Hobart and William Smith gives big merit awards (like, $30,000/year).
3 Likes
I found it fascinating when I learned Grinnell has merit aid, but not Carleton. Not to oversimplify, but I interpret that as indicating when it comes to yield for very good national colleges, Minneapolis >> Des Moines. But as people point out, most of your time at college is spent at college. So Grinnell with significant merit aid strikes me as a great deal (assuming it is then affordable).
2 Likes
Grinnell’s endowment was managed by Warren Buffet and is now over $1.3 million per student. This is more than twice the per capita endowment of Carleton ($522,000 per student.)
So yes, Grinnell may have to offer more merit aid to attract top students to rural Iowa, but it can also afford to do so.
6 Likes
Good point! And all the more reason to think this is just a good deal.
International students make up around 20% of the student body at Grinnell.
If you are willing to consider women’s colleges, Scripps, part of the Claremont Colleges in southern CA, offers decent merit aid. And you have the benefit of the 4 other colleges (Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer) so it doesn’t feel as much like a single-sex college.
If you want to be in the NE then look at NE schools - from Dickinson and Gettysburg to Washington College to Hobart to SUNY Geneseo to Allegheny, Juniata, Goucher, Susquehanna, to St Lawrence, Muhlenberg to W&J and many many more. There will be many with good aid although maybe not as good as Kalamazoo and Depauw from the Midwest.
3 Likes
Take a look at Washington college in Maryland. They give good merit, and your stats will definitely put you in a good position. Strong academic atmosphere that is collaborative. Great professors who really want to know their students. Many opportunities for research and internships. There is both semester long, summer, and winter study abroad opportunities. Really good academic/career advising.
2 Likes
Adding to the Juniata recommendation above… my D23 just started there. She got a generous merit award that initially brought the cost down to about $30k/year. In addition was offered the opportunity to add more merit $ for a French program that would have included a trip to Paris after freshman year and $ toward study abroad in a French-speaking country. She decided not to pursue that because she didn’t want to continue to take French and wants to study abroad in New Zealand. But definitely shows strong support for French. Also excellent track record for pre-med (her roommate is pre-med).
6 Likes
I toured Mt. Holyoke and honestly didn’t love it…not sure why as it was similar to Smith, but I might continue looking into it as they have a really generous merit aid program.
1 Like
thank you, that’s great advice!
1 Like
I don’t think so for NMSF- my PSAT was just short by a few points and my state is super selective. Med school is definitely a possibility, but I’m not completely sure yet. Do you know of any other strong honors colleges?
Can you define your budget ?
Not sure a school will = Williams vibe but you can find LACs at 25k off, at half off etc.
Bryn Mawr shows up in a few top French lists and has merit but maybe not the most. So you really need to provide an overall budget. Most LACs have merit - and you won’t need to apply ED but that doesn’t get you to what I imagine is a desired cost. That just says you got some money.
So you’re a full pay family that has a target cost of how much ?
I haven’t explored either of those, so that’s great to know!
1 Like
definitely adding that to the list- thank you!
When you see this list you might be thinking, “Hey, I was wanting the northeast, and few of these suggestions are there!” And you’d be right. But much as it pains me to say, French is not a super popular major at most colleges. And though it might not be an uncommon second (double) major, second (or third) majors don’t get listed in governmental data sets. As French is one of the majors you are considering, I only listed schools here that had a relatively higher number of primary (first) majors in French or if they had slightly lower numbers for French, the university has an obvious commitment to foreign languages by the breadth of the foreign language majors offered. I did this in an abundance of caution, as most colleges are facing declining enrollments and making cuts, and I’d hate for one of your potential majors to be cut while you’re in college.
The colleges are sorted into my guesses as to what your chances for admission would be at these colleges. The likelier you are for admission, the likelier I think you would be to get extremely generous merit aid (i.e. perhaps the most generous merit aid the university offers, which could be a full ride or full tuition…always nice, particularly if you think med school costs might be in your future).
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
- Agnes Scott (GA): About 1k undergrads at this women’s college. It’s in the Atlanta consortium that allows students to take classes at other schools like Emory, Georgia Tech, Spelman, etc.
- Augustana U. (SD): About 1800 undergrads
- Beloit(WI): About 1k undergrads
- DePauw (IN): About 1800 undergrads
- Drew (NJ): About 1500 undergrads
- Gustavus Adolphus (MN): About 2100 undergrads
- Hobart William Smith (NY): About 1600 undergrads
- Lawrence (WI): About 1400 undergrads
- Luther (IA): About 1600 undergrads
- Susquehanna (PA ): About 2200 undergrads
- Truman State (MO): About 3600 undergrads. Can’t believe how under-the-radar this school flies. A huge proportion of this school goes on to earn a doctorate.
