I’m going to be a rising junior and was thinking of applying to notre dame summer scholars? was wondering if anyone knew how likely they give out aid? I live in Indiana and attend a private catholic school + my siblings are in diocesan schools. I have 5 siblings and am the oldest. My parents would not be able to afford $3700 for the program. I have $1000ish saved up and will start working in April once I can drive. I would probably need $1000 in financial aid + don’t want to bother applying if I have no chance of receiving aid. My family isn’t poor but we aren’t rich and I just feel like so many of us with this background are punished when it comes to aid.
whoops, I’m dumb because I accidentally submitted it. I think I would have a strong chance of getting in because I have very strong grades and am for sure in the top 10% of my class. My extracurriculars are nice as well. My only issue would probably be my PSAT? I got a 1190 lol which I know is bad but I am prepping this summer for the SAT/ACT. I’m pretty sure that part is optional though so maybe I shouldn’t submit it? Who knows, if I get in anyways I likely won’t be able to afford it. I hate how all of these cost so much money. Then so many of the ones that are free are only for low income or minority. My parents would probably pay $1500 max. Anyways, I was wondering if anyone who has gone/applied could comment their experience with financial aid if they applied. Thanks!
lol I don’t know how to close this thread now, but nobody waste their time commenting. I just talked to my dad and he said he’s not paying for anything because he thinks it’s a waste of money. No way I could get almost $4000 on my own so I’ll probably just get a job this summer or do nothing 
I was trying to do some business college program + technically could take classes at a community college but my local community college is so bad that nothing will transfer to many colleges. Literally have no clue what I’m going to do. Probably will just spend my summer writing scholarship essays because I’m going to get nothing or barely anything in aid when I apply to college + don’t want debt for the rest of my life. #screwed also fafsa is a piece of crap…
If you’re serious about taking classes, take a look at https://www.edx.org/. It’s like Khan Academy except that it outsources college-level courses. If you’re interested in Notre Dame specifically, there are seven archived (no upcoming) NotreDameX courses available, including Data Science Readiness Assessment, I Heart Stats: Learning to Love Statistics, and Understanding Wireless: Technology, Economics, and Policy–which you might find relevant to business. But if you’re open to everything edX has to offer, you can search for courses related to topics or schools you’re interested in, and unlike what Notre Dame has to offer, they might even be upcoming.
Not sure if this would work for business, but I’ve personally searched up PDFs of math textbooks to learn on my own. You won’t get a legitimate certificate of completion like you would with edX, but it’s another way to learn on your own. On Google, for example, you’d search “filetype: pdf .”
Did your father tell you the budget for college? If colleges expect your family to pay more than your parents plan to pay, you can look for merit awards at other Catholic universities (Dayton, Xavier, UDallas), or your instate publics, or U Nebraska, or out of state publics in the south or southwest.
You could consider ROTC, Coast Guard Academy, Maritime colleges, military academies.
My dad makes over 150k a year, and also has a lot of value in stocks. He said he could invest 10k into my college. I know some parents don’t pay anything for their kid’s college, but 10k won’t even get me all of room and board at some places and if I went somewhere 20k a year, I would already accumulate 40k in debt which is a huge amount. I have 5 siblings so he said that’s why he can’t contribute more. My mom is a stay at home mom and can’t get a job anyways because she majored in psychology. So unless she goes back to school, she can’t do anything. My youngest sister is 1 right now, so my mom watches her. I live in Indiana so houses are dirt cheap here and our house is close to a popular hospital so the value keeps going up. Any financial aid calculator that calculates home equity will screw me over. My instate public colleges are Indiana and Purdue. I could maybe get a scholarship to either of them, I just don’t want to stay in state. Thanks for the suggestions!
I’ve actually seen them before! I think Coursera is another similar one? I was thinking of taking some of those over the summer, will probably take a look at what they have. Don’t you have to pay for a certificate though to possible be able to receive credit in the future? Not sure, but I will look into it. Thanks!
You’ll want to run the net price calculator
https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/nd
Private colleges will come up with their own calculation of need and two students with same stats, ECs, same household income but different age parents, family size, state of residence, will be charged different prices.
You could study in state and get internships out of state or study abroad.
We did one maybe a year ago with Harvard’s calculator just to see because they tend to give out a lot of aid and are one of the most affordable in the US. I don’t want to go to Harvard, but the reason why we did it was to see how much it would bring it down. Well, it brought it down to 27k. That would mean I would have to take 17k out per year. Yikes. Big no. I’ll consider doing an internship or study abroad program. Would be nice to leave Indiana. Thank you though!
Yeah. You do have to pay for certificates. I still think it’s a fine resource nonetheless.