<p>Looking for advice (and perhaps a reality check) regarding my niece (by marriage).</p>
<p>"Ann" is HS class of 2013, living in IL in a far north west suburb of Chicago. Her weighted GPA is about 4.4. She runs track/cross country, is in the band and has a few other ECs. She's taken the ACT twice, scored a 27 the first time, don't have the April results yet. She is signed up to take the SAT in June. She has 3 APs this years (APUSH, BIO and ?)</p>
<p>If she doesn't score higher than the 27 (realistically she should, just how much higher is the question), what are her chances of getting some real money in merit aid? Her parents are not willing to help in any way. Her father makes close to a 6 figure salary but has made some very poor financial choices along the way and his priorities are not where they should be. For example, he would not give my niece the money to pay for her AP exam last year so she was unable to take the test (we would have given her the money but it was way too late by the time we found out) but somehow had enough to take himself out to breakfast several times during that same time period. There will be no money and no help in the college process from the parents in any form. Ann is on her own with this and we know she can only take out $5500 in loans her first year. </p>
<p>I am trying to help her the best that I can. We paid for the ACT/SAT tests and will pay for fall tests as well but our resources are limited as we have our own son off to school this fall. Other than trying to improve her score and applying for scholarships, are there things Ann should be doing now? Is it realistic to think she may get some decent merit aid if her scores don't improve to the 30+ range?</p>
<p>What does she want to study? Sometimes there are scholarships that are for specific subjects (e.g. a number of people that I work with have 100% scholarships for Early Childhood Education that weren’t hard to get).</p>
<p>What kind of school does she want? Big/small, urban/rural . . . </p>
<p>She says she wants to be pre-med but she has had no help with this either. I think there may be other opportunities for her that she’s be happy with but needs guidance here, too. I will have a lot more time for her once my S is settled come August and we can do some career exploration then.</p>
<p>I don’t know her unweighted GPA but would guess it may be 4.0 I don’t think she’s gotten lower than an A in any class during HS. </p>
<p>She has never stepped foot on a college campus. She doesn’t know what kind of college she wants.</p>
<p>Is she interested in Running Track/CC. She could possibly get some $ for her sport. As far as Good Merit aid…keep reading on the boards here. I assume her family situation will knock her out of the running for FA? I WOULD have her speak to her guidance counselor and make sure they know of her situation. They could at least get her some vouchers/fee waivers for her SAT/ACT exams and college application waivers. </p>
<p>I would suggest she cast a wide net of applications too. Some state schools, some smaller private schools. What is she interested in studying? </p>
<p>I can recommend one school that offered my daughter good merit aid and was a DII school so they offer sports scholarship…that was William Jewell College, small LAC in Liberty, Mo. Between the two, it would have covered full tuition (only). So travel/books/room/board were not covered. But they had the most reasonable room/board charges of all the schools she applied to.</p>
<p>If you PM me, I will send you the website for the recruiting site we used. We had a lot of communication and could search schools that offered her major and sports by using it. Contrary to what most people think, if you want a sport scholarship you have to market yourself by contacting the coaches. Most college websites have a recruiting questionnaire you fill out. She will need to register with the NCAA too. But any bit of $ helps in these situations as long as she loves her sport and doesn’t mind continuing it in college.</p>
<p>She has similar stats (or even better) than many students from my high school. Students from my school have had great luck at St. Joseph’s University, Washington College, McDaniel College, Catholic University, Cabrini College, Immaculata University, West Chester University, Goucher College, DeSales University, and more. That said, I believe few received full tuition grants. I had a 2200 SAT, 4.0 GPA, and tippy top ECs and was only granted full tuition and Goucher College. Her best bet may be a non flagship state school.</p>
<p>BluePoodle - Thanks. I will ask her if she’s interested in continuing running in college. That’s something I never thought of. I have no idea if she’s any good though. Another question to ask.</p>
<p>She doesn’t have to be at an Olympic level to be good enough to be recruited for sports. My daughter is not great but good. She found that the small schools needed her because they were small. So find some small schools that are DII and she should be able to compete. DIII do not offer scholarship $. New programs for DI or small DI schools might work. If she IS really competitive, then she should have no problem being recruited which would be great.</p>
