Merit Scholarships

Paying for College
41

Can you expand your search to smaller midwestern liberal arts colleges, like Knox College in Illinois or Drake U in Iowa?
Midwestern colleges are often offering more merit than colleges in the northeast.

What do you want to major in and what do you want to do for a job later?
Are you sure you want a small liberal arts college? They can be difficult socially but work for some students.

http://www.drake.edu/about/
https://www.knox.edu/about-knox

I would not worry that much about your therapeutic needs, unless you feel you have learning difficulties. . It may be that you will be fine, try college and see how you do. I know plenty of kids at therapeutic high schools that really just needed to get away from Mom and Dad and did perfectly fine in college.

If you do have learning differences, RIT is a good place to look at, maybe. Rochester Institute of Tech, depending
on your desired major. They offer health, and business related degrees, as well as photography. (and engineering, which I assume you don’t want, given the LAC focus ) Its an interesting private school, but may cost too much for you.

Since you are on an upswing, for grades, I bet you will be fine!

You can always choose to drop out of college, if its not what you expected. While that may sound bad, fully 33% of college students overall drop out of college,by the way.

While that may not feel comforting, its just good to keep in mind for any college student, that about 1/3 drop out
and never return to college.

Don’t pressure yourself too much.

42

@Coloradomama The reason I wasn’t looking at schools outside of the Northeast was because I had heard that to receive significant merit it is important to visit – which would be hard to do if the school is in the mid west.
Have you heard similar info?

43

@sybbie719
thank you –
what do you think about Suny Bing
would that be a reasonable safety both financially and academically ?

44

Seeking Clarification:

Did your parents run the net price calculator on any of the schools that you are interested in attending?

Is your EFC more than the cost of attendance to attend SUNY?

Is your family eligible for Excelsior scholarship?

No, I do not think that Bing is even remotely a safety for you. You are currently attending a one on on therapeutic school where you are in a 1:1 setting. I think that your GPA may also give you a false sense of security, because it is providing you with an artificial classroom experience. You really have no grades on how you operate in even a small school setting. This may cause pause with admission committees.

Remember any college you attend is going to be vastly different from your high school experience. Many of the accommodations that you are receiving now, either you will not be receiving in college or you will be responsible for advocating and making sure that you have those accommodations in place. What supports do you have in place, when you attend college? What schools have your counselor recommended? I am sure that s/he know schools where you can continue treatment.

You need to make sure that you are looking at schools where you can continue your therapy. Perhaps this means, being near a hospital of medical facility where there are therapist on staff that you can see as an outpatient. This also means having a chat with your parent to see if their medical insurance will cover your on going treatment. If you need to seek treatment with someone who maybe out of network, this can become very costly, very quickly.

45

SUNY Binghamton costs $27k for state residents. You said your family won’t qualify for financial aid but can only pay $10k/year. If you take the ~$5500/year federal student loan you’ll still have a gap of ~$12k/year. To be a financial safety, a school has to be affordable, and Binghamton doesn’t sound affordable.

46

Also…do you have an IEP? If so, it is required that a transition plan for after high school be implemented at age 15. What are the provisions of that plan?

I am not familiar with every 1:1 therapeutic school in Massachusetts, but I’m familiar with a few. All say they are college prep schools. That being the case, it would be a good idea to access that transition plan, and at least discuss your post high school plans with your school. They are there to help you.

Adding…while the state of NY is paying for part of your therapeutic boarding school costs…they will not pay for college…unless your family is eligible for TAP or Excelsior. But even with those, the amounts are limited.

47

With a 3.3 and a 1490 Ole Miss might be doable.

48

You could try Beloit College in Wisconsin. They give good merit aid. You could also try writing in your application essay about how/why you improved your grades? And try getting a teacher who has seen how you have improved to write a recommendation for you. Good luck!