Also. Merit aid is awesome, especially at schools with full tuition, but I think in-state for UCs is a very reasonable deal, and (hypothetically if I was lucky enough to get in) I’d probably take $30k/year at UCB and UCLA over signif merit aid at most schools. (Except for places like Duke or JHU where, naturally, I have no shot at merit aid anyway.)
Just so you guys know that I’m not fully focused on saving the most money, but rather achieving the best balance of academic quality and affordability.
Also. I’ve been told I have no chance at WUSTL merit scholarships, since the large ones (1/2-full tuition) require exceptional Comm Service or leadership. T/F?
And what about USC merit aid? Is it less competitive that WUSTL’s? Do I have a shot at USC’s?
yes (send AP after acceptance if you are going to use ap credits)
definitely, not waiving could be a red flag. Students don't usually see the letters unless the teacher offers. My kid was to embarrassed to say yes when one offered. She knew it was going to be a good one.
3) yes, no
4) you can prob look that up--we didn't have it. It will give you info on students from your school accepted where you are applying, and you in turn by using will give the school info for future student benefit.
USC big merit can be very competitive but they give a lot of them relative to other schools it seems. NMF one is guaranteed.
According to Kiplinger’s, USC awards merit aid to 27% of students (averaging almost $18K each). That’s a lot of merit aid for a highly ranked university (much more than WUSTL awards). Would your stats place you among the top 27% of admitted students?
For more insight into what those numbers mean (competitiveness, etc.) ask on the USC forum.
In terms of your question about NMF, the National Merit organization gives out scholarships to many of the National Merit Finalists. These are given on a corporate basis, i.e., if someone at your family works at a particular company that sponsors a scholarship, and also directly by the NM organization. . These scholarships are $2500 each and you will be asked to fill out an application, write an essay etc. in connection with the application process for these scholarships (these also go along with listing one school as your top choice school).
However, many colleges also offer specific scholarships for NMF that can be worth far more than $2500. For example, USC will often give NMFs a 1/2 tuition scholarship if you are accepted and attend. Here’s a link to the merit scholarship page http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/docs/uscScholarships1516.pdf
And there are a number of other schools which offer scholarships of varying values to NMFs. Here’s the most recent version I found of such a list http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
In terms of your other questions, you MUST waive your FERPA rights - most colleges consider it a real negative if a student does not do so. If a school is a common app school, then each school will receive the same teacher recommendations - a teacher writes one recommendation and there is no individualization for a specific college. Not only is naviance a useful tool, showing you statistics for students in your high school who have applied to various colleges, but many many high schools have now “synched” the common app with Naviance. What that means is that your transcript and recommendations may be sent through Naviance. You need to ask your guidance counselor in the fall if your school is one of those that works this way.
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PSAT: (junior) 230+ (I’m trying to preserve some level of anonymity)
I don’t quite get how NMF college scholarships work. Don’t I have to put down only 1 school as my “top choice”? And doesn’t that mean I am only eligible for a NM scholarship from that school then?
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You do NOT have to name your “top choice” until May 1 of your senior year. PRIOR to that, you’ll receive offers from a variety of NMF schools. So, if you were to apply to 5 schools that give NMF awards, you’d get those awards and then you’ll decide by May 1 which school will be your #1 choice.
Once you’re named a NMSF in Sept, you’ll start receiving all kinds of mail from NMF schools.
If you get accepted to USC you will get 1/2 tuition with your PSAT score. The other UCs might give you merit aid if you end up attending there. UCSB and UCR have big merit aid.
Yes, pre-med courses and economics courses will be among the larger courses for any given school. You can check the class schedule at each school to get an idea of class size. Sometimes, honors courses or the math-heavy versions of economics courses can have significantly smaller class size.
If math-heavy economics courses are of interest, you may want to add UCI to your UC list.
Unless you go to a LAC or enter an honors college, intro econ and science lectures will be big everywhere. Is there a big difference between a 150 student lecture and a 500 student lecture? Eh.
