I am a junior who is starting their list of colleges. I am planning to major in either bioengineering/biomedical engineering or chemistry and as a pre-med. I don’t have a preference for location but would like coed schools with over 5,000 people. i’m also looking for schools with good merit aid.
Junior, 34 ACT, 1530 SAT (first times)
3.8 UW GPA, 4.2 W
1 AP freshman year (APUSH-2), 2 APs sophomore year (gov and APCSP -3s) and 4 APS this year (bio, lang, psych and world)
lots of ECs but majority joined junior year
50sum community service hours
African-American, first generation American (parents from Nigeria)
Female
100k income bracket
live in Maryland
State of residency?
Price limit? (Lower cost is better for a pre-med, in order to save money and minimize debt before going to expensive medical school.)
Case Western and Tulane come to mind for merit.
@ucbalumnus I live in maryland and my parents and I could do maybe 10k a year so a lower cost school or a school with lots of merit aid would be great
You should look at a list of meets full need schools because you’d likely qualify for FA as well. You have very good stats and I bet your SAT (great as is) will come up if you take it again.
Barring schools that offer full rides (which are few and far between) merit scholarships that bring your COA down to $10K will be tough to find.
In the “100K income bracket,” unless you have significant assets, you should get a decent amount of need-based aid from some of the more generous schools that meet full need. While merit aid might make the finances more palatable for full-pay families, merit aid generally decreases need-based aid (as it decreases your need), and often requires going down a notch or two in prestige.
Frankly as a high-stats, first gen AA girl that wants to pursue STEM, you stand a good chance at admissions to top schools and/or could qualify institutional and/or outside scholarships.
There is a site with automatic full tuition (and some full-ride) scholarships that is often mentioned (the “yola” site); not sure how up-to-date it is, but you might want to look at some of the schools:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com
There’s an awful lot of information to sort through here, but it can be a good place to start:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/52133-schools-known-for-good-merit-aid-p1.html
I would suggest looking into some of the multicultural/diversity recruitment “fly-in” programs (Rice’s SOAR. In fact, RICE might be a solid choice for you, but it’s a tad smaller than you are seeking). Many of the applications to fly-in programs go live in the late summer,/early fall:
http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/2018-fly-in-programs/
That site is a few years old and out of date; many of the scholarships listed are no longer offered, or the amounts for a given level of stats have been reduced, or they are now competitive or limited availability.
For need-based financial aid, use the net price calculator on each college’s web site to get an estimate.
Not sure if the 4.0 gpa here can be weighted or not, but it might be an option:
https://admissions.fiu.edu/cost-and-aid/scholarships/index.html
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Talk to your parents about how much they can pay each year. It sounds like you’re guessing when you say $10k. Find out FOR SURE. Your parents income may be one where they don’t have a lot left over each month due to living in an expensive area. And many parents just assume that their high stats child will get to go to college for free…So find out.
With your stats and your URM status, you should include a variety of schools including some top schools that give large merit to highly desirable students. As a high stats URM, you could be very desirable…especially at some BS/MD programs.
How did you do on the PSAT? Are you a likely NMSF?
I’m thinking for reach schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Williams, (because they give super aid), and Duke, Vandy, UChicago, WashU, and Rice (because they give targeted merit). You may need to target schools that do NOT pkg fed loans in their aid pkgs so that you can take out a $5500 loan to contribute with parent contribution.
Certainly apply to your flagship, because you may get a large merit scholarship there.
If you’re 100% certain that you want to become a physician then certainly look into some 7-8 year BS/MD programs…the ones that would give you adequate aid as an undergrad.
I’m thinking that UMaryland-Baltimore has a large merit scholarship and is strong in sciences. I think it has some desirable honors program, but I’ll have to check.
Please ask your parents for an amount that they know they can contribute each year and come back. The amount parents will pay will strongly influence where you should apply.
UMBC is huge STEM school - the Meyerhoff Program is all about mentoring URM’s to pursue PHD research (vs. med. school path)