<p>In the resources section, I don't see a neat little list (ha!) of schools that are actively seeking Hispanic or diverse students in general. Does such a list exist?</p>
<p>I'm helping a local Hispanic student and I've been advised to encourage her to expand her list. I have friend in the financial aid business who's been very helpful in the past and she tells me this family's EFC may be quite reasonable because of special circumstances. Student doesn't have strong SAT scores (yet) but has a strong u/w gpa and a good resume in her areas of interest. </p>
<p>I'd like to expand her list (she's wanting to stay in the West but I'm going to encourage her to add a few more schools beyond that) to schools that meet need and/or schools that are seeking to diversify.</p>
<p>WUSTL
Vandy
Penn
UVA
USC
Occidental
Duke
Columbia
Washington and Lee</p>
<p>Would you say these schools are looking to increase diversity? Never mind about the small admissions rate for now. I just want to add a few more reachy schools that offer to meet need since this family doesn't qualify for aid in the Cal State system.</p>
<p>No, but the concept exists: The schools that are actively seeking diversity are schools that have a difficult time recruiting and retaining URMs. </p>
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<p>ALL schools want to increase diversity. Some schools act on this institutional need via merit scholarships, fly-ins, summer programs, etc. aimed at URMs. Some schools get many highly qualified URM candidates with or without these types of incentives and recruiting.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for Occy and W&L, I’m not very familiar with them. IMO, all of the others on your list get large numbers of URM applicants, and many highly qualified URMs are turned away each year.</p>
<p>If you are looking for colleges that are actively seeking diversity candidates, I would recommend schools like Grinnell, Carleton, and many other mid-west or rural LACs, not some of the most sought after colleges in the nation.</p>
<p>I would love to see this student look at those schools, entomom, but at this juncture, she’s saying she wants larger schools in cities rather than smaller towns. I just want to see one to three schools on her list that meet need. Yes, they are super, duper reach for her but it may still be worth a shot.</p>
<p>I’ll be working with her again next week and will advise her to reconsider the size of school. Otherwise, her options mostly remain being a full pay Cal State student and in her area of interest, lots of loans is unwise. UC schools would give her some aid based on special circumstances in their finances, but I’m not sure how much.</p>
<p>I know that my native californian, URM, dd’s were actively recruited by schools in the midwest; they did not even want to consider them or LAC. Several legitimate reasons were given: too cold, no close access to large regional airports, too far from family, too expensive, limited areas of expertise in their major- after all was said and done-they preferred to be near home.</p>
<p>Aunt Bea-Sbjdorlo said previously she is helping a friend’s child. </p>
<p>Sbjdorlo-if you look at the Center for Student Opportunity you will see a list of “partner colleges” these are schools that have expressed an interest in increasing URM students at their institutions. </p>
<p>One thing that I am finding confusing in your post is that you say the family will not qualify for aid in the cal-state system but then state you are looking for colleges that are generous. If the student would qualify for financial aid from “generous” colleges then wouldn’t the student qualify for aid from Cal-States? </p>
<p>As Entomom said the schools with diversity fly-ins and hosted weeks and special scholarships for URMs and NHRP are schools interested in URMs. </p>
<p>Your best bet for finding schools with your stated parameters is to do a search on Big Futures of collegeboard.org. You can use filters under the paying tab (set the toggle for meets at least 80% aid) and the location tab to get a list of schools.</p>
<p>^Thanks for the list itsv, I think some of those may be good picks for this candidate. </p>
<p>I will caution again (sorry for the broken record) that some colleges on this list and others (eg. Ventures Scholars, see below), while interested in diversity, are highly ranked/popular/have generous FA/etc. so they have very competitive admissions, including for Hispanic students.</p>
<p>To clarify the finances, this family’s income is around 100K. For Cal States, it’s black and white. 92K for a family of 6 is the cut off for a Cal Grant-end of story, or so I’m to understand. (I’m also bringing in a friend who worked in the f. aid office of a well known school for a number of years)</p>
<p>However, if you look below the surface you will see: they are upside down in their mortgage, probably due to the fire. They will have two in college next year. They have no assets, no savings, and no retirement. The dad was also out of work for two months but I’m not sure if he covered that with consulting or not.</p>
