<p>I am new to the financial aid section of CC. I have never really considered getting scholarships I have mainly been just focusing on trying to increase test scores and getting good GPA to get into top universities. However, now I am considering attending slightly less prestigious colleges if it is possible for me to get large scholarships/full rides. How would I go about trying to achieve this? Thank you and sorry I don't really know that much about this yet.</p>
<p>Go onto the Financial aid and Scholarships section of this website. There is a lot of good information and threads that will help you get started. See link: <a href=“Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>You can also try these awesome scholarship sites such as ■■■■■.com, fastweb.com, ■■■■■■■■■■, and collegeboard.org. I hope this helps!</p>
<p>^^
those are often a waste of time…and the awards are often small and only for frosh year.</p>
<p>OP…what are your stats? what is your major? how much will your parents pay? we can direct you to large merit if desired.</p>
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<p>SAT: 2100
SAT Critical Reading & Math only: 1440</p>
<p>Moderate ECs:
Sports
Volunteering
Some work Experience</p>
<p>I am white and I am not in need of financial aid.</p>
<p>I am applying for Chemical Engineering.
<<<<</p>
<p>Has something changed? will your parents still pay all costs?</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids I was just not really planning on applying for financial aid before. However, my brother will be applying for college a year behind me and it would be easier on my parents (who are paying for both of us) if I could get some sort of scholarship. They probably could afford both of us barely but I’d rather not have them be worried.</p>
<p>Where are you? Also, class rank? If your SAT is 30 points higher, you may consider University at Buffalo. It has Presidential Scholarships. See <a href=“Scholarships | University Honors College | University at Buffalo”>http://honors.buffalo.edu/prospective/scholarships.php</a></p>
<p>@4kidsdad I live in California if that’s what you mean</p>
<p>^Could you qualify for Cal Grant?</p>
<p>Calgrant doesn’t sound likely if his parents have money to pay for college. Kreigl, you would have to go to a lower ranked college than you could otherwise get to get a merit aid. If there are ones you like than it is a win. Look at the threads posted at the top of the forum for Automatic Merit and Competitive Merit. For the automatic colleges, you can get full ride/merit at some, see the last page.</p>
<p>Also run the Net Price Calculator on each college and see what it looks like the first year with one in college. Then run it for two in college to see. Try it with a UC first and see if you will get any break.</p>
<p>@brownparent Do I have to apply for these scholarships based on stats or will they just give them to me? Sorry if this is a dumb question I am trying to understand this from no prior knowledge.</p>
<p>@brownparent additionally, it seems like there are only a few schools listed on the forum for the automatic merit…is there a way I can find out the policy for any school? Like somewhere on their website or something?</p>
<p>You need to read the financial aid page for each college if you are going to apply to it so you get in all the paperwork they ask for. Each college will have information about scholarships available but they don’t always tell you how many or what percentile get competitive ones. Usually for automatic there isn’t a separate application. For Competitive there may be I don’t know. For both be sure to read the deadlines, sometimes you have to apply early because there is a deadline or funds are only there till gone, like at Howard. '</p>
<p>For automatic, the thread exists because people here are trying to gather the info in one place–members here (esp Bob Wallace) contributed over time to find these. Not a lot of schools offer automatic. Sometimes automatic is offered instate only, Alabama is the highest ranking college that offers it. If you have a chance to have one for a safety it is worth the application, they are quick, no essays, I think.</p>
<p>@Kreig01: Having gone through the admission process with both my sons the last 2 years where they focused on in-state schools (California), the most merit they received was from private schools such as University of La Verne, University of the Pacific and Whittier College. The lone exception was UCR which gave my younger son $5000/year Chancellor’s Scholarship. We are basically full-pay for their schools, so merit aid is the only type of aid they could qualify. That being said, even with the merit aid, the price tags for the privates were still above what we are paying for 1 UC and 1 Cal State. Even USC which used to give Full-Tuition Scholarships will only give 1/2 tuition Scholarships to high STAT applicants. You would need to go OOS for better merit aid.</p>
<p>If your parents can pay instate tuition at the UC’s, why wont you be applying to our UC schools? </p>
<p>University of Minnesota is great in Chem E and cheap for OOS.</p>
<p>@aunt bea He said elsewhere that he is just trying to save parents money, and has a brother coming up following year. So he is just learning about merit and doesn’t yet realize it doesn’t grow on trees.</p>
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<p>The CoA for oos there is around $32k. I know it is hard to be NMF in California. But if you are, then they will offer you a lot of financial aid that would bring the cost below $15k/year (sometimes even less).</p>
<p>Minnesota has a highly rated Chemical Engineering program and yup, cheap for OOS. They do have scholarships to hand out even if you are not a NMF. DS attends and he loves it there (but he LOVES the cold weather)!!</p>