am a rising senior from MD. Im looking for a medium school (3,000-20,000) that is not too far away. I have a 4.0 unweighted GPA and around 4.3 weighted and am also enrolled in many AP classes. I am also top 10 in my class of 300 with an SAT score of 1550. Im also in most of the honors societies, a community service club, mock trial, model UN, and SGA.
Im trying to finalize the list of schools to apply to and so far I have University of Delaware, University of Rochester, UVA, W&M, CWRU, Cornell, and Towson.
My family will likely receive very little from FAFSA, and so I am trying to find schools where I will be eligible for significant merit aid. Aside from UMD (which I would prefer not to attend but will still likely apply) what are some other safety schools where I would get some merit aid. Thanks so much!
Merit scholarship likely at the University of South Carolina and at Alabama. Apply to the Univ. of Georgia for the Honors College and, potentially, an invitation for Foundation Fellows.
Salisbury, Frostburg, also possible to earn half to full tuition scholarships. You may get scholarship from Towson. Certain majors may have more scholarship opportunities than others.
University of Delaware, University of Rochester, UVA, W&M, CWRU, Cornell, and Towson.
Are you saying you have run Net Price Calculators for these universities? Because I would expect UDelaware to still cost $10k more than any instate option.(Based on running it for my kids.)
You’ll need to understand what your parents are willing to pay, vs what the universities expect.
Alabama has automatic merit aid for your stats.
W&M may cost as much as $25k a semester with almost no merit aid for out of state.
Cornell gives need based aid, not merit.
Look at Net Price Calculators for VCU and VA Tech.
Apart from your state schools (I think UMBC is a fantastic economical option for Maryland STEM students) maybe check out Denison and College of Wooster if you can stand to go somewhat smaller. Both above 2000 students. They both like to attract high-stats students with merit aid (don’t know how much you need). Denison is becoming more and more selective. I hear Wooster has a fabulous new science center and emphasises undergraduate reseach/mentoring and has a high rate of students going on to graduate school.
I meant to include this in the original post, but I understand Rochester, W&M, UVA, and Cornell probably won’t give me much money (I just really loved these schools and applying on a long shot). We ran the net price calculator for CWRU and the price was doable.
How do you feel about Pitt? I’d hesitate to call it a financial safety, but you’d likely get some merit money if you put some time and energy into their short answer questions.
It’s so funny how many students don’t want their instate flagship when so many out of state kids are pining for them.
OP - Don’t underestimate the quality of the education at UMD CP. You would most likely get into honors or scholars with your credentials and they have a super engineering program. (It was high on my D’s list from OOS).
Maybe OPs objection has more to do with the size of the flagship than the fact that it’s a state school…I noticed Towson is on OPs list, which is part of the U MD state system and a good bit less selective than CP.
Pitt or WVU. You would probably get a lot of merit from WVU. I rarely hear WVU mentioned. It’s ABET accredited. I know engineers from WVU and they’re sharp. They seem to stick together.
Happykid would not even visit UMCP. She visited UMBC and didn’t like it. She did like what she saw at Towson and was very happy there. One of her best childhood friends majored in chemistry at Salisbury and went on to a good grad school program in chemistry.
Of the MD publics, it looks like only UMBC and UMCP offer Chem engineering. UM Eastern Shore has a general engineering major, so that may be worth checking out.
How cheap do you need to make your education, or are you mostly looking for merit as evidence that they like you? If you need big aid, you might end up needing to adjust some of the other factors that you currently have on your list.
My family will likely receive very little from FAFSA, and so I am trying to find schools where I will be eligible for significant merit aid. Aside from UMD (which I would prefer not to attend but will still likely apply) what are some other safety schools where I would get some merit aid. Thanks so much!
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If you want to compare automatic merit awards, even though they’re further away, look at Alabama and UAH. Run the net price calculators. The apps are easy and you get notified fairly quickly.
Pulling together your responses it looks as if: Towson (and UMd-CP) are safeties but you are hoping to find one that you like better
*UDe is probably an admit safety but not clear if it is a financial safety
*CWRU is likely and affordable
*URochester is likely, but not clear if it is affordable
*UVa and W&M are matches, even allowing for OOS, but not affordable
*Cornell is a reach but not affordable.
You have skirted the budget question- there is a big gap between ‘likely to get little’ and ‘significant merit’. THe Maryland schools are $12-27K (depending on whether you live at home or on campus). Have your parents said something to the effect of ‘we can’t / won’t spend extra money on college’? have they said that they will ‘find a way’ if you get a name like Cornell’? I have seen a lot of parents do either / both of those.
You will get better suggestions if you give an actual budget. You have great stats, and there are schools that will pay for them, but knowing what the baseline number is key to identifying good ones for you.
*W&M has 8/pa (very) competitive scholarships that meet in-state costs. Otherwise the only ‘merit’ is a $3K stipend for summer research. *UVa has the (super competitive, not run by the school and not linked to admission decisions) Jefferson scholarships, but no merit for OOS students (unless qualify for one of their many named scholarships that are for specific situations (a Hugenot ancestor, somebody who qualifies for the DAR and is likely to be PBK, aparent who is active duty military, etc- it’s a weird & wonderful list).