<p>So, when I ran the calculator at Stanford, they qualified for a lot of need-based aid and when my friend ran the calculator, their EFC was something like $7,800-lower than ours, a family of 5 with 77K income, but we do have equity and a small (dwindling) 529 account.</p>
<p>Yes auntbea, I’m bartering writing tutoring for helping this family with their daughter (and possibly their son who’s transferring from the CC).</p>
<p>itsv and entomom, thanks again for the reminders of CSO and Venture Scholars.</p>
<p>Yes, I know all of these selective schools are very reachy for this student, but I think we’ve got to look at a few that give good aid, regardless. In her areas of interest (photography and psychology at this point), debt will be a killer after graduation. I may encourage her to think about combining business and the arts (this was one recommendation from my friend in f. aid who said jobs in the student’s areas of interest are just not happening).</p>
<p>Every family’s financial situation differs, but from 3 yrs of comparing FA packages for our very basic circumstances (sub-100k salary, savings, no business, trust or other complicating factor), HYP(and I would assume S as well) were substantially better than any other school. I’m talking about a difference in COA of 15k between HYP and Brown/Dartmouth/WUSTL/Amherst/etc. and 22k between Y and Pomona.</p>
<p>That’s why my suggestion is rather than going for the level of schools on the list in the OP which are BOTH admissions and FA sky high reaches, she target some schools that are more likely for admissions and hold the realistic possibility of merit aid. There are some state schools on the lists that may provide a larger student body and merit aid for this student. At a 100k income level, I don’t recommend putting all of your eggs into the need based FA basket.</p>
<p>Just my tough love POV, but psychology is available at just about any college in the country and photography can be done as an EC at just about any college as well. If she does pursue photography, it will be her portfolio, not a degree that will count. With limited finances, some difficult choices must be made by both parents and student.</p>
<p>entomom: our DD’s and DS were/are URM, Ventures Scholars. It helped eldest dd when there was actually money in university coiffers, but didn’t help with 2nd dd. </p>
<p>No financial aid when you are above a certain income level, no matter how much they want your kid (Johns Hopkins wanted our eldest because of her diabetes research, but didn’t offer ANY money). Being hispanic-mexican has not made a BIT of a difference-ninguna diferencia! Our “princeton review” guy told us that the schools don’t want to recruit kids like mine, who are 2nd generation and whose parents are middle class. </p>
<p>But I will say this, DD just got offered $100 scholarship (on a first-come, first serve basis) from HSF! Wow, that will almost pay 1/4 of her book fees!</p>
<p>The OP asked for schools interested in increasing diversity, I provided the Ventures list because these schools participate in the program and therefore MIGHT actively recruit URMs. Later I stated that she could look at some of the schools on the list and see if they had realistic merit scholarships for the student.</p>
<p>Are you finances similar to this families? The fact that JHU didn’t give you any need-based aid suggests that maybe you’re in a little different bracket. Their income is certainly good but the extenuating circumstances make them candidates for need according to estimates of the FAFSA or CSS profile.</p>
<p>Yeah, entomom, I’m just fishing for schools, as this point. I agree with you in terms of likelihood of getting admitted. She has some “financial safeties” (or at least schools that won’t send her into too much debt), such as Sacramento State (about 17K a year, which would be doable for this family with parental contribution of around 6-7K, student loan and student work study; in addition, there are some family members that might help out if need be).</p>
<p>I’m just finding it a challenge because I truly don’t know what to expect with this student. We’re waiting for the SAT retake. We’re still narrowing list and we’re waiting for them to have a talk with the f. aid person. </p>
<p>So, I continue to fish for a few other schools. Her list ultimately might not change. It sure sounds like being Hispanic in her case won’t do anything at most schools.</p>
<p>It’s just <em>so</em> much different than what I did with my oldest son; it’s a learning experience, that’s for sure! :-)</p>
<p>I’m a little confused by this. While a student’s accomplishments help with the admissions phase, they are not a factor in need based FA. And unless a student is going into Engineering or ROTC, the only merit scholarship JHU offers is the Hodson which goes to less than 20 entering fr each year. With this very limited number of awards it’s extremely competitive and many exceptional candidates will not receive the scholarship.</p>