I’m currently applying to colleges and was wondering if anyone could suggest schools that may give me merit aid for a 30 ACT (I only took it once) and an unweighted GPA of 3.98. I live in WI and am already applying to UW Madison and U of M Twin Cities, I’m just looking for other schools that I could apply to as maybe a reach school or to give me some other options. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
You won’t get significant merit anywhere better than those two schools with your stats IMO, to get merit, you have to be a great student for their average stats, with your back pocket options, you have great choices without the compromise. Not sure about major, but are you a shoo in at these schools for your choices, or are you looking at highly competitive majors in either?
How much is your budget?
Kansas State would give you very good OOS merit with those stats. Check Alabama and Auburn too
Iowa University or Iowa state university both give good merit aid with those numbers. Also Michigan State honors gives like instate tuition to out of state plus research and study abroad money. Everyone seems to be going to Alabama for their merit from Illinois also.
Sybylla, thank you for responding. For UW and UM I shouldn’t have a problem getting in, and I love both of the schools. I’m looking at Pscyh/Neurobio double major and a Spanish minor (depending on the school), so the majors aren’t competitive. There’s a huuuge chance I’ll end up going to one of those.
As for my budget, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere over $35,000 (cost of attendance) a year. Being that Madison is about $26,000 and MN is about $28,000, I’ve accepted that those two would be hard to beat.
Thank you momocarly I’ll check them out.
Thank you Knowstuff I’m going to look into those.
I don’t think I would pick any of the about state schools over UM or UW. It is unlikely that your net price would be lower at them. Do you want to consider LAC’s? I ran the NPC at two good local LAC’s (Lawrence and Beloit) and they came out with an net price of $35 and $30K. If you want a different experience than UW they are good options.
I don’t think you will get substantial aid from Alabama with a 30 ACT score @mom2collegekids ?
Did you take the SAT?
I am not aware of any automatic merit at UW-Madison with those stats.
Are your parents saying that they are willing to pay $35,000 a year? If not please ask them how much they will pay per year.
At U of Alabama, you would get the following if you apply by the Dec scholarship deadline…so apply NOW.
UA Scholar
A student with a 30-31 ACT or 1360-1410 SAT score and at least a 3.5 GPA, he or she will be named a UA Scholar and will receive $80,000 over four years ($20,000 per year).
The $20k per year essentially covers the OOS portion of tuition, leaving the student with about $9k per year of tuition to cover. Net costs would be about $20k per year (tuition, room, board, books, fees)
Auburn is far less generous. The award would only be $8k per year.
thanks so much for the info @mom2collegekids . I’m going to look at Alabama but I do think that both UM and UW are my top options. Also, my parents will cover up to UW tuition ($26,000). My top choices are absolutely UM and UW because I could possibly graduate without debt. I was just looking for other options just in case.