I’m currently a junior in high school with a 4.0 GPA UW (have yet to see weighted), I’ve just recently taken the PSAT, but my last score was a 1220, I’ve done some ECs in school such as 2 years of art club and some math tutoring, the rest of my experiences are in doctors offices, working at my parents’ salon, volunteering at a children’s bible school, and volunteering for the monastery in fundraising and cleaning. Aside from honor rolls and perfect attendances, I haven’t gotten much distinctive awards in the sciences or languages and such. I do program a lot in my spare time on projects, as my intended major is computer engineering. And my family’s combined salary is 40k.
Now with that cleared, I’m planning to apply OOS to the UMN, as it’s been my dream school for a while now. But thing is, my parents are hesitant to let me go if I can’t secure a full scholarship or enough funds to pay off 4 years, because it’d be a big hefty payment for them.There’s little chance I’d qualify for merit, though I’ve studied my ass off for that PSAT test. So how would I go about doing this? Spend all summer next year applying for scholarships? Or perhaps the UMN has very good financial aid and scholarships enough for me?
Why do you think there is little chance you’d qualify for merit? What do you think your SAT/ACT will be?
Edit/update: Also, are you male or female and would you be first generation to go to college?
Minnesota residents are likely first in line for UMN’s money.
You likely qualify for lots of need based aid either in your own state system (where do you live?) or at a private college with a strong endowment.
After you get your SAT scores, look at programs like Questbridge and collegepoint.info that match lower income kids to great schools,
@Aroundhere - it’s not the case that MN residents are first in line. There are great scholarships available to OOS students depending on GPA, class rank, ACT/SAT score, and course load. The biggest one is the National which can be up to a cool $10,000 off your OOS tuition differential. Depending on whether OP is NMSF, there is also the Gold (another $10,000); however, OP is suggesting that NMSF might not be likely.
It would be very very difficult to get full tuition and R&B on merit alone but significant merit plus need-based? Maybe.
CSE is very hard to get into and only 1/3 of their enrollees are female which is why I asked OP about that. They are actively trying to get more girls, to apply as well as URM, first gen, etc. The resulting aid package can be a combination of merit and need-based scholarships, as well as some federal dollars assuming they qualify for that.
However, your advice about looking into QuestBridge etc. is excellent as those are pathways to some pretty elite schools. If OP is low income and a hard worker, he/she might be eligible for an even higher reach than CSE.
Here are some websites to get you started, OP. Be sure to read all the corresponding links within each site so you are aware of the potential:
https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/academics/profile.html
https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/costsaid/schol_campus.html
https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/costsaid/schol_college.html
Also, be sure to use Kahn Academy for your SAT prep (assuming you do SAT) but also look into the ACT if you feel that SAT isn’t your test. Good luck!
Need and merit rarely stack to a full ride, which is what OP needs.
@kareUdon You need a longer college list than just one dream school, both to make sure you get in somewhere and to make sure you can afford one of the places where you get in.
@JBStillFlying I am in fact female, thank you very much. And the reason I choose UMN specifically and not my other list of colleges is that I feel the city and liberal environment as well as research and just the scene in general feels right to me. It’s as though I can’t think of any other college I’d really want to go to, although I’ve been told that I’d be a better fit for more elite schools. Thanks for the input!
@AroundHere I’ve already established a list. My even harder reach is Northeastern in Boston, my safety is here in Florida, which is FGCU, which I’ve visited twice and loved, and University of Washington - Seattle due to the many tech opportunities there and the nice ol campus and studies.
@AroundHere and I live in Florida. How would local scholarships and need-based aid here process or go towards OOS programs?
@JBStillFlying Forgot to also add, I took a practice SAT a few months back to gauge where I am before the March SAT day, and got a 1180, which I need to work on as the CSE median score is around 1410 I believe, or higher.
“Need and merit rarely stack to a full ride, which is what OP needs.”
“Need” is determined by EFC not by what a student thinks he/she has to get in order to attend, and OP doesn’t even require a full ride, assuming he/she gets into CSE and majors in computer engineering. Borrowing $25,000 - 30,000 over four years in this case makes a lot of sense when you consider starting salaries.
Private institutions have more need-based institutional funds with a lot more discretion as to their distribution. But they also tend to have a much higher cost of attendance. UMN’s OOS numbers are continuing to increase significantly year over year but they don’t rival those of selective private engineering programs (also, once you matriculate at UMN the increase capped at something like 5-6%).
@kareUdon - unless the rankings have changed recently, you are much better off at UMN than NEU for engineering as well as from a cost perspective.
Have you looked into taking the ACT and/or used Kahn for your prep? The Mid 50% range for the new SAT at CSE is 1400 - 1490 and you’ll want to get as close to 1400 as you can, plus you’ll want your math to be a respectable score, given your chosen field of study. Unfortunately they haven’t released the fall 2017 statistics yet in detail so we have no way of knowing how many below the 25th percentile enrolled.
@JBStillFlying Thanks! And yes, my school thankfully offers two fee waivers for both the SAT and ACT so I’m planning to take both next year. I happen to be experienced extensively in math from my childhood to now so I think I can score pretty well on that portion.
