Midwestern College Hunt

I’m a junior in high school and desperately trying to narrow my college search! I want somewhere close-ish to home (I live in western IL)… probably 8 hours away max. My biggest wants are a small college (under 15,000), in/near a big city, and TONS of merit or financial aid! I’m also really looking for a beautiful campus!

There are many to choose from. If you could provide your GPA (both unweighted and weighted) and any standardized test scores, people here can help you better. What is your family willing to pay and what is your EFC (expected family contribution)? Your eligibility for need-based aid (or not) will influence the advice you will get and how useful it will be. Also any specific major?

If you want urban with some chance of merit-based aid, here are a few options of varying sizes - Macalester (2K undergrad) Case Western (6K undergrad), maybe Pitt (about 16K undergrad but also a sizable grad student population).

Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN right on a busy street in the city with a little less then 2k undergrads.
Hamline University also in Saint Paul, MN also near a main part of the city with a little over 2k students.
St.Thomas University in Saint Paul/Minneapolis, MN with about 6k undergrads.
Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI with 8k undergrads.
Beloit College in Beloit, WI (which itself isn’t a big city but can take a bus to Chicago or Madison easily) with a little over 1k undergrads.
University of Wisconsin- Superior in Superior, WI (very close to Duluth) with 2k undergrads.
Then if you’re willing to go a little further out from the city Carleton and St. Olaf are both highly regarded small liberal arts colleges with 2-3k students.

If you want good merit aid, near a big city, look at Lake Forest – https://www.lakeforest.edu/

North Central College in Naperville: https://www.northcentralcollege.edu/undergraduate

How much can your family afford? If you need full tuition scholarships there are schools for top students, you may need to widen your geographical location. Search http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ There are a few other threads on cc where you could see other possibilities…search Merit Scholarships for 33 ACT and top 10 percent class rank

I’ll second the vote for Macalester. No ties to the school, but it’s always impressed me. That would be my top recommendation. Kalamazoo College gives great financial aid. Lake Forest also seems like a good bet. Case Western is in a nice cultural district in Cleveland. I would recommend only if interested in math/science/health sciences/engineering. Case also gives lots of merit aid. A little farther, what about Belmont Abbey outside Nashville?

FYI, look up merit aid on Miami of Ohio’s admissions webpage. The school provides a one-page chart that shows the range of merit aid you could expect based on test scores and GPA. Might be helpful in general. Note that the school uses super-score test scores in determining aid. Also, Denison and Kenyon are other very cool midwestern schools. Denison gives a lot of merit aid, not sure about Kenyon.

For those wondering, I have a 4.0 unweighted GPA, 4.76 weighted. I’m 1/542 in my class and scored a 34 on my ACT (taking SAT this spring). I’ve only taken one AP class (AP Psych) and scored a 5. I have a huge family and one is already in college so I’ll have to pay for college myself (hence why I want as much merit aid as possible).

If your daughter is religious/Christian, Wheaton College near Chicago may be a good choice.

Kenyon and Oberlin - both great schools and give good merit aid

A key issue is whether your parents are able and willing to cover the Expected Family Contribution
(which you can estimate by running the online Net Price Calculator for any school that interests you.)

If so, then it makes sense to consider selective private schools that claim to cover 100% of demonstrated financial need. Here’s a list of ~60 colleges that make that claim:
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2016-09-19/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need
Midwestern colleges on that list include:
Carleton
Colorado College (if eastern/front-range Colorado counts as “midwestern”)
Grinnell
Kenyon
Macalester
Oberlin
Northwestern University
University of Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis
All but the last 3 are small liberal arts colleges. Grinnell, Kenyon, Oberlin, and perhaps Carleton don’t meet your “in/near a big city” criterion, but may be worth a look. If you include grad students, then UChicago and Northwestern may be a little bigger than you want. Note that all of these are selective reach or match schools.

If your parents are unable to cover the EFC, then it makes sense to focus on less selective schools that might offer adequate merit scholarships for your stats. Kiplinger’s “Best Value” college lists can help you identify schools that grant relatively large numbers of competitive merit awards (or relatively large average amounts):
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=prv_univ
Midwestern possibilities:
Case Western (about as selective as some of the schools above)
Lawrence University
University of Denver
Creighton U.
Drake

If you need at least a full tuition merit scholarship (if not a full ride), then you may need to relax some of your criteria and focus on schools, like the University of Alabama, that guarantee big grants to applicants with qualifying stats.
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

What about state universities in Illinois? Can your family afford the EFC for UI-UC?

