<p>One of my friends graduated high school in 2013 with a 3.66 UW GPA, semi rigorous course load, and a 31 ACT. She currently lives and works in a Wyoming national park in a supervisory position, but her father lives in Utah while her mother lives in Texas. She cannot live at home so no suggestions on commuting from either parents' house. Because of her lack of parental support and essentially life long poverty, she's extremely averse to taking on more than $15,000 in debt. </p>
<p>As far as college preferences go, she's pretty open to all types of schools although claims to prefer those with at least a little bit of diversity. </p>
<p>So far I've suggested the following schools:
- Oxford College of Emory
- Sewanee
- Utah State University
- Snow College
- University of Utah
- University of Northern Texas
- Scripps
- Pitzer
- Wesleyan</p>
<p>The primary issue with that list is that most of those schools are not affordable for a student whose parent cannot contribute any money to their college expenses. </p>
<p>Do you mean to say that being close to the parents’ homes is merely of no help (in terms of saving costs by living there and commuting), or is actually undesirable due to parental hostility or abuse?</p>
<p>If the latter, then she would need to focus on the merit scholarships, due to not being able to count on cooperation for financial aid forms.</p>
<p>The parents will cooperate on filling out FA forms (they’ve done so for her brother) but one of them is quite hostile to her while the other physically abused her before he moved out.</p>
<p>OP and @whenwhen, the thread I gave you lists schools that cost between roughly 15-25K. Some of the schools will include travel and books into the cost; some won’t. Some of them will offer merit to high achieving students like this one. I think the OP’s friend is going to have to do some homework with the schools on the list to see if there’s any financial aid available other than the $5500 loan freshmen can take on.</p>
<p>In addition to what I and @ucbalumnus suggested, would this student not be a candidate for Questbridge? She probably has a good story to tell, and I think QB will take apps from students who’ve already graduated.</p>
<p>@jkeil911 that’s a good point about the merit stuff. I’ll have her look into that. Additionally, thanks for the reminder about Questbridge. Sounds like she’d qualify for it, and given that she’s partially supporting her brother right now as well as living and working in a very interesting place, she may have a “hook” for the program. </p>
<p>By the way, would her current residence in Wyoming be considered a hook for most non Mountain West colleges?</p>
<p>^^^
I dont think that WY will be considered her residence. Because of her age, unless she can somehow get classified as independent, she will likely be a resident of the same state as the parent who files FAFSA. </p>
<p>Which parent is that?</p>
<p>Texas is actually quite generous to its low income students. If she were to be considered a TX resident, then that could be good.</p>
<p>If the parents have not been hostile or abusive to her brother, then using him as a precedent may not be a good idea in estimating their willingness to do financial aid forms for her. Better for to go for merit to avoid the parents having any leverage to force her to drop out of college out of hostility.</p>
<p>Have you looked at other women’s colleges like Smith or Holyoke? They’re generous with aid and sympathetic to unusual life stories. Her outdoorsy experience would fit as well.</p>
I’m not sure. I do know she went to high school in Utah if that’s helpful at all. Do you know if Texas considers students whose parents live in the state as residents of the state? If so, she’d have many strong public options.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus the parents were and are hostile and abusive to both her older and younger brother. I think it’s safe to assume they will fill out the necessary paperwork.</p>
<p>@momrath I didn’t consider them, but I will certainly suggest them to her. I do think she’ll need to be convinced of what an all women college can offer since I honestly doubt she’s heard of the concept, let alone considered the possibility of attending such a school. Do you know if Bryn Mawr offers the same level of aid as schools like Smith and Wellesley?</p>
<p>She does not want to serve in the military but is very open to Americorps, particularly the conservation corps side of it. She works in close proximity with members of a state conservation corps and has told me that she’d love to be part of such a program although she’d prefer to go to school first. </p>
<p>All the Questbridge eligibility pages seems to indicate you have to be a hs senior for college match. I suppose she could email them.</p>
<p>The QuestBridge National College Match is designed for high school seniors who have shown outstanding academic ability despite facing economic challenges.</p>
The two I would target are Smith and Holyoke, mostly because of their outreach to young women with challenging backgrounds. This is especially true of Smith.</p>
<p>Wellesley is good with need based aid in general, but would be a super-reach. I’m not familiar with what BrynMawr might offer.</p>
<p>If her family’s EFC is zero, then I would think that she would qualify for need based aid at any college that guarantees to meet full aid. Since these are often (but not always) the more selective, the questions would be would she get in and would she want an academically rigorous environment?</p>
<p>I think Wesleyan is a long shot, but a good one. I would also look at some colleges that have outdoorsy cultures: Bowdoin, Hamilton, Colby, Bates, Colorado, Lewis & Clark come to mind. I’m sure there are others.</p>
<p>@whenwhen, I like @momrath’s suggestion. I know of a young woman who was “rescued” from a MT ranch and educated by Vassar. An alumna had heard of her promise and situation and came to the house to sell the school to the family. There was some suggestion that the alumna herself “endowed” the student. The woman told me that this was not an unusual thing for Vassar to do, and I’ve since learned that other women’s colleges have been doing this for a couple generations at least. These women have stories to tell that other young women need to hear.</p>