It seems you have gotten to a stage at which you’ve already considered this, but Hamilton’s average net price for families in, as an example, a $75,001 – $110,000 income range appears, based on IPEDS data, to be $19,223.
F&M is a great school for pre-med but I’d double check on the merit issue. I believe that they dropped merit a few years ago to focus on need based aid.
Washington & Jefferson College is another school known for good placement in medical schools. Allegheny College is may also be a good possibility. Both of these schools are in western PA and offer merit aid.
F&M offers need-based aid only.
Thank you . Yes I have both Washington and Jefferson on the list. And yes unfortunately F and M is off the list because it does not offer merit aide. I think again it looks like to me that Dickinson Gettysburg and the NY schools Hamilton and Skidmore are all off also because it seems they do not offer any merit aide also.
Thank you guys for all of your great advice.
Yes Allegheny is also on my list.
Sorry, I forgot that @Creekland had already mentioned Washington & Jefferson and Allegheny. So I should have seconded those schools. Some other good small PA schools which offer merit aid are Susquehanna, Elizabethtown, and Lebanon Valley. From your other thread, it looks like you already have a good list of possibilities.
@d87d87 run a few net price calculators on PA college websites and see whether they seem to offer merit aid for your son’s stats, need based institutional grants, and see if a PA state grant is listed as part of aid.
If you are eligible for a state grant with your income, you will lose that if he goes out of state.
Make sure you are watching deadlines for schools that offer merit aid. I think some may have a November 1 deadline.
To other posters here, I believe the son likely has very high stats. Doesn’t Pitt offer great merit? I’m not that familiar with it, but I’ve seen others talk about it.
If he hasn’t applied to Pitt, he should definitely do that asap and send scores. Pitt superscores SAT as far as I know.
Pitt honors priority deadline is November 1.
He needs to do the short essay questions and should also complete the PA scholars application.
I don’t think U Scranton or U Rochester will come down to UPitt instate cost with merit only. Need based aid would also be needed.
Thank you all again for all of your great advice. I really appreciate it.
Note that unlike F&M, Dickinson and Gettysburg do indeed offer merit aid. It may or may not be enough to compete financially with either the in-state publics or the other numerous LACs already mentioned in this thread.
U Scranton, St. Joe’s and La Salle offer some full tuition scholarships. Didn’t see Duquesne mentioned yet; with their top merit award, he might get to $30,000.
Some do offer merit, some not enough if you’ll only qualify for merit (did you run the NPC? Because at Dickinson for instance a family that makes 130K a year and has a 350K home, gets 20K in need based aid. It’s not enough, but that’s before any merit. Obviously merit isn’t guaranteed and he’d have to show interest. Also, I don’t know whether aid stacks.)
http://www.dickinson.edu/info/20259/grants_and_scholarships/944/scholarships
Skidmore
https://www.skidmore.edu/financialaid/merit.php
Gettysburg (aid doesn’t stack)
https://www.gettysburg.edu/scholarships_aid/acad_scholarships.dot
The basic rule is: if it’s not affordable, it’s off the table.
My kid is pre med at Lafayette and received merit. So far so good with nearly 4.0 gpa and almost finished with weedout classes. PM me if you have questions.
What do you mean by weed out classes? How many were seeded out?
How is Lafayette?
Is your child a bio or chem major?
Thanks
I have a kid at Lafayette too. He entered as a biochem major but switched into chemical engineering at the end of freshman year. He’s enjoying it and the program is excellent. Often colleges admit many more pre-med track students than they expect to graduate and there are always really tough courses early on that are designed to deter some from continuing with that track. My alma mater, Franklin & Marshall, was notorious for weeding out pre-med hopefuls. It’s been 30 years but back then the killer course was Organic Chemistry, I believe. Anyway, as much as I think F&M is a great school, when my kid chose Lafayette over F&M I was encouraged that Lafayette did not weed out as many pre-med hopefuls as F&M did.
There are purposely weedout classes and regular weedout classes.
Purposely weedout means 50% class will get a grade of 80 and below, 50% above, no matter how hard working and well prepared students are, and tests are designed to fail a certain percentage of the class. The class is designed to produce attrition. This happens lst often at large state Universities which have many more would-be pre-med/engineering/business majors than they can accomodate. Another step can be to require specific classes with specific grades that represent about 30% of the class, so that being in the upper half isn’t sufficient.
Regular weedout classes are classes that are really hard for everyone. The professor doesn’t make the test to trick and fail a certain percentage of the class but some may not understand the concepts or work enough, and don’t do well enough. In some science subjects, it’s common - you study a lot and still don’t get it… so students get discouraged or find other academic pursuits they prefer.