Add USC to her list.
Maybe @courtneythurston can post her list of merit scholarships. She was awarded $280k.
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For this discussion, my question centered around score release strategy in order to maximize chances for the best merit scholarships.
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I understand your thinking that sending both scores presents the whole picture. It shows that she scores very highly on both tests.
Since she’s already signed up for the June ACT, then you’ll soon have the answer as to whether she will raise her 35 to a 36. If she doesn’t, I would leave it at that. It’s a score that is good enough for every school.
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What we can or would pay in the absence of a full-ride scholarship to a school of her choice is still being determined.
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Once you determine the max you can pay per year, then you’ll have a target net cost.
There are many schools that do give a nice award (Shipman), but as you can see a $20k award still leaves a family with a substantial amount to pay $30k+. And at UMich, I think the tuition is higher for juniors and seniors, if I remember correctly. That can me a surprise!
It goes without saying that a family shouldn’t expect the “best” situation when figuring how much they can pay. Every household has 2-4+ expensive unexpected expenses that come up and a school budget that requires nearly every extra penny will fall apart. We often see kids have to leave their school after the first year because of those unexpected expenses.
I’d submit all test scores because they are all good. Although admissions staff usually say that they don’t have a bias towards test type, they may appreciate the fact that she took both major standardized tests and did well on both on them.
Also, I just finished the admissions process after looking for east coast schools that would give me merit with a 35 act. Clark (MA) gave me the best scholarship (covered everything) and Temple (PA), Northeastern (MA), Bard (NY), Fordham (NY) and SUNY Stonybrook (NY) gave me full tuition. I picked northeastern.
@julianstanley: thank you for sharing your results. Congratulations and best wishes at Northeastern!
There is no need to retake these tests. Your daughter will get some very nice scholarship money, although it may not be to schools such as Duke ( those scholarships are extremely competitive and have become even more so in recent years). As a reference, my D was accepted to Emory, UNC ( OOS), UVA ( OOS and a Jefferson Scholars candidate) Vanderbilt ( off the waitlist but declined). Her close friend was waitlisted at Duke and Northwestern with a 4.5 and a 2350. D received enormous merit from Pitt, Lehigh, Ohio State, Rochester ( honorary scholarship had she decided to apply), and UMD-CP ( UMD award was very nice but not as large as the others). Focus on the rest of the application and do not retake these tests- and I would send both ( just my opinion).
Once you get to a 35 on the ACT, it is easier and more likely to go down than up. Your D will also likely receive large merit ( although perhaps not a full ride) at Boston U and Northeastern.
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Full ride merit scholarships at incredibly selective colleges are extremely hard to come by.
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^This
Even large scholarships at very selective colleges are hard to come by. These top schools have upper-quartile students with ACT 35-36. That’s 25% of their frosh class. Obviously, they’re not giving merit to 25%…they’re probably not even giving large merit to 10%.
So…once they have that big pool of very high stats students, they use a down-selection process to select students that help the school’s profile in other ways (not just very high stats). They’re looking for students that might help them with their ethnic diversity numbers or students that help them with their regional diversity numbers. Or they may be looking for students with a unique profile that will be majoring in a field that needs more students.
I disagree. There is no way a 36 is perceived as being better than a 2380 unless you’re going for the Presidential Scholar. But that won’t do anything for you. The selections are made after college admissions are done, and no money comes with it.
I would just send the SAT. Although I don’t think it matter very much if you send both. I have to agree retesting won’t help and will make her look like a fussy score grubber in some eyes. Perfectionism beyond meaningful gains isn’t a positive trait. 2380 is already the virtual maximum score. I would personally would never want mine to show she would rather take a test then do something interesting with her time.
I don’t know if you indicated that you looked at the merit threads, the NMF which you say she is semifinalist then she will get, the list of competitive awards. Just make sure she knows she will have to walk away if she gets in but not X amount of aid–that can be tough mentally. Here look at competitive merit, auto merit and NMF
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest
Although she is not looking at West Coast she would get 1/2 tuition and may be up for the many full utition awards. There are quite a few but they are extremely competitive. While perfect SAT is enough it isn’t everything and I know high scorers who were not considered for those awards.
There are usually some kids reporting full rides to Vanderbilt every year.
