Merit Scholarships

I am having some family issues and won’t be getting much money for college. I was wondering if you guys could suggest some schools that would give good merit aid.
Home State: Texas
GPA: 104.7 (FULL IB)
ACT/SAT: 35/1540
I am not a national merit scholar and also won’t qualify for financial aid. Any schools you guys could suggest would be helpful. Thank you!

In Texas, Trinity University in San Antonio offers generous merit. In the Midwest, take a look at schools like Denison, College of Wooster, St. Olaf, Lawrence. In the Northeast, Connecticut College and Trinity College offer merit. There are others, but these are some of the schools we looked at and liked.

How much is not much? Without knowing how much you can afford, it is useless just throwing out school names. For example, if you are trying to pay for it all yourself, you likely have a budget of about $9k/year (loans+work). It wouldn’t be helpful to suggest that you could maybe get $30k/year from Case Western since the net cost would still be $45k/year.

I would be paying for it by myself.

You did not share what you are wanting to study in college. I would strongly encourage you to work with your high school counselor and really understand community college options at the same time. Even if your parent(s) is/are not intending on investing in your education the schools will expect them to be. You need good back up plans.

You have great stats…there are a lot of colleges that will offer you merit…what part of the country? what are you studying? what size school? etc. Personally with me…University of Rochester, Case Western, and U Miami were very generous with merit.

You are capped at $5500 in loans for your first year, $6500 for the second, and $7500 each for the last two. You can add in any money you make from a job. If you don’t have any financial help, your best bet may be community college or a state school you can commute to from home. Any merit money will likely not pull the price down to what you can afford on your own and what you would be able to manage will may not even cover the room and board.

I am fine with any part of the country but would prefer to stay in the south. I plan to do the pre-med track but am undecided as far as major goes. I will also look into community college options with my counselor. Thanks!

Will you parents let you live at home while you go to school? Do you have a 4 year school close that you could commute? Many med schools will not count prerequisites that are completed at a community college.

If you plan on medical school in the future, you need to go as cheap as possible for undergrad because you will be paying a fortune for med school. Your options there would be loans- IF YOU QUALIFY.

Check your local options because going away to college still has a multitude of costs that aren’t covered by school merit (health insurance). Ask your counselor for help.

You need to look at the state schools of the southern states - Mississippi, Miss State, Louisiana Tech, Alabama. You have good stats and those schools like good stats.

Also look at U New Mexico, as well.

There are also colleges with a small number of very good merit scholarships which are not automatic, but worthwhile applying for, like U Puget Sound or Sewanee. Both have a handful of full ride scholarships that are merit based.

Texas Tech…and they have an honors program, and some kind of direct (or early) admit to their med school.

That’s what I was thinking. Here are the scholarships: http://scholarship.unm.edu/scholarships/index.html

The OP would need to convert gpa to 4.0 scale

If your family is low income, be sure to take a look at Berea College.

From the OP

I doubt the OP would qualify for Berea.

Check out U Alabama and see what their merit scholarships look like now.

@magiu89 I am not a forum moderator or anything- just a parent new to this forum, but perhaps look into what is required to become an emancipated minor in your state and then apply as such maybe after taking a gap year working ?

A prior poster suggested community college. Surely your stats place you as well qualified for competitive 4 year university, but I would think first you need to be able to apply with your parents no longer claiming you as a dependent on their tax returns for a year, maybe 2.

Maybe covid plays well into this in that you could take a gap year, work, live on your own and then apply based solely on your income in a year or two once covid hit is over.

Again, this is not pro advice, just trying to be helpful and best of luck to you as you sound like a well qualified student.

@magiu89 If you are strongly leaning pre-med, you might want to consider ROTC and/or military service. I had a good friend who went that route at Univ of GA or maybe GA Tech, was a full ride ROTC, they got med school paid by the Military and their end of the deal was just 4 years serving on a military base in Guam post their hospital Residency completion- and the Military allowed them to do their Residency at a civi hospital via the regular match process.

For the sake of clarity: merit aid is one type of financial aid. If you get merit aid, you are getting financial aid.

In order for a court to declare OP an emancipated minor, there has to be a reason other than, “my parents won’t pay for college.”

Not being claimed as a tax dependent on the parental tax return will not in and of itself release OP from the requirement to report parent financial information on FAFSA and other need-based aid documents.