hispanic, there was no way I wasn’t going to get a full-ride somewhere. Hah. What a great joke. Here I am, years later, struggling to pay for college at all.</p>
<p>If you want to know what matters to get a full-ride scholarship(s), you’re going to need to appear well-rounded to the colleges by doing lots of volunteer work, having absolutely impeccable SAT scores, being in AT LEAST the top 5% of your class, and occasionally just knowing someone. Your essay will matter too. It sounds superficial, but these colleges only want to make investments on students who can in turn show a profitable turnout–in essence, the principles of marketing.</p>
<p>I’m not saying you can’t just get a scholarship for being a Hispanic female engineer–but you’re going to be hard-pressed to get one since typically several people apply for the same one. There’s the phrase “Billions/Millions of dollars of scholarship money go to waste each year!” More often than not, some of those scholarships go to waste because qualified people didn’t apply for them, meaning that people applied but did not meet the standards and thus the committee or donor did not award one.</p>
<p>Last bit of advice that’s probably going to matter the most: start early (like… two weeks ago), find a part-time job that you can do after school in case you don’t get awarded any valuable scholarships, volunteer on the weekend, get on the free/discounted lunch program and try to get application fee waivers so that you can apply to schools a lot more easily, and don’t forget to apply in-state as well! It may not be far away enough from home to escape your problems, but applying in-state is actually worth a lot more than it sounds like it is. You might even get better offers in-state. Unless you can get those full-ride scholarships, going out of state is probably not a worthwhile investment since you’ll be paying a LOT more for an education you could’ve easily stayed at home and got while commuting.</p>
<p>When and if you get merit scholarships from schools, calculate the percentage of cost that the scholarship fills and then compare that between schools. Determine whether the financial gap is one your want to deal with. For example: suppose Generic University gives you $5,000 in scholarship money and that covers 50% of the total billable cost to you. Then suppose that Name-brand University gives you $10,000 in scholarship money and that covers 50% of the total billable cost. You’d be getting more money from Name-brand University, most definitely, but you’d be stuck trying to cover more of the cost there than at Generic University.</p>
<p>In short: dream big, but cover your bases with a few safeties whether or not you want to believe any of our advices.</p>