<p>Are there really vouchers/fee waivers available for kids whose parents could technically pay for things such as tests and app fees but just won’t? I would certainly be willing to meet with her and her counselor if that is the case but I don’t think it would be allowed.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t assume that she will get no financial aide. I make close to a 6 digit salary, with a lot of 529 savings for my son and I use the calculators on the need-blind/full-need school websites, he still comes up as qualifying for a fair amount of aide.</p>
<p>Having said that, that aide likely wouldn’t be enough. </p>
<p>Is she interested in alternative routes? For example, here’s a crazy but tempting one offered in my community. [Live-In</a> MCVFRA](<a href=“http://joinfirerescue.com/?page_id=93]Live-In”>http://joinfirerescue.com/?page_id=93) If you train (training is free) and work as a volunteer EMT (which sounds great for PreMed!) or firefighter, you can live for free in the firehouse, and qualify for free tuition to MD state schools. This is close to UMDCP which is a fantastic school.</p>
<p>Even if she didn’t get the scholarship year 1, she could live at the firehouse, work a part time job, and take a few courses at Montgomery College, which is good and set up so those courses transfer. Then go on the UMD, or maybe UMDBC or Towson once she qualifies for the scholarship. </p>
<p>Of course this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for the right kid it sounds like a great option.</p>
<p>I have seen others here post about kids who had good relationships with their guidance counselors and knew their situations at home. Since the GC is the one that controls that…yes, they can give them out to just anyone if they want to. At the very least, they could sign off on some College Application fee waivers. </p>
<p>My daughter was homeschooled so we had to go to other schools to get them for my D. One school was a catholic school (when she was a Junior) and the lady never even looked at my finances…she just handed them to me. </p>
<p>For her Senior year, I couldn’t get ahold of that same women, so I went to one of the local public schools. She looked at my tax statement before she handed them over to me. </p>
<p>So I guess it just depends. But it is worth asking about!</p>
<p>ILAunt, your only option would be to get the courts to declare her financially independent which is usually difficult to do. Typically you must be able to verify abuse and/or neglect.</p>
<p>One important thing is to get her parents to at least provide the information needed for the FAFSA form. She may be eligible for some need based aid, but the FAFSA must be filled out (and some schools have an additional form they require if the parents are divorced/separated). At some schools some of that aid is in the form of grants that do not have to be repaid, so this is well worth doing. Even if his salary is near six figures, she should still pursue this. Even a small amount of financial aid or work-study can help.</p>
<p>Regarding the track/field, if she is good but not really good, then it likely won’t do anything for her moneywise in the college process. It can help gain admission to a Div. III school, but they do not offer athletic scholarships, and merit scholarships are generally not related to athletic skills (at least, they are not supposed to be). Still, if she does want to run, it is something to consider as she looks at schools.</p>
<p>I know this option won’t thrill her, but is she willing to take a job? A lot of colleges are willing to give free tuition for at least a couple of courses to employees. If she can land one of those and take a few classes and do well, she’ll be in better shape. If you’re there, the folks at the college like you and become convinced you’re telling the truth about your parents’ unwillingness to pay…sometimes you get lucky.</p>
<p>Years ago now, a friend of my D’s took a nanny job for a year. She spent almost nothing and saved her salary. She was involved in a high school EC and knowing the situation, the people in the EC hired her almost every weekend to help officiate. She saved enough to pay for one year of tuition in a year. </p>
<p>There are also programs like Americorps if she can get in. Spend a year working for it and there are tuition benefits.</p>
<p>I’d suggest she think in terms of a gap year unless she is willing to go to community college.</p>
<p>“Regarding the track/field, if she is good but not really good, then it likely won’t do anything for her moneywise in the college process.”</p>
<p>I totally disagree with this statement. Everyone who was graduating this year including my daughter was offered some form of scholarship if they wanted it. She’s a swimmer. The offers ranged from OOS schools offering instate tuition rates, to $5-7,000 all the way up to full tuition for the really good swimmers. Just being able to get in state tuition for an oos applicant is worth it IMO.</p>