Pitt only considers English and Math score from ACT, CR &M from SAT. They will even superscore between the two tests. They also seem to heavily figure in class rank.
Best would be to determine this before going too deeply into making the application list. April brings all kinds of sad stories to these forums about anguish over all desirable options being too expensive.
Pitt is a great school and the OP’s daughter would likely be a highly competitive applicant for the Honors College and the full tuition - and possibly full ride ( Chancellor’s ) scholarship. If she applies this summer ( the application comes out in June) she could possibly hear by mid to late October. How nice would it be to have this offer in October/November? My daughter applied mid August and heard by mid November.
Vanderbilt has full ride scholarships but they are highly competitive. This year many kids in the top 1% of their class with 34-35/ 2300 were waitlisted - forget about merit. Emory Scholars has become super competitive, with awards going to kids who have other things besides grades and test scores.
Getting significant merit money to UVA only happens if you are a Jefferson Scholar- which is super competitive.
I did not realize how difficult it was to get scholarship money to " top" schools until this year. It was a wake up call for sure. On a different note, these schools are much more generous with financial aid.
The OP is instate for Ohio. The kiddo could get generous tuition merit aid scholarships at any number of public universities in Ohio. While not full free rides, these awards would certainly make an Ohio public university pretty affordable…especially if the student takes the Direct Loan, and has earnings from a job…and the parents can contribute some.
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I did not realize how difficult it was to get scholarship money to " top" schools until this year. It was a wake up call for sure.
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This is a common misunderstanding. People think, “oh, this student has tippy top stats, he’ll get a huge merit scholarship to (a top school).” Since top schools are literally full of tippy top students, they often can’t use stats as the downselection factor for merit awards. They often have to use other factors such as regional and/or ethnic diversity or talent. These top schools don’t offer merit to get high stats students. They offer merit to improve their profile in other ways…poaching kids that they believe HYPS want (the top stats kid who invented something), or improving their ethnic/regional diversity numbers.
and…as mentioned above, rank does factor into being selected at UPitt. There was a moderator on this forum whose child had tippy top stats and was awarded a nice award to UPitt, but not full tuition. After a phone call the family learned that their child wasn’t given the full tuiition because her rank wasn’t in the top (I think) 2%.
Their upperclassmen tuition rate starts once the student has 55 credits (including AP and transferred) even in freshmen year.
Replying to @Madison85 's tag – looks like the thread is mostly about school-specific merit, but the outside scholarships based purely/mostly on merit that I received are:
- Coca-Cola (purely merit)
- National Space Club Keynote Competition Scholarship (purely merit)
- Brad Feld Aspirations in Computing Scholarship (purely merit)
- GoEnnounce/UPromise "Define Yourself' Scholarship (purely merit)
- Army Staff Sgt. Richard S. Eaton Jr. Scholarship (purely merit)
- VIP Women in Tech Scholarship (purely merit)
- EAA Arcamuzi Aviation Scholarship (purely merit)
- AXA Achievement Community ("financial need considered" -- plenty of middle class kids win those kind)
- Elks MVS National Finalist Scholarship ("financial need considered")
- Burger King WHOPPER Scholarship ("financial need considered")
- GE-Reagan Scholarship ("financial need considered")
- SanDisk Scholarship ("financial need considered")
Jack Kent Cooke is the last outside one but has an income cut-off; financial need factors pretty heavily into that one.
It is silly to have her retake either test. Schools won’t care. She should be satisfied with these scores.
Agree 100%, why spend time retaking either test? She could spend her time much better working on other things, and frankly if you look up on the SAT website, they give stats about whether students improve, do worse, or do the same for a retest (it is in the detailed SAT report).
Relax and have her spend time researching and applying to scholarships, or pursuing an EC she loves. The chance of a huge scholarship is not likely to improve with retesting, but making great ECs stellar would be a better bet.
@threeplustwo What does she want to major in? Miami Univ is a great school, and she is definitely in the running for a full ride(full tuition)
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Their upperclassmen tuition rate starts once the student has 55 credits (including AP and transferred) even in freshmen year.
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Wow! That would make people delay sending AP scores til a later year. What a shock since so many students take so many APs that they come in with 55+ credits…many which are unneeded.