Hoping to find Midwestern college matches

My sister and I are twins (high school juniors) interested in attending the same college. We don’t live in the Midwest but want to attend college there.

Top priorities:
• Strong biology/biomedical program
• Outstanding merit aid
• Not at all concerned about “prestige” (as long as school can adequately prepare us for medical school, which is our longer-term goal)
• Down-to-earth student body — not too intellectual or hipster, but nerdy is fine (many of our high school classmates are highly driven, competitive, know-it-all types, and we really want to get away from that)

Our academics:
• 1520 SAT/1560 SAT
• Likely National Merit Semifinalists
• Weighted GPAs (5.0 scale) 4.721/4.756
• Unweighted GPAs 3.93/4.0
• AP Scholars with Distinction
• On track to earn International Baccalaureate Diplomas

Our extracurriculars:
• Dual-sport letterwinners
• National Honor Society
• Science National Honor Society

If we stay closer to home, we are strong candidates for full-ride scholarships at schools near us. Are there any Midwestern colleges that can come close to this for OOS students?

FWIW, we would prefer a smaller LAC, but merit aid is a huge factor.

grinnell and macalester are both good options for you. both are very good schools and offer some good merit aid. also, there’s case western reserve university in ohio.

Schools like Lawrence, Beloit, Wooster, Kalamazoo, Earlham and Knox all offer 1/2 tuition merit awards for very strong students who will contribute to campus life; when you throw in lower tuition/room and board than east coast and some of the Ohio schools, those schools can have lower cost of attendance. But would a 1/2 tuition merit award which, for instance, brings cost of attendance to about $32-35,000 each (including room and board), be enough? Or are you looking for full tuition merit awards? Those are more likely to be found at the large publics, such as Alabama where they are calculated based purely on gpa and test scores.

I did not think Grinnell gave many full tuition merit awards, and did not think Macalester gave any (my kid needed at least 1/2 tuition merit at a LAC, so we researched this pretty deeply, though my memory could be wrong). The chances of both twins getting full tuition merit at Grinnell seems very slim.

Case Western would be great–teaching hospital right adjacent to campus, you’d pass it everyday. It gives a lot of aid, although not often a full ride. You could try though.

Agree with Grinnell and Macalester, and look at Denison University as well–beautiful campus.

I like to link this merit aid table for Miami of Ohio as well:

http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/

Good luck!

Midwestmomofboys, that’s what we were finding — large public universities seem to be the only ones that offer these types of awards. COA of $32K-$35K is not an option when a full-ride is available near home, but we figured it couldn’t hurt to ask in case that option exists somewhere in the Midwest.

The only college we’ve seen that even comes close is Wisconsin-River Falls, which has a COA of about $22K, which we might be able to whittle down to less than $1K if (a big if) we were awarded the highest-level Chancellor’s Scholarships and combined them with the Study in Wisconsin Scholarship.

Check out the cost for two OOS attending colleges at the same time. Make sure your family can afford it. You may get merit aids if you aim a little lower like OSU or Miami at Ohio. Otherwise, you may want to try UMich which meet needs for lower income OOS too.

If prestige is not a factor, then with your stats you should look at some lesser-known schools with competitive scholarship programs. One is Centre in Kentucky. They have some competitive programs that can cover full cost or full tuition, sometimes with additional stipends.

My S had lower stats and was invited to compete for the top award (he chose not to since he already had full tuition at a school that was higher on his list). There might be a list of competitive scholarships on CC somewhere but I’m not sure how current it is.

If you’re a top candidate, some privates will go above what is listed as the highest awards on their web sites. You just want to make sure the school will still challenge you.

There’s been a lot of debate over whether it’s best to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond. The plus to being the big fish in the small pond is there’s more merit $$ available at private schools.

Case western sounds like a good place to check out. They are a needs meet school and they are known for the biomedical engineering and pre med programs

Miami of Ohio’s chart suggests the twins are at least eligible for full tuition merit, though whether they would both get it is another question – perhaps stroll over to Miami board to read over history of admissions/awards over past few years for a sense of what else is needed.

University of Dayton doesn’t seem to offer more than $22k a year.

Ohio State offers competitive awards, including up to full cost of attendance, with the highest awards requiring a minimum of 1520. I thought Ohio University would also offer big merit awards, but cannot find info suggesting they do more than partial awards, I could be reading too quickly though.

Denison is lovely, but its full tuition merit awards are holistic and very competitive – as I’ve said on other threads, at Admitted Students event, we met full tuition award kids choosing between Stanford/Denison and Columbia/Denison.

Look at St. Louis University. It is a great school. Their Presidential Scholarship is full tuition. You certainly have the stats to be competitive for it. My daughter was a Presidential Scholar a few years ago, and all of her Prez scholar friends who applied to med school got in. They have nice, friendly students.

Cornell is worth a look if you can snag a full tuition award. Ohio Wesleyan is another option, but its largest merit scholarship seems to be ~$30K.

Hmm, in Michigan, I thought Hope College has full tuition awards, but highest award publicized seems to suggest brings yearly tuition down to $11k range. Anecdotally, we know a kid at Alma who said they have full tuition award, but I don’t see a full tuition award on its website, though it does say high achieving students may be invited to apply for higher awards than listed.

Has your family run the Net Price Calculators on the schools listed here that promise to meet full need?

So these are not guaranteed full rides? If it’s not guaranteed, then you need to get your parents to tell you and your sister how much they can pay for each of you per year, and start building your college list based on that number.