Hi all - I have a Junior D who is having a very hard time coming up with a good college list. We recently met with her GC for the first time and he wasn’t too helpful with suggestions for her to consider. I’m hoping maybe parents here will have more ideas. I’ve posted before and gotten some helpful feedback, but have a few updates that might impact where we should look.
Here are her stats: 4.0 UW GPA - currently #1 or 2 in her class of around 100 and will hopefully stay there through next year
4 APs through Junior year - only one test so far and that was a 5; 4 or 5 more APs next year, all Honors
ACT - 35 (E35, M34, R36, S34)
SAT - 1520
ECs are weak - no real leadership and standard club memberships. She does a year round sport that
is time intensive.
She doesn’t have any idea yet what she wants to study, which makes things more difficult. She doesn’t think she wants to do STEM, though. She has a large instate option that will hopefully be a match - and hopefully she could get into the honor’s college. She’d also like other options that might offer merit. She’d like to be in warmer weather, so the south or mid-Atlantic. She’s looked at Emory, Furman, Wake Forest, UNC, Elon, Davidson, W&L, William & Mary, and U. Richmond. Any other suggestions that might be similar to those that might offer merit? I’m becoming more concerned about her chances for merit awards because of the lack of leadership and ECs, so we may need to look at different schools.
what kind of school: uni/lac/women's/private/public/large/small
what is the financial situation: what is the EFC and how much are you willing to pay - this will help determine if you want to find schools that supply tons of need-based aid, tons of merit or if price is no object
what does she want to study - do the schools offer major
Yeah - sorry - I hit post accidentally and was frantically trying to edit to add info. Is there a way to delete a post, by the way? Couldn’t figure out how to do that. I’ve added more info now. We won’t qualify for aid, but can’t afford full pay at private schools either. We would be able to pay up to $30k and have given her that figure. Thanks -
Would she consider a women’s college? Agnes Scott is right outside of Atlanta and is incredibly lovely… From what I remember from a few years ago, they have pretty good merit aid.
Thanks apresski - Agnes Scott is a good thought. She hasn’t wanted to look at women’s colleges, but I’ll tell her to think about that one since she liked Emory and the Atlanta location.
Thanks for those lists ucbalumnus - she’ll be on the bubble with national merit. Her score is one point higher than last year’s cut-off, but I’m hearing that the cut-offs might rise by a couple of points, so I’m afraid she might miss being a finalist by a point or two.
She might get merit at Sewanee, Rhodes, and Centre; her strong stats would make up somewhat for lack of EC’s. +1 on Agnes Scott - maybe also look at Hollins if she is open to a women’s college?
Is she a leader in her year-round, time-intensive sport? Does she plan to pursue it in college?
the links above are great. Alabama would be the obvious standout with her 35, and it could be her safety. Be sure to meet the deadline.
Tulane and U of Miami are two southern schools that give over 25% of their students merit scholarships of 20k and up. with those stats she would be competitive for their big ones). Davidson, Richmond and W&L also give merit but a smaller % of students (they are very diff’t schools).
If Memphis is in scope, may want to add Rhodes college too - decent merit.
If Texas is in scope, add Rice, Trinity and Southwestern. Rice is a possibility with her stats and it is a great mix of research uni but small LAC-style environment with residential colleges. worth taking a look. Not a ton of merit scholarships, but you never know.
you can use collegedata . com to research finacial ‘money matters’ at all these schools to see what % of students receive how much.
Thanks so much everyone - awesome suggestions! I’m going to sit down with her this weekend and look at Rhodes, Sewanee, Centre, Trinity, Southwestern, Hollins and Rice. If she’ll consider other big state options, I think Alabama and South Carolina would be good, so I’ll have her look at those. I’ve heard Alabama’s Honors dorms are incredible - that might peak her interest!
@yauponredux - With her sport, she hasn’t been a leader yet - that tends to fall to the seniors on the team automatically. This year, they had all the seniors be “co-captains” and other years they’ve voted, so I don’t know if she’ll be able to say that she’s a leader in her sport. I sure hope so because it has taken the vast majority of her free time for all 3 years of high school so far. She’s still trying to decide if she wants to pursue it in college. She has been contacted by some colleges and would be possibly recruitable, depending on how this season goes. If she does pursue it in college, she’d prefer Div. III, so that would mean no $ unfortunately.
Tulane was very generous to friend’s D who is now a freshman and to my D’s friend who applied this year. Think my friend’s D had strong EC’s but I know my D’s friend does not - no leadership positions for sure and her ACT/SAT were not quite as high as your D. Can’t remember her SAT, but I know she had a 32 ACT.
Thanks Dustyfeathers - I’ll have her look into Hendrix, Muhlenberg, and the Florida schools too. And I didn’t know Agnes Scott students could take classes at Emory - that’s a great option.
@Emmycat, if she is open to playing her sport in college, that may make her a more attractive candidate for merit scholarships. One of D’s classmates at W&L was a Johnson (full merit) but had few high school EC’s other than her sport. She continued to play her sport at W&L, although it wasn’t required to keep her scholarship.
Schools offering merit that is not strictly stats-based look at what else the applicant brings to the school. If a D3 school needs some good players on a particular team, applicants with those skills may be more competitive for merit than applicants who had more HS leadership roles.
For automatic merit, you might look at at Alabama. SMU in Dallas is expensive but has several generous scholarship programs. Being a native Memphian, I see no reason why anyone would ever go to Rhodes College.
If you’re going to consider as far north as Pennsylvania, look at Lafayette. Their Marquis scholarships/fellowships are purely merit based and no separate application is needed. The scholarship alone at $24,000 per year wouldn’t be enough, but the fellowship ($40k) would bring the price down below what you can pay.