My rising senior son is forming and whittling down possible colleges. He has several on the list that I think could give him merit aid, but it is hard to find hard data on the criteria. Does anyone have a feel for what is offered for merit at the schools below? His grades/test scores are: GPA 3.8 unweighted/4.4 weighted, 32 ACT, 1430 SAT. He is interested in humanities/social sciences.
Clark
UVM
St. Lawrence
Univ of Rochester
Univ of Richmond
I’m also interested in other colleges we should consider for merit. He would go as far south as South Carolina for thye right fit and as far west as NY, so really down the east coast. We live in NH. Thanks for any insights you can provide.
If any school in SC, he would consider Clemson. That is about as big as he wants. We will look at Delaware. His preference is the northeast, but would look a bit further if there was a school that is a great fit for him. Thanks.
He should get good merit at St. Lawrence. UVM usually gives some merit to OOS students. With those stats, I’m not sure how much merit he’ll get from Roch. And be forewarned, our financial aid disclosure shows Roch’s tuition this yer to be $78,300, the following year $81,349, and the following year $84,520. I think it’s a great school, and my d has been very happy there, but she is transferring out. We can’t justify (nor afford!) it. Coincidentally, she has applied to transfer to both SLU and UVM.
As far as other ideas, there are a lot of possibilities where he’d qualify for very good merit. Check out the Colleges That Change Lives (of which Clark is one): Wheaton, Muhlenberg, Susquehanna, Allegheny, Juniata, Ursinus. Also, Dickinson and Gettysburg.
St Lawrence is the best bet in the group. A 34 on the ACT would bump up chances significantly. UVM has not given much to kids from my area
Yes, USC has good possibilities. SUNY schools have OOS equalizers for tuition at his numbers.
What is your target in terms of total cost for college? It doesn’t take as much to bring most State (public) schools down to a $30-40k cost, but getting private school (Richmond, Rochester) costs to that level requires a large merit award.
I’m noticing a lot more private colleges offering up $20k awards which to me, are nice sized scholarships, given what my kids ad their peers were getting. But college costs are rising in tandem with and and that is the driver for those more sizeable awards. Bottom line, it’s what you are willing and able to pay that counts, along with what the actual cost of s college to you.
@Empireapple we have UNH on the list as a safety, but he very strongly prefers not to go there
I should add that when we visited UVM, I learned from an admissions rep that they a 3.8 unweighted GPA and 1450 SAT gets you in the range for merit. They did not say how much merit though.
The amount of merit money available and/or offered is a useless figure unless it’s put in context with the school’s published cost of attendance for the student. In my experience, UVM has a relatively high published cost of attendance for out-of-state students. The student’s net cost after all financial aid is applied (and this includes merit aid) is what you need to focus on.
IIRC, the public universities in New England will be below $60,000 with the exception of UVM (UVM is currently $60,500 or so…but that includes personal expenses as well as billable costs…so likely could come in under $60,000).
So…Maine, UMass, UNH, URI, UConn…really all of the NE flagships.
If you are checking out Bing, check out Buffalo, and Stonybrook, and Geneseo as well. Why just Bing?
Rutgers and Penn State are below $60,000 a year.
With a $60,000 a year budget…there are a LOT of colleges within financial reach.
Here’s a hearty vote for UConn. Broad range of social science and humanities offerings in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, far enough away from NH to feel like he’s not going to school in his backyard, and (yep I’m biased) it’s the strongest state school in New England. Sticker price is affordable to you. Brand new $110 million student rev center in center of campus. New president who brings energy and ideas from UVA started yesterday.