<p>Hello,
I am completely new to these forums, but I would like some advices on college choices.</p>
<p>I am a current Junior in high school who is planning to go into law. As such, I know my law school will be more important than my undergrad. However, I would still like to go to the best undergrad that I can for a couple reasons - I would like to learn as much as possible, and I would like to have a good undergrad in case I change my mind about law school.</p>
<p>That being said, financial aid is a huge deal for me. My family makes around 120k a year, yet my parents will not be helping me pay for college for various reasons.
What are your all's suggestions for good colleges for undergrad that have good financial aid?</p>
<p>p.s. - If it matters, I have a score of 36 on the ACT, a 4.0 GPA, play sports, and am involved in several other extracurriculars.</p>
<p>You are not going to get any need-based aid, except at the very top of the selectivity tree. And even there, you’d still need to come up with tens of thousands of dollars a year - not a good idea, even if it possible. Also, at those schools, stats - even superb ones like yours - are not a guarantee of admission.</p>
<p>So you need merit aid, and a lot of it. You should be looking for colleges that will give you close to a full ride. Fortunately, with your stats, you have a lot of options. There are some large state schools that are very generous to the very highly qualified out-of-state student (Michigan State and University of Alabama, among others), and hundreds of very good liberal arts colleges and smaller private universities where you would be an off-the-charts well-qualified candidate.</p>
<p>Where do you live, and what kind of school (large/small, etc.) are you looking for?</p>
<p>I live in Kentucky, and honestly, I am very open to any type of school. I would prefer to go out of state definitely, but other than that, I do not really have any specific qualifications that I am looking for.</p>
<p>You need to think through what kind of school you’re looking for, then start narrowing down your list based on those criteria. Why not visit some schools that are within a reasonable driving distance for you; that should at least give you an idea of what the environment is like on different kinds of campuses.</p>
<p>good advice from annasdad here. Let me add that law school costs at least $50k per year x 3 years, which means you will be $150k in debt - and without the assurance of a job waiting for you - so piling on debt as an undergrad would be a very bad idea. </p>
<p>Start with the honors program at your State U as your most likely “base case.”</p>
<p>U. Richmond comes to mind, as having some very selective merit scholarships. There is an earlier application deadline to be eligible for merit aid.</p>
<p>Did you take the SAT? Will you be a National Merit finalist? There are a number of schools that offer good merit aid to NMF, such as Northeastern and USC.</p>
<p>U Alabama is a CC favorite with guaranteed merit scholarships for high stats students.</p>