<p>I'm a fairly competitive applicant: 34 act, 1470 sat, varsity athlete, MNSQT commended scholar, 12 AP courses, NHS officer, lots of ECs. Live in Texas.</p>
<p>Direction at the moment is chemical engineering, though I'm looking for colleges that have a wide range of good programs. Prefer medium to small schools, though wouldn't mind a large one with a good honors program.</p>
<p>Biggest thing is I need some reallly decent aid.</p>
<p>I have applied to:
Drexel, UMinn Twin Cities, UT Austin, Bama, Tulane, U Virginia, Rice, WUSTL, Case Western Reserve, and Vanderbilt.
Also going to pick one elite school for kicks, probably Stanford, UPenn, or Princeton.</p>
<p>Rice and Vandy are my top choices, though the finances probably won't work out. I have very high standards for myself and feel like I'm going to have to compromise...</p>
<p>Anyone have have last minute ideas for colleges that might suit my profile?
Thanksss.</p>
<p>You mentioned small to medium and some of those schools are really big. Maybe a smaller school that has engineering and might give merit aid for those scores? Lehigh came to my mind but I’m not a big expert on engineering schools.</p>
<p>As for Rice and Vanderbilt I believe their financial packages are amazing in the fact that it is 100% guaranteed and usually has at most 10% of loans, while the other 90% is just scholarships and grants, so if you are not able to afford these schools they will make it affordable for you</p>
<p>Also you do stand a very good chance at one of these two, what was your SAT score on all three? If 2200+ then I would say your chances are very good, however that 34 ACT might be the only thing you need to send to get accepted </p>
<p>I think you have applied to enough colleges, you have your “reaches”, matches and safeties. There really is no need to apply to anymore</p>
<p>with those stats, why aren’t you applying to more elite schools? because they are large schools? what about Rensselaer Polytechnic? or Polytechnic Institute of NYU? both give 99% of students financial aid.</p>
<p>@Hitch - My medium to small, I meant like under 10k. Bama, UT Austin, and U Minn are big, but the others are okay.</p>
<p>@Mbrib- SAT was 2270, 1470 math+cr. Hope you’re right about that!</p>
<p>@Krn- I don’t think there’s any way I can afford the elites, even with 100% need met- I’ll need some scholarship money, and they surely won’t give it to me, of all applicants. I was going to apply to Rensselaer, like the school a lot- but I was worried I’d kinda get screwed over if I decided engineering wasn’t for me.</p>
<p>You need to specify you need merit aid or you’ll get bad advice.</p>
<p>If you can’t afford Rice and Vandy, forget Penn. Princeton and Stanford are worth a try. Unless your family has unusual assets, if their income is below $180, you’ll pay 10% of income. That’s as good as it gets!</p>
<p>Otherwise for big merit you need to add far selective schools like Bama and Auburn.</p>
<p>If so, how about Santa Clara in Calif? They would give you some merit money and it’s a very good school. Gonzaga would also probably give you merit.</p>
<p>Do you want a school that is close to 50/50 male/female? Or are engineering schools that are heavily male ok? </p>
<p>(I don’t know why, but I’m thinking that you don’t want a male-heavy school…but my hunch could be very wrong.)</p>
<p>BTW…did you submit the separate scholarship app to Bama? If not, you need to do that by Saturday. You should have gotten an email with log-on info to submit the separate scholarship app. The full tuition and engineering scholarships are assured for your stats, but you have to submit that separate app. And, also indicate that you want to be considered for the Crimson scholarship which is pretty much a full ride.</p>
<p>Income is around 110k, certainly no unusual assets. </p>
<p>Unfortunately I missed Auburn’s priority scholarship deadlines. Also, they claim to only offer 2/3 tuition. Still worth sending the application? Also, I talked to someone at Purdue Admissions, they said they would still consider me for merit aid even though I’ve missed the deadline. How generous might they be?</p>
<p>I’ll definitely look into those two, mom2college. A Catholic school certainly doesn’t appeal to me (Protestant), but I certainly wouldn’t overlook a good Catholic school (Villanova maybe?). I’d prefer a 50/50 ration, but again, wouldn’t overlook a male-heavy. The thing is, I am not really interested in schools like RPI or WPI or Rose-Hulman that are heavily focused on engineering. </p>
<p>I did apply for the Bama scholarship, thanks again for that info. I have not applied for the Honor’s college yet though, as the application appears to be unavailable- guessing it opens later.</p>
<p>Might look at Holy Cross(don’t have to be religious) very good school with strong sports program(that competes against the Ivies. HC has very good alumni network.</p>
<p>About 15k a year, tops. Including room/board and books, so basically would require full tuition. EFC is 15-20k, which would mean at 100% need met, I’d be paying the 15K + room/books, which would turn out to be upwards of 30k- am I right?</p>
<p>No, the COA includes tuition, room, board, books, travel expenses. So if your family can meet it’s EFC, you’ll be fine at schools that meet 100% of need.</p>
<p>Have you calculated your Profile EFC? It can be quite a bit higher than your FAFSA EFC, so make sure to do that and if it is affordable, you sound set to go at good privates.</p>
<p>^ That’s a big, important question. Whether your family can actually meet the EFC. </p>
<p>Here’s a link to some interesting data on aid at Trinity College (Hartford). Trinity is a good LAC but not super selective. Perhaps this data is fairly indicative of what to expect out of an expensive private school … although Princeton Review rates it a “98” for financial aid and it supposedly does meet 100% of demonstrated need, so it might represent the high end (short of HYPS) of what to expect.
[Trinity</a> College: Financial Aid Facts](<a href=“http://www.trincoll.edu/orgs/planning/publicdata/FinancialAid.html]Trinity”>http://www.trincoll.edu/orgs/planning/publicdata/FinancialAid.html)</p>
<p>Note that for an income of $110K, the average need-based aid (to students who get it) is $34,984. The total COA is over $50K. So at this school, the average n-b aid recipient in this income bracket would be expected to cover a little more than the $15K Pancaked wants to spend (but at least he’d be in the ballpark). Your mileage may vary at this school, and definitely will vary from school to school.</p>
<p>DREXEL: OP, Drexel’s FA stats do not look very promising, so please don’t be disapointed if they do not meet your need. Good luck to you in your college search. </p>
<p>PROFILE OF 2008-09 FINANCIAL AID Freshmen
Financial Aid Applicants 2,392 (98.5%) of freshmen
Found to Have Financial Need 1,559 (65.2%) of applicants
Received Financial Aid 1,559 (100.0%) of applicants with financial need
Need Fully Met 618 (39.6%) of aid recipients
Average Percent of Need Met 61%
Average Award $22,769
Need-Based Gift Received by 1,548 (99.3%) of aid recipients, average amount $14,844
Need-Based Self-Help Received by 1,268 (81.3%) of aid recipients, average amount $10,784
Merit-Based Gift Received by 235 (15.1%) of aid recipients
Merit-Based Gift Received by 808 (33.3%) of freshmen without need, average amount $12,614</p>
<p>Catholic schools don’t care if you’re Protestant or Jewish or atheist or whatever. Many non-Catholics go to Catholic universities. And, many have good engineering programs.</p>
<p>anyway…regarding applying to Bama honors… If you’re applying to CBHP, that app is due about Jan 5th, so if the link isn’t available to you soon, you need to contact the CBHP office.</p>