@JBStillFlying OP stated in their post that they needed a full ride
College board data for UMN:
Out of state costs $39,655
Average percent of need met 77%
Average merit award $5,031
College scorecard:
Average cost for a student from a family earning $30,001-$48,000 is $9,582
For a family earning less than 30,000 it’s 7,951
Could this student get scholarships and aid? yes, but if the parents want a full-ride, that’s not particularly likely.
@kareUdon I am familiar with UW Seattle more so than UMN. I can tell you, you will NOT get the aid you need to attend as an out of state student there.
Every college is required to have a net price calculator. Run them.
Minnesota: http://www.d.umn.edu/undergraduate-admissions/costs-and-aid/net-price-calculator
Washington: http://www.washington.edu/financialaid/getting-started/net-price-calculator/
Northeastern: https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/northeastern
FGCU: https://www2.fgcu.edu/financialaid/netpricecalculator/npcalc.htm (Warning, looks like it’s out of date!)
@AroundHere I wouldn’t look at “average” merit aid because OP isn’t applying to the average college at UMN. Admission is by college (CSE, CLA, CBS, etc) and she has a distinct advantage with CSE, provided she can deliver the SAT or ACT scores. The application takes less than 30 minutes to complete and they mostly look at GPA, class rank, ACT/SAT etc. No rec letters, no required essay, and they waive your applicaiton fee if you are OOS. Worth a shot.
If she’s able to get the National plus a presidential scholarship, that’s up to $15,000 rather than $5,100. Merit alone reduces the cost of attendance to in-state levels. And need-based would be on top of that if the EFC is too low to meet an in-state cost. If the constraint for a family facing enrollment at a top 25 engineering school is that you have to get a full pay scholarship or you don’t go, then she may well be out of luck. If she receives “enough to pay off 4 years” that may well be another story. As I mentioned earlier, she could easily borrow $25,000 - $30,000 on her own at the graduated schedule (5500 in year one, 6500 in year two, etc.) - likely those loans would be at the subsidized rate given her family’s low income status - and be just fine in terms of ability to pay them off.
The biggest challenge - other than getting those test scores up - is that OP lives in a state with VERY affordable in-state tuition which makes it hard from a parent’s perspective to pay for a public uni. anywhere else. Univ. of FL alone is a top 40 engineering program with a $6,500 in-state tuition cost (assuming that engineering doesn’t include a premium). That’s hard to beat!
As already mentioned, admission at UMN is by college, and CSE is the most competitive. See stats on admitted students here: https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/academics/profile.html
Chances of getting significant merit aid at UMN depend on how your stats compare to the other applicants to the college you apply to at UMN, and also whether you are a National Merit Finalist or not, since they prefer to offer some of the top scholarships to NMF. More info on their scholarships is here: https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/costsaid/scholarships.html
UMN does stack scholarships. My daughter received five scholarships upon admission that cover all of tuition and most of room and board. She was NMF and had received some national awards related to her intended major, plus was National AP Scholar and had a 4.0 unweighted GPA in top 5% of her class. Three of the scholarships were university-wide, and two were specifically from the college she applied to (which was not CSE). She got the scholarship offers without filling out any special applications for them, other than the short application for admission to the university. She still talks about how great the university is for not requiring any essays for admission and scholarships.
Some universities offer guaranteed scholarships to anyone who meets certain GPA and standardized test scores, and they post a grid on their website. You know in advance before applying whether you will qualify for a scholarship, and for how much. Some can be full tuition. I haven’t looked up such programs this year, but in the past universities that did that include University of Alabama-Huntsville and University of Utah. I recommend applying to some places where you can see in advance how much scholarship money you will receive, so you know it will be affordable. And of course apply in-state as well, and to some private universities that offer full financial aid to meet need.
@JBStillFlying Loaning sounds like a very good recommended idea, but as stupid and immature as it may sound, my parents aren’t so keen and agreeing on me borrowing money, as they put the pressure on me going to school without paying a dime like my cousin on a BU presidential full ride scholarship. They’re not exactly bad tiger parents, but they weren’t warm to the thought when my older sister had to borrow money and they had to work hard to pay some of it off. Though in the future, they could still change their minds, and I could go to UMN on loans stress and problem-free.
@kareUdon - when you take out the federal loan it’s in your name, not your parents. They would have ZERO financial responsibility for paying those off. Totally understandable if they are uncomfortable nonetheless but unless I’m misremembering the loan application process doesn’t even require their signature. Maybe if you are a minor at the time of application or loan disbursal it’s a different story (our one kid who ended up borrowing federal loans was 18 at the time). And doubtless the DOE will start at your permanent address if they come looking for you LOL. Just saying it’s not necessarily a parental permission thing, although college should, of course, be a family decision, not just a kid’s or a parent’s alone.
@JBStillFlying I will be turning 18 early in my senior year next October, so that’s a bit of a relief. But seeing as this is going to still involve me paying loans off during college, it’ll still be a bit rather upseting and shameful in their eyes to say the least. At the moment I’m committing to applying for scholarships for juniors everyday or when I have spare time throughout the week, hoping it’ll build up the money and cash. So if I have to borrow loans, that’ll be fine but not without consequences. And so I chug away writing and applying to hopefully not have to result to that.
But thanks for your input again. 
@kareUdon The biggest number of scholarships come from the colleges themselves, not national contests. So be sure that you continue to search for schools that would offer big merit aid for your stats.
@AroundHere Will consider.