Rice meets full need (as Rice defines it), but it does not give any merit money to transfers, and admits very few transfers. Rice has a new financial aid initiative for families making under a certain amount with “typical assets.” Run the net price calculator to see what your expected family contribution would be. Rice considers home equity and savings in making its calculations. Rice requires the FAFSA and CSS profile and will likely require financial information from your father. Can you or your mother take out loans to enable you to attend the college where you have committed? Have you talked to the financial aid office there to see if they have any suggestions for you?
Rice is highly selective. As are JHU, UCh and Vanderbilt. Can’t count on them other than as lottery tickets.
OP needs to look at what LIKELY options that would be affordable might be. Did she really mess up choices in applying this year so that a redo is likely to give better options? Transfer with money needed is not a likely scenario.
If you can’t tell us where you’ve put a deposit, we can’t help you. Let’s say you put in a deposit at Brown, which you mention on a previous thread. If Brown’s FA isn’t good enough, then you aren’t likely to get better aid somewhere else after a gap year. But let’s say instead that you deposited someplace that doesn’t meet need (say you were gapped at Penn State or Knox). Then our advice will be different. Trust me… no one is trying to figure out who you are. But we can’t help without more information. Please answer the questions that have been asked.
I deposited at Allegheny college
Allegheny is an excellent school, and their psych. department is very good (okay, I’m biased - my daughter is one of the psych. professors). I’m sure they don’t want to lose a student due to finances. Have you contacted the financial aid office to request a review of your financial aid? On the other hand, Allegheny doesn’t have unlimited resources, and may have given you as much aid as they could. My daughter had a student who had to transfer to Shippensburg because she couldn’t afford to continue at Allegheny. Have you considered applying to UAH, as I suggested in my previous post? How much can your mother afford to contribute?
I’m just going to decline my acceptance and take a gap year. I’ll just improve my SAT and apply to my state colleges
I actually think a gap year could be a good idea, but can you please give us the full picture? There are a lot of schools between the high flying list you mentioned in another post and Alleghany. Your scores are already pretty good. We can likely suggest schools that meet need and might be workable next year with your current stats. So… what are all the schools you applied to and your results? What is your home state?
Allegheny College is an excellent LAC. I’ve known many of their graduates and would not hesitate to recommend this school to top students.
It is an expensive school. It is not easy to get a full ride scholarship there; don’t know if they even have them. I don’t think they guarantee to meet full need and certainly do not as defined by the FAFSA EFC. But then very few schools do.
There are two things at issue here: 1) You say you can not afford this school. Your mother does not have the funds to pay for what the school is charging you, your father refuses or cannot contribute, and your mother should not be borrowing money to pay for your college. 2) You don’t want to go to this school. It just happened to be last school standing when all was said and done
Given those things, I agree that going to Allegheny, even if it is possible to somehow borrow the money to make it happen, is not a good use of your time and money.
Hopefully, you will be wiser and more knowledgeable in going through the college admissions gauntlet this next time. The very first thing you should do is to find that school you totally can afford that can give you a degree. Do understand this is what a dream school is. With your profile, there are some such schools out there and you should secure one, understanding this is where you will go unless one of your lottery tickets comes through.
Finding a full or close to full ride to a school is extremely challenging. Especially if you want to find one that covers your living expenses too. Like room, board, books ,etc. Look through this forum and see how others have done it. It’s a huge project. It means keeping an open mind to all schools. PA has many directional state universities from Slippery Rock, Edinboro, Kutztown, that are relatively inexpensive. Temple used to give some full ride auto awards that they have discontinued but still give Through an appraisal process. PSU and Pitt are tough when it comes to getting large awards. There are some private colleges like York, Grove City, Thiel, Westminster, Juniata, Albright that are tremendous deals. Albright is just about the only school that I know that meets full need as defined by FAFSA. PA has a wealth of colleges.
Then there are the true lottery tickets. If your father will fill out the financial aid papers, and if his situation does make you eligible for enough need based aid, some of the generous schools like Rice, JHU, Vanderbilt, are possibilities just like winning the lottery is. UChicago and Vanderbilt do not require NCP info. Maybe you can get a NCP waiver at other schools. These are the things you need to do to give yourself optimal chances next year
I suggest you also work and save your money, or rather pay your mother for your expenses and let her save the money for you since your savings gets hit a lot harder than hers in the financial aid process. You will likely have to work through college. Even the most generous schools tend to demand a student contribution when they come out with the financial aid, so you should be proactive here.
Find some interest or activity to take some of your focus too. Yes, colleges like to see good use of a gap year. Earning money is one thing but that you are doing a restart on your college app process is not going to win many points. If you can find some venue where you can help those applying to colleges or the next step in life from high school with limited resources in terms of family, GCs, money, knowledge, that might be a good focus. If you get to work in your project, you will have a vast store of knowledge in this area.
Good luck and keep us appraised of how it goes. Feel free to ask questions in the board and do share your findings.
I’ve decided to take a gap year because it is less stress for me. So would I just defer my admission and then do research , work etc and apply to better colleges for fall 2020?
Yes. And this forum will gladly help out with a list and anything else we can.
I think that’s a great plan. We’ll help out as much as we can.