<p>Junior in HS, and as I've been going through the whole college search, I've realized that all the schools I'm interested in are extremely selective and ridiculously expensive with very little financial aid. </p>
<p>The ones I'm interested in right now are [in no particular order]
-Boston College
-Amherst College
-Brown University</p>
<p>as well as
-Tufts University
-Northeastern University</p>
<p>and possibly Brandeis University.</p>
<p>I think I have as good a shot getting into these as anyone else does. I haven't taken SATs yet, so I really can't compare myself.<br>
I think that I'd really like to go somewhere around Boston.
Ideally, I'd like to go somwhere with the location of BC, the (liberal) atmosphere of Brown, and the size of Amherst. But I don't necessarily need a small school... just not huge. And I know that Amherst and Brown are not near Boston :)</p>
<p>So what schools that are similar to these have an acceptance rate higher than .1% and don't cost $40,000/yr? [or at least that offer very good financial aid]</p>
<p>My mother just told me that I'm probably going to have to go to UMASS for a year or two since it would be tuition-free (John and Abigail Adams scholarship) then transfer... and I told her that I'd really prefer not to transfer. So I got really depressed about working so hard for the past 12 years and not even having a chance to go to a school I'm interested in. But anyways.</p>
<p>I think I'm looking to major in history, anthropology, sociology, or linguistics.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, until you take the SAT and/or ACT, it is hard to really give you suggestions. Depending on how you do, it might be possible to get some excellent merit money from some very nice schools. That would solve your issue of having to transfer.</p>
<p>If you look at some of Curmudgeon's posts, you will learn a lot about merit awards. His daughter scored very high on ACT and was strong in every area, but he and she really educated themselves about merit awards. Again, it is going to depend on your test scores, GPA and extra-curriculars. There are many, many schools that have excellent merit money available.</p>
<p>Northeastern is looking for good students and willing to offer them good financial aid as incentive. However, it is not a school I would recommend to students interested in the humanities or those without a specific career-oriented major in mind.</p>
<p>Drove by Northeastern today (accidentally... as long as my mother has lived here, she still can't navigate Boston!) and didn't realize that it's really in Roxbury! Freaked the 'rents out more than anything.
And I really want to go to Boston... not just any city. At least MA. But again, I'm going to RI tomorrow to check out Brown. I just won't be able to afford any of this!</p>
<p>I have a 4.66 weighted GPA (A's with some -'s and +'s mixed in for flavor) and got a 201 PSAT (but I'm going to score better than the projection on the SAT if I have anything to say about it!). I'm involved in about 5 EC's with some leadership. Just got accepted to NHS. Before my school stopped ranking, I was 3rd in my class. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the input! I think I'll definitely be applying to Northeastern and BU. But hopefully my family's gonna be winning the lottery sometime soon... it'd make things a tad bit easier.</p>
<p>Boston College, BU, and Brandeis are good on aid. The question is, do you qualify for need-based aid at all, or can you only hope for merit aid? Suffolk is a good school and less competitive, so you may have a chance to get good aid there. Is your scholarship valid for UMass-Boston, or only for the main campus in Amherst? Merit aid usually is in the range of 10 to 15K, so it only helps if the parent is willing to cover a hefty amount of the costs. If you are willing to leave Boston, check out Tulane, Case Western, and Rhodes. Rice is at least 10K cheaper than most top schools and gives aid, so it may be worth a look.</p>
<p>Yeah my family makes too much and we're still somewhat struggling... y'know, stuck in the middle class. And my mom and my uncle co-own a second house in Maine, so my parents were told that basically automatically disqualifies us.
My scholarship will be good for any state [MA] school.</p>
<p>The best option for you might be UMass Amherst. You could then take courses at Amherst, Smith, Hampshire and Mt Holyoke (which sound more like schools you would really like but which give more need than merit aid) but it would cost you quite a lot less.</p>
<p>I think BU would be a better option for someone with your interests than NEU, and BU have some nice awards, particularly if you are from Boston. I know a lot of people who found BU cheaper for them than UMass, because a lot of the awards UMass gives are like the Adams, they only reduce tuition, not fees, and it's the fees that are the big cost.</p>
<p>You might also consider Clark U. It doesn't have a lot of merit awards, but your stats would probably give you a good chance with the ones they do have.</p>
<p>Co-owning a second house might not disqualify you from getting need-based aid. It might be a good idea to read up on that and run your figures through some of the Fin Aid calculators.</p>
<p>You make some great points, tli83. And I greatly appreciate it :)
Just visited Brown and fell in love with it. Gosh darn. Still counting on the lottery though...</p>
<p>Just to warn you about NEU: Although it is very generous with its best applicants (top 1 and 2 percent), its financial aid as a whole is known to be pretty icky. I had a sort of bad experience with it- I got very very little aid despite having an EFC of near zero. I guess I was expecting more merit, because I got Honors + best scholarship from American.... </p>
<p>So, erm. American gives good merit money! HOWEVER, they base it completely on Math/Verbal SATs and GPA- big emphasis on the SAT scores. (1400+ probably, but I can't be too sure...)</p>