<p>Hi! I've never posted before but I am finding myself slightly overwhelmed and would really like your advice.</p>
<p>I attend a Catholic High School in California. I am a junior and have always taken Honors and this year AP classes.<br>
I have a 4.76 gpa. I am in the National Honor Society at my School.
My SATs are 2250
I will be Student Body President for next year. I love Student Government and love my school. That would be my passion. I have been involved with several Student leadership events.
I have done Mock Trial for 3 years, Swim Team for 3 years, as well as one year of vb and waterpolo.
I am involved in my Church Community and have done volunteer work for several years.</p>
<p>I have been to East Coast Ivy league schools, and would love to attend them, but financially my parents can not send me, but we also will not qualify for financial aid. </p>
<p>I love Urban schools, between 1800 and 10,000 people, but didn't like Columbia, too urban, and didn't like Wesleyan, too small town.
Can any of you please recommend a good school that may give out Merit Aid so that I may look at them and consider applying? I just don't know where to begin.</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are very generous with financial aid.</p>
<p>I think you should apply to those schools, wait for financial aid offers, then assess your options. If their awards aren’t sufficiently generous, you could always appeal, and they would certainly accommodate you.</p>
<p>Sorry, I know I didn’t really answer your question, but that’s my advice.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt University in Nashville offers a variety of merit scholarships, up to full tuition. Take a look at both the Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Ingram scholarships. Frankly, you sound like a good fit for at least one of those awards; even if you do not get lucky and get one of those named awards, there are usually some part-tuition merit awards as well.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is in Nashville, about a mile and a half from downtown, but not nearly as urban as Columbia. The campus is relatively compact, ringed on the periphery by bookstores, coffee shops and restaurants, etc. but the campus itself is beautiful and free of the noise of traffic. Undergraduate enrollment is a bit under 6500, but the campus includes med and law schools and a full slate of graduate programs, so it is not a small community.</p>
<p>If your interest in community service continues in college, that should present no problem at all; the university is quite committed to serving the Nashville community and there are many opportunities for undergraduates to do so.</p>
<p>EDIT: Look at the Chancellor’s scholarship also. Made to order.</p>
<p>I’m assuming that you’re at least looking at Stanford, Northwestern, U of Chicago, Rice, Georgetown and Boston College. Northwestern doesn’t offer merit aid, but you should check the sticky thread about schools with merit aid. USC could offer merit aid, but the school is over your size cut-off. Emory and Duke might also be possibilities.</p>
<p>It meets your criteria for the most part. Whether it is urban or not is open to debate. It’s no New York, but it’s still a pretty densely populated area.</p>
<p>Since you’re Hispanic, you should look for scholarships specifically for Latin@ students.</p>
<p>Supposedly Duke alum were looking at starting one. I don’t know of its progress yet, though.</p>
<p>THank you so much PPham! this was really great information. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to send me such encouraging information!</p>
<p>Thank you all for taking the time out of your schedules to reply. I really appreciate it. If anyone else can recommend other schools with good merit aid, I would love to know. Gracias!</p>
<p>Stanford and Brown (there may be others) pretty much offer full coverage to students whose family incomes are 100K or less.</p>
<p>Columbia, Chicago, Dartmouth (I believe), Cornell, Harvard and Yale pretty much do the same but at the 75K level. Chicago has the Odyssey scholarship.</p>
<p>Northwestern is also pretty good about distributing financial aid according to income.</p>
<p>I am not sure what your specific background is, but Mexican American and Puerto Rican students (at least by CA standards and for some national scholarships) are considered “historically underrepresented” whereas, other so called “latinos” aren’t. But the standards are different in different regions of the country, sometimes just being any “latino” is good enough as many schools do not care to differentiate, they just want surnames.</p>
<p>I mention this because your merit awards may vary depending upon your status.</p>
<p>Finally, you have a GREAT profile, but CA is impacted with students like yourself (Latina, top notch scholar etc) I would STRONGLY advise that you open up the application process nationally, particularly to the Midwest and South (in addition to your desire to be on the East Coast) as MW and Southern schools are recruiting latina/o students. For example, one student I was working had the option of UCSD or Cal Spring but received full 4 yr scholarships at both Chicago and Duke. Again California, is highly competitive when it comes to top notch Asian and Latino students.</p>
<p>This will be a safety for you to consider: Northeastern University in Boston. It’s generous to top (and especially top minority) students. In terms of prestige, Northeastern is not on par with any of the schools recommended here. BUT it is in central Boston with about 15,000 students (grad and undergrad) so has the larger, urban feel you’re looking for. It has a highly respected co-op program, where students don’t take classes but work full-time in paid internships while retaining their student status. Co-ops are available throughout Boston, as well as in other states and even over seas.</p>
<p>I just want to encourage you to apply to every school you’re interested in, as none will be out of reach with your stats/ECs/Minority status. Apply to HYPS! GL!</p>
<p>i would suggest you look at a place like Pitt
it’s a bit bigger than you said you liked, but it honestly doesn’t feel so big
its in pittsburgh which is not a huge city but still has a great bit of culture
plus, you could get alot of money</p>
<p>and if its too urban, try CMU down the street</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is an excellent option. One of the earlier posters indicated the Ingram and the Vanderbilt scholarship but there is also the Chancellor’s scholarship which focuses on Community Service that “bridges gaps” amongst communities. My son, who is latino from southern california, just turned down Stanford and Duke to attend Vandy in the fall with a Chancellor’s scholarship. Everything the earlier poster said about Nashville is absolutely correct. You should check it out.</p>
<p>Emory would be another good option. It is just outside Atlanta and has the Emory Scholars program. Additionally, the University of Miami would be another great “safety” school for you and they give very generous scholarships based on SAT scores and grades.</p>
<p>PM me if you need further information. Would be happy to give you lots of insight.</p>
<p>Rice is very generous with merit-based aid. Check out the Claremont Colleges, namely Claremont McKenna and Pomona. Emory and WashU could work, too. Good luck! Keep up the awesome stats and you’ll have some great choices to make this time next year!</p>
<p>When someone says they won’t qualify for aid I assume they have run the calculators and know this for a fact. Telling them Harvard gives good aid isn’t going to help.</p>
<p>Vicki, if you have not run the calculators do so before going further!</p>
<p>Your best source for merit aid info without reinventing the wheel is the sticky atop the parent’s board. You would be a good candidate for merit aid anywhere.</p>
<p>hi, what does “the sticky on top of the parents board” refer to? Yes, the calculators show we won’t be getting any aid. I need to look at merit aid only. thanks again.</p>
<p>Hi Vicky–to get to the sticky, click on “Parents” in the left column. When the board comes up, the fifth thread down deals with merit aid. There will be a lot of good suggestions in there. Good luck!</p>
<p>vicky, go to the Parents Board and look at the list of entries marked IMPORTANT. About the fourth one down is labeled ‘schools known for merit aid’. </p>
<p>I haven’t looked at it lately, and I’m not sure if there is a concise list to be found, but you should take a look at it.</p>
<p>The list includes Rice, Vanderbilt, Wash U St. Louis, Univ. Chicago, Duke, Emory and many others. It also includes, I’m sure, liberal arts colleges if you are interested in any of those.</p>
<p>Also, the poster curmudgeon has some threads about his daughter’s successful search for merit awards.</p>
<p>What’s your planned major, if I mind asking? You may want to take what a university’s offering of courses into account when selecting which schools to apply to. Don’t apply for the sake of prestige alone.</p>