In the event you do have to end up at LSU, remember that it belongs to National Student Exchange. With NSE you can spend up to a year at any of the other ~200 participating schools, credits transfer automatically, and you only pay what you are paying already at your home school. Lots of really fun schools participate. https://www.nse.org/exchange/colleges-universities/alpha-location/
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Woah I’ve never heard of that and that looks really cool. Thank you!!
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Did you happen to take the PSAT? I ask because your ACT is quite high, and many people who do well on the ACT also do well enough on the PSAT to qualify for National Merit Scholar status. If you are a National Merits Scholar, this opens up a range of full ride (tuition, room and board, books etc) schools. This way you might not have to worry about pleasing your parents so much.
You can remind your father that conservative Supreme Court justice Amy Barrett graduated from Rhodes. That might induce him to give up more $
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Why do you say you have no shot at the Ivies (and Stanford, MIT, Chicago, etc…)? You have a 4.0/35 – your numbers surpass their minimum thresholds.
I’m not saying you shotgun them willy-nilly, but if a couple fit what you are looking for in a college and the Net Price Calculator indicates that they would be affordable, I don’t see why you should rule out an app or two.
Princeton and UPenn aren’t too terribly far from where you are given your location concerns. Columbia is just a hop, skip, and a jump from Penn. Georgetown and Duke are also in your general area.
But – obviously don’t waste the apps if the NPC indicates they’d be unaffordable. That goes for every school you’re considering.
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The OP said they have a limited budget but won’t qualify for need based aid. That would make the Ivies and the schools you mentioned unaffordable since they’ll need to chase merit.
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Run the NPC for University of Tulsa (it’s private, not a branch of University of Oklahoma). Parts of Tulsa are little blue dots in a very red state, and there is a LOT going on in the city which is making it young and hip and urban and cool. And your parents won’t think “indoctrination” in a state being run by Governor Stitt. But you’ll be able to find your people there and keep the parents happy.
Same as UT Austin- a very blue city in a very red state.
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Oh, okay – I missed the “won’t qualify for need-based aid” part.
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Yep! They haven’t had who qualified for semi-finalist announced yet but my qualifying score was a 226 and the highest in louisiana as far as I know was around a 220 and it’s usually around 215 so I almost definitely got it. I started looking into some schools that give good aid for national merit and there are a lot. I wrote down a few but I don’t remember which ones they were. I think one of the schools in Arizona was on there. I’ll look again
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The highest National Merit cutoff in any year in any state has been 224 (Maryland a couple years ago). And historically Louisiana is on the lower side. So you are 100 percent a National Merit Semifinalist next year. Take a look at Tulsa (mentioned above), Alabama, UT-Dallas, UCF, USF, and others that offer huge NMF money. All of those are in conservative southern states, but all of them will have a considerable mass of students with liberal beliefs. Also UMaine if you’re looking for a more northern, maybe more liberal college than those I listed.
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Congrats! This may be a game changer for you! With that score you will be National Merit for sure. There are many schools with full tuition and/or full ride for National Merit. Also with your stats in general, you would be competitive for full rides to a lot of places, even without the NMS designation. In addition to the schools mentioned already, if you are interested in urban schools look into Fordham (liberal Jesuit school in NYC) where you would be in the running for both the full tuition and the full ride scholarship.
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The NMF is golden per the previous note. You can also find large and small affordable publics - like a UAH or Truman State if the NMF schools don’t work for you.
But make sure to run the net price calculators for schools of interest. While you said what your parents can pay, the schools may disagree. If a school will say it’s $40k and you can’t afford that, remove it now. But make sure you fill out the calc properly - you’ll need mom and dad help, however difficult that will be. Many find they can’t afford a Vandy or WUSTL even though they meet need.
Also look at home run full rides like the Johnson @ W&L, Presidential at SMU. Others have the same. The W&L one goes to 10% of the incoming class. They have others that are tuition only so it’s a great Hail Mary for financially strained families.
