<p>I hope this is the right forum.
I am helping my kid add one more safety/match school to her list.
So far her 2 financial safeties are Temple & UA because they guarantee full tuition for her stats. Her current match is Pitt since in-state plus good chance of merit. She also plans to apply to two reaches so she doesn't want to apply to more than one more match/safety.</p>
<p>(Recap stats: SAT MCR: 800, 700, GPA: 3.8uw/4.2w, rank: 3rd/75, ECs: regular HS stuff, nothing "wow. Plans to pick Engineering-undecided)</p>
<p>What do you think her odds are of getting full tuition merit at:
UMD-College Park
UMBC
Miami-OH</p>
<p>and would she even be in the running for the competitive full ride Banneker/Key at UMD, or one of the 10 full-ride stamps at MiamiOH, or full-tuition CWIT at UMBC?</p>
<p>(We already eliminated OSU from her list because her not being in the top 3% of her class shuts her out of the higher merit awards, and getting the Morrill diversity full-ride seems like a long shot).</p>
<p>I just want to be realistic without being too pessimistic.</p>
<p>I think she may qualify for some merit at UMD-CP, but those full BK awards are very very competitive. Like I said I think she may get something, but the amount is anybody’s guess. As far as Miami-Ohio goes, there used to be a chart for guaranteed merit awards but now I do not think they are guaranteed. I suspect your daughter would get something, but again I don’t know how much. I do not know much about UMDBC. </p>
<p>How about UMass Amherst? Based on my observations I believe she would get some merit. I don’t think it would be full tuition, but it would be something. You can also check out the scholarships at SUNY Buffalo. </p>
<p>I think none of UMass Amherst’s merit aid will touch the fees portion of the cost. The base tuition is low but the fees can be a killer.</p>
<p>Consider Stevens in NJ. They have full-tuition scholarships.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan they do?
I checked their website a while ago and only saw these specific ones:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.stevens.edu/sit/admissions/finaid”>http://www.stevens.edu/sit/admissions/finaid</a></p>
<p>What am I missing?</p>
<p>== Edit:</p>
<p>Oops, never mind, found it via google:</p>
<p><a href=“http://web.stevens.edu/finaid/merit.php”>http://web.stevens.edu/finaid/merit.php</a>
Thanks!</p>
<p>BTW, consider Rose-Hulman as well. Being female with high stats and an interest in engineering would be a draw to any engineering school. Being all that and Hispanic is probably more of a draw to an engineering school in IN. Which may mean more merit money. Getting full-tuition covered there is probably very hard. Getting some merit money should not be, however.</p>
<p>The issue with my D with the smaller technical institutes is that she is not 100% sure that she is going to stay in engineering. I think there is a possibility that she might shift to a Math or even a Business major.</p>
<p>How about Wake Forest and Vanderbilt? Maybe Johns Hopkins? All of them have some very competitive merit scholarships. UVa? </p>
<p>She’s looking for an additional safety/match with a realistic chance at a scholarship. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt is a wonderful school but they are so selective it would be quite a reach just to get accepted, much less get one of the scholarships. She’s still debating whether to add it to her reach list.</p>
<p>UVa - same thing - it’ a reach for OOS kids, right?</p>
<p>Haven’t really looked into Wake Forest; I’ll have to check it out.</p>
<p>Sorry. I was reading on my phone. I thought you were looking for reaches. </p>
<p>Scranton would be a good safety school. She’d very likely get full tuition there. </p>
<p>As far as matches I think Lehigh would be great. Because she’s a girl she should get lots of merit. You have to show interest though. </p>
<p>Thanks halfemptypockets. We visited Lehigh last spring and she didn’t like it at all, sadly.
We get a lot of mailers from Scranton - not sure why we haven’t really looked into it. I’ll give it a look.</p>
<p>Michigan State? It seems like they have some very competitive scholarships for admits to the Honors College. Will she be a National Merit Finalist? Kentucky and Cincinnati are somewhat below Pitt and Miami academically, but it’s hard to argue with full tuition, room and board. The GC at our HS has been pushing Case Western for Engineering, as well.</p>
<p>If NMF, Arizona opens up as a full-tuition possibility as well.</p>
<p>I’d say an excellent chance of at least half at Miami but I don’t know how many kids get the full tuition. And though they aren’t guaranteed, the chart does show what students with those stats have historically been offered.</p>
<p>I’d also look at Case.</p>
<p>I think she would have a very good chance with the full-tuition CWIT at UMBC. Based on my S12 and his friends (from '13 and '14 as well) experiences, UMBC gives much greater aid than UMCP. The Banneker Key is extremely competitive-not that your D doesn’t have scores in the range to get it, but it is very hard for OOS students to get.</p>
<p>Have you visited UMBC? Would she like going? It is S15’s in-state safety, and he would be ‘ok’ with going there.</p>
<p>Thanks @Marylandfour, that’s exactly what we were wondering about. We haven’t visited yet. One thing we wonder about is campus safety - is UMBC in a pretty safe area?</p>
<p>UMBC is very safe. It is near a suburban neighborhood, but off on it’s own. Used to be known as more of a commuter school with strong focus on academics. They are trying to change to more of a residential campus, but I think a fair amount of kids go home on weekends. We were told to get S15 involved in clubs, intramurals, etc. so he would have things to do on the weekend. We are in Maryland, but the campus is still about 1 hour from our home and I would like him to stay on campus as much as possible. PM me if you would like. :"> </p>
<p>She has two safeties in UA and Temple where the awards are guaranteed. So it comes down to finding schools that she would prefer to those two schools with the best chances of getting comparable awards. I would call Admissions at the schools she has on her list that she likes and out and out ask how many full tuition/high dollar amount scholarships are given out. Averages are not helpful when the focus is on those large dollar amounts. Some schools simply do not have many or any full tuition awards–no sense fishing in a pond with no fish. I have know idea how many large awards are given out at each of those schools listed. Also, it’s important to know if there are any restrictions for OOSers. </p>
<p>As you probably know, your other major state school, Penn State, does not tend to give out many, if any full tuition scholarships. So you need to have some idea of what the numbers are of types of awards you want that are given out. That could be key in your decision.</p>