Ok, High School senior who will be a Poly Sci major, will go to law school afterwards, from an upper-middle class family, 1940 SAT, 29 ACT, 3.95 weighted GPA. Grades and scores are barely good enough for Michigan, which means that if I get accepted undergrad, then I won’t get much help from the university financially. But, just like many others, I refuse to look at the obvious numbers because I’ve wanted to go to the school since I was in diapers. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make this a reality without having a suffocating amount of debt afterwards??
Sorry, but part of becoming an adult is accepting reality, which is that you probably can’t afford it. Nobody gets to go to a particular school just because they really, really want to, even if they get admitted. I’m sorry to be harsh, but that’s the way it is and you’re better off acknowledging that and applying to schools that you can afford to attend. As an OOS student, you should not expect any merit aid, assuming you can get in (your stats are on the low side for OOS students - look at other threads on here).
Every school has a Net Price Calculator. You need to sit down with your parents and realistically determine what you can afford. As you are probably aware, law school is also ridiculously expensive with not much merit aid; most grad students pay for school with loans. If you are going to go that route, then you need to go to an undergraduate school that will not leave you with much if any debt.
Note that you are likely looking at a financial reach and admissional reach school. You may want to think again if that makes sense to include this school on the list.
Michigan is getting better at meeting OOS financial aid needs, but it still has a ways to go. If you come from a low income family, the University may offer you a generous package. But if you come from an upper middle income, or even middle income family, chances are the FA package will not be adequate.
Did your parents, grandparents, or a sibling go there? I noticed in my daughter’s school that there was a lower bar for legacy applicants. I would say this: apply early action, get all your financial aid in early, apply to lots of other schools, then compare the offers.
We are from a middle class family, OOS, and were very surprised at the generous financial package our son received, after all we had heard about how little financial aid is given to OOS students. It may have helped that we will have three in college this year but it will cost less to go to UMich than to an in state college (even with a scholarship that my son gave up to go out of state). The net price calculator was very accurate and my son was given an additional grant in July so you never know. Perhaps we are an exception or UMich is truly getting much better at providing financial aid to OOS students. Glad to know we won’t be sinking in debt but as blprof suggested, start with the net price calculator as we found it to be very accurate.
That is right KityKaty. Michigan is making major strides in the FA/Scholarship front.
I have not checked their NPC lately. There used to be a cliff in ~$35k and another one around ~$65k for generous FA to OOS students. I wonder what the number are now.
You need to wake up and face the fact that for upper middle class kids, you either bite the bullet and pay, or you look at other schools that give merit money.
You need to be conserving cash. Do NOT blow it on an undergrad degree.
If the Op does in fact get into and attend Michigan and then goes to law school, then years from now we will see him/her interviewed on TV about the crushing debt burden he was forced to take out to get an education and demanding that the government help him out of the mess.
There are other schools, and honestly UMich is a big reach based on what you have told us. UMIch OOS is very competitive, we had stellar kids in our HS who did not get accepted. You would need some hook …
Your own state flagship will likely be much cheaper (half the cost!) and you may be more competitive there. Likely your state flagship would also have a good Poly Sci department. UAlabama might be one of the few OOS public options with any merit, there could be others, but flagships are all competitive and few states are looking to have OOS students supported by their tax payers.
Some private schools give out generous merit, but you would need to move below 50 on USNWR to be competitive for merit scholarships. You need to be in the top 25% or higher …
Here are a couple of data points. My oos son was admitted two years ago ea with a 3.6 gpa unweighted but with 8 aps, 21 college credits in addition to the aps, 2200 sat, all league tennis, founder of two clubs, many other ECs. We received no merit or fin aid.
The other data point is that UM used to accept about half the applicants from our hs, this year they accepted just one of our 15 applicants and that was the salutatorian. I doubt my son would have been admitted if he applied this year.
Univ of Wisconsin is a little easier from an admit point of view but that’s probably an admit and fin reach too. You might want to look at McGill…
Many programs at McGill would be out of reach due to OP’s SAT score. Also, minimum merit scholaships for Americans and Op would not qualify for their merit aid.
Go to Michigan for law school.