Hi yall! I am a rising senior and this summer I have begun to narrowing down my college list. I need some advice on the remaining schools on my list. I want to study chemical engineering, with a minor or concentration in environmental studies/engineering. I am the val of my highschool, 4.0 unweighted, 33 ACT, all honors classes, will have 9 AP courses (passed all, most with 5), international science fair participate, 2 sport athlete, member of NHS (100+ service hrs), captain of all girls robotics team and managing editor of literary magazine at my school. However, I will depending on merit aid as I will not get any from FAFSA. Parents expect to be able to give me around 100k for all 4 years otherwise I need to take out loans (but I would rather go to less prestigious school on merit only) Right now I have a little over 20 schools (in no particular order)
Carnegie Melon
Case Western
Columbia
Drexel
Hopkins
Lafayette
Lehigh
Northwestern
Rice
Rowan
Stanford
Syracuse
Tufts
Tulane
UMaryland-Baltimore
Notre Dame
UPenn
Vanderbilt
WashU
Yale
Are there any that I should eliminate and why? Any suggestions on which should be my safety, target, and reach? Thanks in advance!
How much can your parents pay/year $$? EFC?
Run the Net Price calculator (NPC) for each school and any school that is unaffordable, remove from your list.
25k, but that will be a stretch.
Yale, Columbia, and Penn are Ivies, and do not give any merit money. Stanford is financial aid only, no merit. Sounds like they come off the list first. Someone else will need to chime in about whether Northwestern, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Wash U and Vandy give merit, and if they do, whether it would be substantial enough to cover the cost.
FAFSA does not itself award financial aid, it is the standard reporting mechanism which schools use to identify financial need. But, at the end of the day, if your family has run the Net Price Calculator at a few schools, and it shows no eligibility for financial aid – you are full pay – then yes, you need to find merit awards to closer the gap between the $65,000+ bill and the $25,000 you can afford.
There are folks here with more expertise about auto-merit at Alabama and some other schools which are very generous to high achieving kids. Univ of Pittsburgh might be one to consider, EA and could be a good source for merit. University of Rochester perhaps?
Remember to apply for Tulane’s full tuition scholarships to bring the cost under 25k. I think you need to apply EA to be considered for those.
Do you know a lot about Tulane? I haven’t been able to visit because it’s pretty far but I’ve heard good things.