a local commuter college or community college, then transfer to a 4yr state school (The biggest disadvantage here is that I understand that a lot of med schools don’t want to see required science courses from a cc. It might be possible, however, to focus her required courses in her last 2 years of college but that would be a tough load and probably delay her MCAT testing and subsequent application.) </p>
<p>I understand the temptation to look for generous merit for this kid but I’m not sure anything is going to be generous enough. Even if she got full tuition (and those are hard to get), a loan wouldn’t cover the full costs of room/ board. She probably needs to get a job asap so she can bring some $ to the table.</p>
<p>ACT of 28 will get her the $15,000 per year scholarship at UA Birmingham, but that still leaves about $10,000 per year of other costs for an out of state student.</p>
<p>ACT of 34 will get her the full ride scholarship at UA Huntsville (ACT 31 is full tuition, leaving about $10,000 per year of other costs).</p>
<p>If she is fast enough running to attract athletic recruiters, that may be another angle to a scholarship (being female may help, since there appear to be fewer female athletes than male athletes).</p>
<p>If she is interested in military service, there are some additional options:
Military service academy
ROTC scholarship
Enlist; after completing service, use veterans’ benefit money and the fact that financial aid no longer considers parental income</p>
<p>Otherwise, she may have to wait until she is 24 or married to no longer have parental income considered for financial aid purposes.</p>
<p>Community college and then transfer is an option, but that still leaves paying for the two years at the four year school.</p>
<p>SAT/ACT and college board fee waivers are available for students who receive free or reduced lunch. They are not available for kids whose parents could pay, but just won’t pay. There are schools that will waive their fee if you apply on line. </p>
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<p>Actually schools are getting fewer fee waivers for testing and from the college board. The GC may have a little latitude with NACAC fee waivers.</p>
<p>If your niece knows that her parents won’t pay, I would recommend that she get a part time job to earn some money to defray the cost of these things because you can easily rack up a few hundred $ in test/application fees.</p>
<p>The thing that your brother/sister in law needs to know that parents are first in line when it comes to paying for their child’s education. Need based financial aid is based on what the school feels the family could pay based on their income/assets not what they want to pay.</p>
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<p>Unless you are the parent of record or you come to the meeting with the parent, this is not going to happen.</p>
<p>Right now you/your niece need to sit down with her parents to find out realistically how much they can afford to pay/borrow to send her to college. Then she has to compile a list making sure that she has some options that are financially feasible for the family in the event that she cannot snag a merit/athletic scholarship.</p>
<p>Have her look at the Wisconsin state schools. I’m pretty sure IL has reciprocity with WI or at least they are in the Midwest consortium giving pretty good discounts. What is her UW GPA? Weighted GPA really means nothing since most colleges refigure that anyway. Guessing her UW GPA is say a 3.7, with a 27 ACT she would qualify for $14,000 at Central College in Pella, IA (they have their chart on their website). Most of the private schools in the midwest would give similar aid AND are often willing to take into consideration individual situations like your DD’s. Can you take her on a couple visits this summer? If so, maybe chat with the financial aid officer and explain the situation and see what they are willing to do.</p>
<p>I would look into University of Pittsburgh. It has a lot of merit aid, possibly even a full ride if the ACT gets up to 30, and it has excellent premed opportunities. It is more likely that she will get full tuition. If she works year round and takes out Stanfords, she could probably do it if she gets the full tuition.</p>
<p>With regards to fee waivers - talk to the GC. I personally have gotten a few waivers despite a high family income (most of the money is my stepfather’s, and he doesn’t contribute). If her district has the money, her GC could give her fee waivers. It depends on the financial state of the PTA, parent’s board, district,etc. but is certainly worth asking about.</p>
<p>Will the parents not help with ANYTHING? I mean, if she gets full tuition paid, will they pay for room and board, considering she’s their daughter and I hope they paid for her food and so forth while she was living at home.</p>