Schools such as Miami of Ohio and U of SC give big merit in addition to the Arkansas, Alabama, Ms State Mizzou, UAH. Just on auto merit, Bama and U of Arizona will blow Arkansas away. Arkansas is a gorgeous campus though.
For small LAC, Hendrix and Ogelthorpe will likely match LSU tuition. Link below.
Here’s are some links for NMF offers. Make sure to check each school individually as this comes from a third party.
While your parents may try to limit your list, great opportunities abound and you’ll clearly be a great addition to any campus.
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UNC does not give a lot of money, but when they do give money it is a lot. The Morehead-Cain scholarship is a very competitive full ride. And UNC and Chapel Hill are definitely liberal (but don’t tell your dad).
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UNC and UVA do meet need for all though but loans unfortunately. OP should do the NPC to see if it will be affordable or eliminate.
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OP has said that family has the means to pay. The issue is whether parent is WILLING to pay. Parent is concerned that the child will be influenced by the liberal atmosphere at certain colleges, and by the “estrogenic” atmosphere at women’s colleges.
This is not about money. NPCs are irrelevant in this student’s case.
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Sorry if I missed that. I only see message 13 but didn’t see anywhere that it’s a desire vs ability.
If they are a full pay family based on need, then I stand corrected.
Thanks for clarifying.
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Actually, it looks like the money matters, based on the limited actual parent contribution, unlikelihood of significant need-based financial aid, and parents being divorced, in addition to any parent objections based on perceived political leanings of colleges.
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And I cannot tell if they’re supposedly willing to contribute 15-20K/yr total, or each. In any event, with parents whose political, religious, and sexual orientation values affecting their decision about paying for college, this student, who has many good options for a free ride, would do well to just take advantage of that, and keep everyone happy. There is nothing wrong with choosing to take the free ride at Alabama or Oklahoma! It’s even possible for her to come out with her master’s degree, owing nothing, without having to ask her parents for a penny. What a win-win situation!
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There are some general tendencies about colleges, although not all colleges will align with them:
- The age group of most college students tends to be more left leaning relative to older adults of otherwise similar demographics.
- Colleges tend to have greater diversity than most environments encountered before going to college (K-12 schools getting students from relatively small neighborhood areas) and after (local neighborhoods, workplaces). The need to be welcoming to and avoid excluding potential students based on diversity or demographic factors tends to pull colleges somewhat leftward on diversity issues.
- Student majors may have some association with political leanings in some subjects. For example, business and economics majors are probably more likely to be right leaning on fiscal and economic issues than many other majors, although business majors may see that getting into culture wars is bad for business. More pre-professional majors may be less political generally. Ethnic studies, gender studies, and LGBTQ studies majors may be more likely to be left leaning on diversity issues. Science majors may lean left on issues where right leaning politics goes against science (e.g. evolution, climate, vaccines).
- Commuter-focused colleges are likely to be less political generally, since commuters, if into political activity, may do it at home rather than on campus.
- More left leaning colleges may exist in right leaning states, and vice-versa.
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Yeah I can probably make 25k including living expenses work. Maybe a little more. It also depends because my dad is a lawyer and is paid based on a 3 year average of how much work he does. Apparently he got a raise this year. But, my parents both (understandably) are hesitant to give me that money for college if I can go to an in state school for free. But I think they would. There are just a lot of variables. And, each colleges individual aid package seems to be calculated differently. FASFA is of course FASFA, but I have a senior friend whose parents I know make less than mine and their calculated contribution based on FASFA was like 40k which was ridiculously high for them and not at all feasible. It wouldn’t be for us either so if ours is even higher, it will be no help. Some colleges add both parents and stepparents salaries all together, which will mean no aid for me. Some just take one household, so I could get some. Probably still not enough. Some take into consideration siblings, and I have 2 sisters (12 and 14), a stepsister (10) at my mom’s, and a stepbrother (12) and baby brother (1) at my dad’s so that could get me more aid since that many kids is expensive and a lot of colleges to be eventually paying for. But then some that I’ve seen only ask about other siblings currently in college. It’s all so confusing.