<p>HS junior son is interested in mechanical engineering. I was told by another parent who applied last year that Iowa state offered her OOS son a generous merit scholarship (we are OOS too.) Son is a A student, decent ECs (alot of them engineering oriented...sumobot, skills USA etc.), and we expect that his ACT will be in the 30+ range. I like what I have read about Iowa State and their engineering program, but I do not want to pay OOS tuition for a state school. Can anyone tell me if Iowa State was generous enough to bring the OOS tuition down to instate rates?</p>
<p>ISU has a very good Engineering program. S is a senior (not eng.) and we are OOS he got 6,500. I doubt they would be able to give you just merit to bring it down to resident tuition there is almost 13k difference. Best thing is to apply and once you have all scores they have a chart with aprox. merit aid (at least they had 5 yrs. ago).</p>
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<p>Iowa State is a great schoolâŠsaid the ISU alumâŠespecially for engineering. My D got $10,500 in scholarships with a near 3.97 uw gpa and 30 ACT. However, $1k was from the math dept and $1.5k was for being a legacy, but the other $8k was an automatic scholarship for having at least a 3.3, 28 act/1240 sat, math through calculus, 3 years of biology/chem/physics, and 3 years of a single foreign language. The information we received about it when we went for a tour listed it for Louisiana so Iâm not sure if it applies to all oos students the same. They also surprised us with the amount of need based aid they awarded making it the most affordable college D applied to besides our state U. Too bad sheâs so afraid of the winters there.</p>
<p>Thanks for both posts. I had heard it is a good engineering school and I think it probably would be worth the application fee to see what happens. We probably wonât visit though until we know he is admitted. Thanks for the information!</p>
<p>Also, Iowa Stateâs OOS tuition is very low to begin with, just $20,278 for 2013-2014. With a $7,000 scholarship, net tuition is only $13,000. That is lower than the instate rate in some states. That partly explains why there are so many studeunts at ISU from Minnesota and Illinois. </p>
<p>For example, Illinois State Univ has instate tuition of $13,000. Good students from Illinois can attend Iowa State for the same price as instate AND get a better experience at a better school IMHO.</p>
<p>My sonâs friend graduated from Iowa State after being turned down by the program of his choice at UIL at U-c. The cost is not a whole lot more for him to go out of state since Illinois state schools are so expensive. I do believe he did get some merit money, though not a lot.</p>
<p>Both Iowa State and Iowa are filled with UIUC and U MN ârejectsââŠmostly in engineering and businessâŠadmission at those schools for eng and business is quite competitive. Avg ACT score for engineering at U MN is 31.</p>
<p>My daughter is off to Ames next fall and, yes, we found them to be very generous. Being from Illinois, our experience has been just what haystack said: with merit aid they got tuition rates down below U of ILL rates, and slightly below IL St U rates. Now . . . thatâs Illinois of course. Our in-state rates arenât the cheapest by any stretch to begin with!</p>
<p>One nice thing about Iowa State is they seem VERY transparent with their merit award criteria. Google âIowa State Award for Competitive Excellenceâ with your home state and see what you come up with. Iowa State had become my daughterâs first choice and she knew going into Senior year what their requirements (see cyclonehomeâs post) were for various award levels and took one specific class to hit the next level financially. (You also might want to Google âAcademic Recognition Awardâ. A little less money, but good nonetheless.) I know they offer different awards to kids from different states, so make sure youâre looking at the information for your state.</p>
<p>They were very generous to usâŠI know this is late, but it may help someone else. D had strong stats and lots of ECâs. She was given about $10,000 but also received some other award money from her department. As a senior she was given a very large departmental scholarship that was completely unexpected. Iowa State does stack scholarshipsâŠmerit, departmental, etc.</p>
<p>We are in Illinois and IowaState was much cheaper than any state school and a much better experience for my D. She loves Iowa State and has a great 3 years here.</p>
<p>For those of you interested in Engineering. Iowa State has the largest Engineerg job fair in the US. They are very well regarded.</p>
<p>^^^buzymom3, thanks for the information. You are definitely not late as my son is a rising senior and just starting apps. We are from Wisconsin so instate schools costs arenât as bad as Illinois but only 3 of our publics offer engineering: Madison, Platteville and Milwaukee. I wanted to find some other choices for him and I am glad to hear that Iowa State is definitely worth exploring and applying to. Thanks for sharing the job fair fact, that is important. Glad your D loved her time there so farâŠgood luck in her senior year!</p>
<p>I googled the Iowa State Awards for Competitive Excellence and all that came up were the stats for students from Illinois and Minnesota. I put his stats in the scholarship estimator (3.95 unweighted gpa, 31 ACT etc.) and it came back with a $5,000 p/year scholarship. I think what may have hurt him (looking at the Illinois information) is he only had/will have 2 years of a foreign language and it looks like for the higher scholarship they want 4. (He is at a public engineering high school which doesnât offer languages onsite so he had to travel to another hs to get those 2 classes.) I will probably suggest he apply as it is a good engineering school, but I doubt that heâll get enough in scholarships to get it down to our affordable level.</p>
<p>Make sure that you talk to Admissions and or the scholarship department before you discount ISUâŠif they know that he could not get the language requirement at his HS they can waive it. I have found them to be very easy to talk to and quick to respond.</p>
<p>Thanks buzymom. It was so nice to talk to you in person and hear your perspective of Iowa State. I definitely will have my youngest applyâŠnever hurt to see what happens. I will also talk to the financial department to see if because his school doesnât offer languages, they will accept the 2 years for the 4 year scholarship requirement.</p>
<p>I am an old grad as well. My daughter was offered $7,500 five years ago, but $1,500 was the legacy scholarship mentioned above. She had a 4.0 unweighted and 2290 SAT.</p>