The McDermott is competitive rather than automatic and the minimum requirements may be misleading. The stats of the most recent scholarship recipients exceed the minimum.
A couple of random options I’ve come across in my wanderings: Queen’s University in Charlotte would have an OOP well under $20K for those stats (IIRC, it came to $14K for the random stats I included–maybe a 27 ACT?). Queen’s is lovely and small and focuses a lot on getting their graduates jobs. Second random option is U of Toledo, which would offer automatic in-state tuition and then some with those stats. I don’t know that UT fits any of your criteria, but I am including it just to make it clear that there is some automatic merit awards that would easily get you under $20K. I would take a look at some more second-tier schools. If I’ve come across two bargains without looking very hard (and without even looking for bargains, actually), there are certainly more out there.
“A fully funded MDPHD (no cost to student or parents)”
which is as hard to get into as getting into Harvard or UCSF med school.
Any opinions on Drew? Just learned that an IB Diploma student can start as a sophmore…and they appear to have very generous merit aid. Small school but not far from NYC. They even have a study in NYC program that you can do.
Lots of schools give some amount of credit units for an IB diploma or high enough IB HL scores, so starting at a higher class standing may not be that unusual. This does not necessarily mean that the HL scores will be in subjects that will be that useful in helping the student graduate early by fulfilling subject requirements and/or giving advanced placement.
@ucbalumnus - In looking at their info they seem much more generous than other schools with credit for SL and HL available and a combination of credits for certain courses given, certain prereqs waived, etc. Certainly worth a look for other IB families.
CValle: There are a ton of schools at Drew’s level that are that generous with IB credit. You just have to look. Granted, there aren’t that many suburban/urban CTCL LACs that are that generous with merit. Especially on the East Coast.
And I thought their most generous automatic scholarships knock COA down to $30-35K/year.
Doesn’t Alabama offer full rides to high stats students?
(I never thought I’d recommend the evil empire, but…) U of Nebraska offers quite a good package for IB students. Lincoln is not horrible, the school is a good size, and now that they are in the Big 10 we don’t have to play them any more.
So if your criteria are East Coast suburban/urban LACs generous with merit and IB credit and won’t consider all-female colleges (though maybe your D should as you typically can get in to a higher-level women’s LAC and/or with more money with the same profile), then yes, besides Drew, I can only think of Ursinus, and while Drew is on a train to NYC and has NYC programs, Ursinus isn’t on a train line to Philly.
Your D may want to consider Bryn Mawr and Agnes Scott. Bryn Mawr offers merit scholarships despite being an Ivy-equivalent in my book and your D may be in the running for one of the full-ride scholarships at Agnes Scott.
@PurpleTitan - She LOVES all-female colleges…not sure what I said that gave the opposite impression. If moneywere NOT an object her first choices are Barnard, Wellesley and Smith.
Small world -stepped out for a coffee - met a professor from Grinnell here researching a book. Thanks to this board I could at least talk about Grinnell generally! He offered to meet my daughter next week and talk about the school with her.
Bryn Mawr’s scholarship page states scholarships maxing at $30000. With just tuition costing over$49000, I don’t see how it drops below $20000.
Agnes Scott awards 3?? (not sure, @bobwallace’s dd was awarded one in 2012 and a post of his stated he thought 3 http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/agnes-scott-college/1390282-agnes-scott-college-marvin-b-perry-presidential.html ) full rides. Otherwise AS is going to fall I to the same category as BMC. (For our family, this would fall into that reach for the stars, extremely unlikely category, but 0% chance if you don’t apply category. They apply to about 3 of these types of schools.)
Grinnell offers full tuition scholarships. They also don’t say how many. Here is another poster’s description. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19795055/#Comment_19795055 I suspect that 35 went a long way in that award. If my kids were applying I would put Grinnell in the same category as AS, but for both I would doubt their likelihood unless that 1490 approached a 1560 and then they would still be classified as long shots.
(I tell my kids that test scores count more than you think and they count less than you think. They have to be high, but high test scores alone aren’t enough. According to Grinnell’s CDS, the 75th% range for reading is 750 and math is 780 with 700-800 (reading) 49.70% (math) 68.70%. The data shows that 1490 does not break their 75th percentile 1530. When we are screening for merit, I encourage them to focus on schools where they are in the upper quartile and being strongly in the upper quartile increases their competitiveness by crossing one filtering hurdle. Then they need to still bring the rest.)
Spending time with CDS will help you learn to realistically evaluate your dd before getting too excited. Let her meet with the Grinnell prof but I would emphasize tempered expectations.)
@JHS The German polytechnic I checked out two years when S was a junior was $2,000 a semester. For Germans it might have been free. Don’t know, don’t care. We’re not German.
My proposal was in response to the OP living abroad and not being able to take advantage of a US state flagship for her budget of $20,000. Yet wanting a top flight science education.
Your arguing that the US Naval Academy is a “Liberal” enough environment to satisfy the OP’s daughter is just silly. It was an option recommended by another poster that I said is “unlikely” to offer the OP her requested “Liberal” environment.
You called what the Naval Academy offers a Liberal “subculture.” Clearly you’ve never experienced what “subculture” means: It is a ghetto to which someone is confined precisely because the dominant bias goes against them.
Therefore the OP’s daughter–with other choices–is unlikely to be comfortable there
That’s a pretty presumptuous statement about me, and it happens to be wrong. I also think you are wrong, at least in tone, about subcultures. Sure, a subculture means that it’s not the dominant culture, and in some senses exists against the dominant culture. But there’s a huge difference between being alone and out of step with the mainstream and being one of a fairly numerous group of people who share important characteristics and support one another, although they are all clearly in a minority, especially if it includes people (like faculty) who have high status in the mainstream.
Some people simply don’t have a reasonable choice to be in the mainstream anywhere. It’s not so bad to be part of a minority with critical mass. And it’s a “ghetto” – charged word! – only if your ability to relate to others and to operate outside of your subculture is severely restricted, either by law or by custom. I don’t think that’s the case with liberals at the Naval Academy.
Why so querulous? You seem to think I questioned your suggestion of German universities. I didn’t. It was a good suggestion. Nor did I think I was attacking you or calling you dumb for suggesting that the Naval Academy might not offer a “liberal environment.” I was only relating an anecdote about a kid and a family I know pretty well. He went into Annapolis expecting to feel like an atheist at Liberty University, and instead found it was a lot more like being a conservative at Yale. Yale is hardly a “conservative environment,” but there are plenty of conservative students there, and they have a great time, and they are not in any ghetto.
The great news about financial constraints- they tend to focus the mind very quickly.
Sure- a liberal environment might be preferred. But maybe if it’s a tradeoff of location/convenience to a major airport vs. the “liberal environment”, once the family has calculated the costs of getting to and from a remote locale- convenience and cash win out.
But this argument about the Naval Academy is crazy. There are liberals there; they don’t hide in their rooms reading Politico, and they don’t have to tell their commanding officer who they voted for in the last election. (and some of the leadership of the Academy has liberal leanings- probably more so with every passing day).
Moderator’s Note:
A rude comment and posts that referred to it were removed.
UPDATE - got her SAT - 1550! 770 E and 780 M. Hope that helps on the merit aid!
^It absolutely will, nice scores 
Again, I’d build the list starting where she is in the top 10% in schools that have good merit. Those should be your match schools. And given those scores, there will be some very good schools on that list!
Awesome! That will help a lot!