<p>I'm going to be a senior and slowly I've come to realize that scholarships aren't just going to come my way from big schools and after running net price calculators, nor will much financial aid. So I need help finding schools that I have a chance for merit aid. I'm interested in studying civil, chemical, or environmental engineering and would prefer a bigger school, preferably larger than 5000 students. </p>
<p>My SAT is a 2040, 640 CR, 770 M, and 630 W, my SAT IIs, 790 Math 2, 660 Physics. My ACT score is 31.</p>
<p>I have your typical hardworking student extracurriculars, band, MUN, etc. I'm a white male and live in Texas. My class rank is 12/972 and weighted GPA 4.34. </p>
<p>The college match suggests a lot of large state schools that don't offer merit aid to out of state students or I'm not special enough to qualify for. </p>
<p>Schools I'm interested in are UT-Austin and A&M but my chance at the 40Acres Scholarship is about nonexistent and I'd prefer to leave the state of Texas. </p>
<p>The automatic scholarship list can be used for safety candidates. Of course, you need to check each school for your desired major(s). The competitive scholarship list can be used for reach/match candidates.</p>
<p>Both are affordable, but I’d prefer to get out of the state of Texas, for less than 35-40k because that’s the max end of my parents’ budget + money I received in my grandma’s will for college. </p>
<p>If you look at smaller privates, you could get a partial need based and partial merit based scholarship. I know a young woman who had only a 12 on the ACT. She’s going to a great private with a 1/2 merit scholarship and 1/2 need based scholarship WITH a spending stipend. To depends where you look</p>
<p>Sure! Ursinus College gave her that package. She also received about $15,000 in merit from Muhlenberg. But the package from Ursinus was too good to resist. Her GPA wasn’t a 4.0 and she didn’t load up on APs. She just looked at the right schools. </p>
<p>Depending on how far you would travel - The University of Tulsa might be an option with your test scores. Oklahoma State University has some of the lowest OOS tuition and the 31 ACT would guarantee at least a 12,500 scholarship. If you are looking farther away is Washington U in St. Louis which would fall into the category of ‘reach’. </p>
<p>With a budget of $35-40K you don’t necessarily need merit aid, for example the sticker price of NC State is less than that, and it’s a good engineering school. There are many others under that price as well.</p>
<p>Some other good engineering schools where you would likely get enough merit aid to bring the price within your budget are Auburn, LSU, Clemson, and similar colleges.</p>
<p>As BobWallace stated, you don’t necessarily need merit aid. Aside from the elites (Michigan, Virginia, UC, etc.), many state schools will sticker under $40k. Besides those mentioned, Iowa State, Ohio State, and SUNY Buffalo are strong in engineering. Considering your parameters, I don’t think you will find a better bargain than Alabama. Massive new engineering facility, strong especially in chemical, size and activities you seek, total cost about $12k.</p>
<p>Admission in to WashU may be a reach, but with those stats, I’d say merit money from WashU is very unlikely.</p>
<p>Also, if $40K/year is your upper spending limit, keep in mind that even some great OOS engineering schools are within limit.</p>
<p>For example,
Wisconsin OOS tuition is <27K & room and board is <10K.
Purdue OOS tuition is <29K & room and board is 10K.
Illinois engineering OOS tuition is <32K & room and board is around 10K, however, tuition won’t increase as long as you are there.</p>
<p>Plus, realistically, room & board going to be much cheaper than that if you share an apartment and live off-campus. Cost of living is quite cheap in Madison, West Lafayette, and the boondocks of central IL.</p>
<p>You might even get some merit money from Purdue.</p>
<p>However, Ursinus and Muhlenberg do not have the majors desired by the OP (civil, chemical, and environmental engineering). They have 3+2 programs with Columbia, but there are GPA requirements to transfer, it involves an extra year of costs (which would be quite high at Columbia), and Columbia does not guarantee financial aid for 3+2 transfers.</p>
<p>Even OOS you can cover Cal Poly if you would like to be on the coast in CA that school places Engineering grads VERY well. UW Madison is a great college town like but much colder than Austin! But COA for oos is 41k. Yes it is cheap to live there but off campus is costed out at slightly higher or same than on campus. I guess you need to start a big spreadsheet for your possibilities and figure out where you do want to be if you are going to give up your excellent instate options.</p>
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