Likely (60-79%)
- Centre (KY): About 1400 undergrads, leaning towards extremely likely
- Rhodes (TN): About 2k undergrads
- St. Olaf (MN): About 3k undergrads, leaning towards extremely likely
- U. of the South (TN): About 1600 undergrads
- Wofford (SC): About 1800 undergrads, leaning towards extremely likely
Toss-Up (40-59%)
- Bryn Mawr (PA ): About 1400 undergrads at this women’s college. Part of a consortium with Haverford and Swarthmore.
- Dickinson (PA ): About 2100 undergrads
- Kenyon (OH): About 1900 undergrads
- Oberlin (OH): About 3k undergrads
Lower Probability (20-39%)
- Davidson (NC): About 1900 undergrads
Low Probability (less than 20%)
- Grinnell (IA): About 1800 undergrads
1 Like
Hi, Welcome to College Confidential and congrats on a great HS career! You’ve received many good suggestions, but one school that has not yet been mentioned is Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
St. Joe’s seems to tick all your boxes: strong science, study abroad, and a good political science department as well as generous merit. With your stats and pre-med interest, you may well be a strong candidate for a McNulty Fellowship, which is for women in the sciences. Regardless of major, SJU offers very generous merit.
My son also chased merit, thankfully. No regrets. He returns to SJU tomorrow for his senior year, having already accepted a full time job offer to start in June 2024.
I’ve seen a lot of changes - all for the better - since he started at St. Joe’s in 2020. They’ve added nursing and pharmacy programs, among others, through acquisitions of the University of the Sciences (now SJU) and a smaller college.
SJU just acquired several more acres of land adjacent to the campus, and they have plans to break ground on a new dorm this fall. Their new president is a great leader and very approachable woman.
Happy to answer any other questions.
7 Likes
One wild thought: If you need to look outside the northeast of the US, one option is to look further west or further south. Another option is to look further north and/or further east.
We live in the northeast of the US (“New England”). One daughter was interested in smaller schools. She had the stats for Bowdoin or Wellesley College to at least be realistic possibilities (we toured Bowdoin twice), but we did not have the budget and she would not have qualified for need based financial aid. She instead considered smaller schools in Canada. In Canada they do not use the term “Liberal Arts College”, but instead call these “small primarily undergraduate universities”.
The downside is that the small universities in Canada are not at all well known in the US. Several of her classmates in high school asked her “where” and “why” when she told them where she was applying. This changed to “great school” once we arrived in Canada.
One plus is that the US and Canada share a system for accrediting medical schools. My understanding (that you might want to double check) is that it is possible to get a bachelor’s in Canada and then attend medical school in the US (although that was not her intention – she is doing biotech research instead).
Three schools to consider might be Acadia University, Bishop’s University, and Mount Allison University. All would be safeties with your stats. All would be affordable with your budget. All have rolling admissions (so if you apply early and have great stats, you are more likely to hear early, but there is no guarantee that you will hear early).
5 Likes
@24pm In addition to looking for Liberal Arts type colleges that might offer merit to get the cost below $60,000, you might also want to explore some colleges for your list where the cost is below that amount even without merit.
There are some public Liberal Arts colleges where the cost before merit would be under $50,000 per year (some below $45,000) for an OOS student. For example (not an exhaustive list):
The College of NJ (approximately $39,000)
St. Mary’s College of MD (approximately $45,000)
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (approximately $25,000 for MA residents, $26,000 for New England and NY residents, $34,000 OOS/region)
UNC Asheville (approximately $38,000)
University of Mary Washington (approximately $44,000)
SUNY Geneseo (approximately $34,000)
Keene State College (approximately $28,000 in-state, $39,000 OOS)
You also could explore some larger schools that have ample opportunities for study abroad and undergraduate research. For example (not an exhaustive list):
Miami University of Ohio (approximately $56,000)
James Madison University (approximately $43,000)
Binghamton University (approximately $47,000)
Christopher Newport University (approximately $42,000)
University of New Hampshire (approximately $32,000 in-state, $52,000 OOS, $44,000 New England Regional Student Program (NERSP) | Undergraduate Admissions)
You may also qualify for merit aid at many of these (and similar public colleges and universities). Many will allow you to apply EA (non-binding), so you would know earlier that you had some affordable options while waiting on some of the schools where you would require merit for them to be affordable.
5 Likes
Saint joes was my daughter’s biggest merit award, bringing costs down below our flagship. She just not a fan of Philadelphia (which is unfortunate as I believe they’re strong in actuarial science which is her path). She’s at Clemson which costs twice SJ even after merit.
1 Like