BTW, while some of my most enjoyable classes were seminars, one of my best was a huge intro econ class (and one of my worst was a class that had maybe 5 students in it).
The intro class varies depends on the UC. There is hard physical limitation at some UC. For example, UCSD, the CS has max 200 per session because they don’t have places that can hold 1000 students like UCB. It pays to investigate each UC and not use the blanket statement that all UCs have large intro class. There is large and there is humongous. When I went to school, back in the 80s, intro science classes can be up to 150 students.
NMSF status does not become official until mid-Sep. Once it is official you will begin to be solicited by a large number of colleges with offers of free application fees. Many of these make the offer because your stats will inflate their applicant pool’s averages. You can disregard the vast majority of the offers, but there are in fact some legit schools in there too (major state universities etc).
A number of colleges offer sliding scale merit scholarships on an automatic basis depending where you fall in the GPA and Standarized Test matrix. Miami of Ohio, for example, would probably place you in the top slice and offer you full OOS tuition automatically. Miami is a fine school, as good as many of the UCs you mention. You find out the exact award sometime in approx February if you apply EA. You might also get some additional sweeteners and honers programs which would bring your total cost down to the $10k/year area.
Your value also increases back East by some amount since you add geographical balance (not as much if you are from California versus Montana. but still…)
Keep doing research so you are ready in September with a good plan…
As some people have already mentioned, the Cornelius scholarship at Vanderbilt and Park scholarship for NC State are both generous merit scholarships that are well within your reach.
Additionally, I would not be so quick to write yourself off for universities such as HYPSM + Columbia due to it being a crapshoot. 4.0 UW and 2400 SAT are not stats found everywhere. If you can afford to, pick the ones that you like the most and apply. While they will typically not offer merit aid, most offer exceptional financial aid packages (I’m sure you’ve heard of the $125k and under Stanford thing).
The OP is interested in UChicago. As far as I know, all Core courses there are still capped at 19 or 20 students. That does not necessarily mean that no intro econ or science lectures will be as large as 150 students (or even more). Sometimes you can find out by looking up enrollment information in the school’s online course schedules (http://timeschedules.uchicago.edu/). For example, Chicago’s Spring 2015 listings for economics indicate that the “Introduction to Microeconomics” lecture has an enrollment of 106 students. All other listed undergraduate econ courses show enrollments of under 100 students (ranging from 1 student to 63 students). Granted, there are some “discussion” classes at the upper end of that range. I do see 4 lectures in the undergraduate Biological Sciences listings with enrollments in the 100- to 200-student range.
The point is well taken that once you get beyond a certain number, it’s hard to have a real discussion (or to get significant feedback on writing assignments from your professor). I don’t know exactly what that number is, but it’s surely much lower even than 150.
As others have said, there are no shortage of schools that give automatic merit aid (usually full or half tuition) for high stats applicants and NMFs (e.g., Univ. of Alabama, Ole Miss).
With your stats, I don’t understand why you don’t think you have a shot at Duke, JHU, and WUSTL…I would think you’d be competitive for these. Ivy League schools will only give need-based aid. As others have pointed out, USC will give 1/2 tuition for NMFs that list USC as their top choice. There are plenty of LACs that give merit as well.
I would check Kiplinger’s list of best value schools (you can sort by non-need based merit aid average amounts and see the percentage of students that receive merit. You can also narrow the search to see only private universities or public universities or liberal arts colleges). Also, you probably want to add Tulane to your list, as I think they give decent merit. Here’s Kiplinger:
If the OP is/becomes serious about economics, rather than just “econ/statistics/premed”, the OP should know that there are political/philosophical divides within Econ, with Univeristy of Chicago anchoring one end (freshwater) and Princeton anchoring the other (saltwater). See Wikipedia and/or Paul Krugman.
Some higher caliber schools that give merit are Vanderbilt, Emory, Tulane, USC, case, wustl, Miami, GW, and American.
But a lot of out of state publics that are considered lower tier have great honors programs and free tuition. If you are a national merit finalist, Alabama will give you a full ride and access to their honors program (plus many other perks).