More decisive and intelligent adults, please help me?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I am possibly the most indecisive person I have ever met, it's driving me nuts. I am trying to narrow down my college apps list and I want to apply to one more school as a safety where I could get a substantial amount of merit aid, mostly.</p>

<p>A quick summary of my stats:
unweighted 3.93 GPA, top 6% of class
1310/1970 SAT (610CR, 700M, 660W - I know the CR is pretty weak)
29 ACT - 26English, 30Math, 32Reading, 26Science
(was only a practice test off of website
w/ little to no studying, will take actual test in September)</p>

<p>President & Founder of Amnesty Int'l for our school (1 year), VP of Key Club (4 years), Secretary of Diversity Committee (3 years), NHS (1 year), JV cross country (3 years) & voted most inspirational</p>

<p>volunteering recently at local science museum & hospital</p>

<p>Right now the schools I am pretty sure I will apply to are:
Scripps College
University of Washington (Honors maybe, in-state)
Evergreen State College
Rice University</p>

<p>I am absolutely IN LOVE with Scripps- but with my transcripts and stats I might get in, but wouldn't get the JES scholarship. So it's not a safety.</p>

<p>I probably need one more school to apply to as a safety, and possible ones are: Santa Clara, Trinity U, USD, Seattle U.</p>

<p>Which one do you think would be most worthwhile to apply to as a safety? Worthwhile meaning I'd get a substantial amount of merit aid, overall reputation, academics (seeing as how I'm undecided in my major- but have thought about pre-med), local area (preferably in or very near a city) and accessibility, etc.</p>

<p>Or if you have any, do you recommend any other ones that I haven't mentioned? Two other schools that were on my list were University of San Francisco, Mills College, but I've crossed them out for various reasons.</p>

<p>If you've seen my stats before, sorry! But any help or advice would be appreciative :D</p>

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<p>If you want a school where you might qualify for substantial merit aid, you'll need to upgrade your stats (re-take SAT) or go further down the food chain (a lower tier school)--preferably BOTH--to optimize your chances.</p>

<p>Kids in our local high school have had luck with $$ at University of San Diego, University of Redlands, Dominican and Azusa Pacific. At USD, though, the kids who have gotten lots of money have been those who are in the top 1% of the class.</p>

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<p>If you are interested in Scripps, would you be interested in Mills?</p>

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<p>Why are you worried about getting into Evergreen? That's a safety right there. </p>

<p>Have you looked at Western WA University? It's reasonably priced, and I know many Washingtonians that have been very happy there.... unlike the former students I know at UW, who mostly seem fairly annoyed with it.</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.ncf.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.ncf.edu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This #1 public LAC may be of interest to you. If you apply on time, your statistics would guarantee a $6000 merit scholarship. The out-of-state tuition is $21,625.</p>

<p>If you need more merit $, try this one.</p>

<p><a href="http://wise.fau.edu/divdept/honcol/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://wise.fau.edu/divdept/honcol/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>How much aid do you need? DD got $6K Dean's Scholarship from Santa Clara (which was half the top merit award--can't remember what they call the highest level of merit aid) and she was 3.98 with scads of honors/APs, ranked #2, team captain, editor, 2200 SATs, blah de blah. I agree with the poster who said you might have to move further down the food chain, but the risk there is that you get into a student body that is far enough below your level of ability and motivation that it isn't very inspiring. </p>

<p>I'd look at Western, definitely. Also check out the Western tuition exchange schools here: <a href="http://wue.wiche.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://wue.wiche.edu/&lt;/a>. Your choices all appear to be west side/west coast--is that on purpose? </p>

<p>You didn't say you were looking for MORE choices so of the ones you listed, I'd say your chances of merit aid are probably best at Seattle U which is a notch below Santa Clara and USD in terms of selectivity, but is basically the same in terms of academic quality--in fact I think you can freely transfer between the west coast Jesuit schools--their requirements, etc. are all consistent with each other. </p>

<p>If you are willing to go to the midwest (you did list Texas) check out Knox College--they offered oldest D. 50% off sticker price when she applied in 06 and her stats were not as strong as yours. It's not in a city, but Chicago is not far away. </p>

<p>Other interesting ideas if you live in Seattle and want to at least get out of your home town for college: University of Oregon--you could be competitive for their honors college and you'd get a break on tuition as that is a WUE program....Humboldt State (also WUE) in northern CA and even Washington State if you are into science. I know it has a reputation as a party school but they are working hard to recruit bright students--you might even be competitive for a Regent's Scholarship from there.</p>

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<p>When I mean "substantial", I mean that combined with need aid of little to no loans (I don't know our EFC yet, but we are a mid-income family and will have 2 kids in college) and merit aid, the total cost could drop down to around the same price as the University of Washington's in-state cost, which is about $18-20,000</p>

<p>So considering that it'll be out-of-state or private, it is a bit of a stretch.</p>

<p>Thanks for your advice! :D</p>

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<p>Vanderbilt is supposed to give out good merit aid, as does Tulane. If you want a LAC experience, Rhodes College has some good merit aid.
If you are National Merit, National Achievement (Afro-American), or National Hispanic based on PSAT results, you will get a lot of free ride offers. Most of the schools are second tier or lower, but U of Delaware, Oklahoma, and some others have some good honors colleges. Here is the best info I have on National Merit cut off scores: C:\Documents and Settings pd\Local Settings\Temp\87772.html</p>

<p>Good luck! Don't forget that Early Action is non-binding so its a good deal if you get accepted at your EA school--you know in December you are going somewhere. Early Decision is of course a terrible deal for a student trying to maximize aid.</p>

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<p>U of Washington is huge and Evergreen is on the small side -- they are both excellent but in very different ways. I don't see them as interchangable though. Rice is another great school -- but Houston is a very, very hot and muggy climate. </p>

<p>What is it that you like so much about Scripps? If that is "you" then perhaps you should be looking for those same qualities in your safety search.</p>

<p>Lastly, and this is a bit mercenary, would you consider saying you are a math major? Sometimes there are dollars for gals going into particular majors (varies by campus) -- you scored well in math and that might be a path for some money. Many people do change majors later.</p>

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<p>SUNY Stonybrook</p>

<p>Fl publics have a lot of $ ... central Fl???</p>

<p>Pitt</p>

<p>And go for more than one - then you can negotiate!</p>

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<p>I am guessing - purely guessing, but throwing this anecdotal "stat" into your analysis - that Santa Clara U is somewhat of a long shot for you for the type of merit aid you want.</p>

<p>S received $11K/year offer merit (couple of years ago now) with 1320 old SAT, not as high class rank as you and roughly similar UW GPA. BUT... he was a male from the East Coast. There was quite a bit of press, at the time, that SCU was looking to up its male/female ratio. So I think his gender helped him (again, just a guess).</p>

<p>So, in addition to the nice list you already have, I think you should look to leverage the geography thing. With your higher math than CR SAT, are you thinking of a tech or math/science major? If so, you might also leverage your gender by targeting schools which are a bit heavy with males and want more females.</p>

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<p>You might check out Willamette and Lewis and Clark. Both in large cities (Salem and Portland OR) and offer good merit scholarships. Willamette is very big in track for Div. III if that interests you as well.</p>

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<p>pm carolyn for ideas. </p>

<p>Then get cracking on boosting that CR score with vocab study and practice, practice practice. A 610 will limit the merit money.</p>