Given grades and ACT score, Miami of Ohio seems to indicate it would give you a half to full scholarship guaranteed, probably full or close to it because you are above minimum range for that level of scholarship (3.5/33 ACT). Test levels are based on super-scores also. You can find the numbers under merit aid at school’s admissions website. I’m sure some of the other schools recommended in the different posts would give similar aid. Good luck!

You may want to look at some of the Jesuit colleges in your geographic preference. They tend to mid-sized universities (pretty much the size you are looking for) that are in/near cities. Many give excellent merit aid.
http://www.ajcunet.edu/institutions/

Tk21769 - I’m looking for full ride but might be able to swing it financially if merit/aid covered most of tuition. My first thought was UI-UC but from what I’ve read on here, you could have the best scores and outstanding ECs and not get a full ride.

As others have mentioned upthread - you need to figure out your family’s EFC. What they want to pay and what the federal govenrment or a specific college or university thinks they can pay may be two different things. So finding out that number is step one. Running net price calculators for colleges of interest is step 2, as there can be tremendous variation across schools.

If your family is low income, you might be eligible for Questbridge. And if your EFC, in fact, is very low, you may be able to qualify for a combination of need-based and merit-based aid that put you close to a full ride.

Merit-based full rides, however, are very rare. Full tuition is somewhat easier to get, and your stats would make you competitive for full tuition at a number of public universities. Alabama was mentioned. If you are a National Merit Finalist, then U of Arizona might be a good option for full tuition, maybe more. Your stats would put you in the running for the Regents Scholarship at the U of New Mexico (which is a full ride but a limited number per year are awarded).

Full tuition merit-based scholarships at private colleges and universities tend to be scarce and highly competitive. Typically, they do not include room, board, books, and travel costs which easily can add up to 15-20K.

As mentioned upthread: here are some options - http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

Finally, if you want a smaller LAC, Denison U in Ohio has some full tuition awards - the campus is very pretty (Olmstead designed it) and the nearby town of Granville is charming. Columbus is not far away.

You have a great academic record and I’m sure it will translate into good scholarship support somewhere. The key is to figure out your family’s financial parameters and take it from there. Best of luck to you.

I also thought of Denison.

You have interesting parameters. Some of the things you require are matters of personal taste (ie. beautiful campus), a couple need to be defined (close to a big city…what is big and how close? lots of merit aid? what kind of price point are you looking for?) You can get lots of merit but still need to pay a significant cost.

Case Western Reserve in Cleveland gives large merit scholarships but you’ll likely end up owing $35-40k after scholarships and before financial aid. They tend to be pretty good with need based grants for top students but if you don’t have much need that won’t help you. Other privates that might give you a greater portion of your COA in scholarships would be schools like Loyola of Chicago. You would be near the upper end of their applicants but even then you might end up owing something north of $20k. Both are in/near large cities and are attractive in their own way. Case would be the more selective of the two. Denison is a classically attractive campus about 45 minutes from downtown Columbus OH. Do you consider that close? The University of Pittsburgh is probably farther than you want to travel. It is different. Very urban and compact in it’s feel, more like a college city than campus. It’s also a bit larger than you are interested in. You are in the middle of a very nice part of Pittsburgh with Carnegie Mellon just across the bridge. In the past they have required a 33 combined english/math on the ACT. They don’t consider the other sections when determining scholarship selection. If you were to get a full tuition scholarship there it might be a consideration.

Talk to your parents about what they are willing to contribute through savings, income and loans. Find out your EFC (easier now that they will be using this years taxes to determine your EFC), what can you contribute through work and your own savings and possibly loans ($5500 max for freshmen year). Find at least one school you’d be satisfied going to that you can afford and you’re assured acceptance to then apply to others that fit your criteria and wait for the scholarship financial aid results. You’ll never take all the stress out of the process but by finding your true safety you’ll worry less.

@minekai You also use the federal website college navigator to search for schools using your zip code. The max distance is 250 miles away. You can also add more filters like public/private, size, degree programs, etc.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

You really need your EFC and your parents’ budget to see what type of school you should apply to. Everything else will be secondary.
(You can borrow 5.5K for freshman year, that’s it. So either you have a low EFC and a meet-need school is your best bet, or you need to find merit aid, in which case you need the big merit schools).