My daughter is interested in a smaller school within driving distance of MD. She has good social skills but is not a joiner. Small Greek presence is preferable. We looked at Susquehanna and she felt very comfortable there. She prefers a LAC because she doesn’t know what she wants to major in. Due to a quirk in the financial aid process, FAFSA and the NPCs count her stepfather’s income but he is not paying for her education. I can afford about $25 per/year total. I want to check out Juniata and Ursinus. She has a 3.65 unweighted GPA and 1850 SAT scores. Can anyone provide information on Ursinus or Juaniata, especially as they compare to Susquehanna? Or recommend any other schools for visits that may offer merit aid to an average student?
LACs often have uneven strength of departments due to their small sizes, so the general categories of majors that she is interested in may be relevant in the selection of an academically appropriate LAC.
How about York College of PA? It is larger than a LAC but still rather small (~5000 students). Tuition is lower than that of most private schools and merit scholarships are available. Grove City College is another PA school that is relatively low in cost. However, since it is in northwest PA, it isn’t as close to MD.
If you live in Maryland, she should look at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Public honors college of Maryland, but with a very LAC feel, sort of “summer campish”. Right on the St. Mary’s River. We visited (not from MD) and really liked it, and it is right about at your price point. It is pretty rural, but so are most LACs.
Have you looked at St. Mary’s College of Maryland as a possible academic and financial safety school? Incredibly isolated, but if she’s interested in Juaniata and Urisinus, that may not be a problem.
Goucher might offer considerable merit aid, but will almost certainly feel quite different than Juaniata. It’s also significantly less strong in the sciences than the aforementioned institutions.
Other possibilities:
Washington College in Chestertown, MD (high tuition, high aid model, although many students graduate with significant debt)
Westminster College (same deal with Washington)
University of Mary Washington (larger than a LAC and may be barely affordable with merit scholarships, although I’m not sure)
Lynchburg College - if you visit you may also want to check out Roanoake which is only about an hour away
Christopher Newport University - Same deal as UMW. Couldn’t find the NPC so couldn’t check the affordability for a hypothetical OOS family.
Guilford College
Personally I think St. Mary’s is an excellent option for an affluent Maryland student who wants a smaller, residential school, and is comfortable with the isolation.
Ursinus is a small LAC in a suburb of Philly. Nice campus, but not very big. Everyone knows everyone else and there is quite a bit of homogeneity. Their aid is quirky. Juniata (I love auto-spelling) is similar in many respects except that it is in a small, hardscrabble town in the middle of nowhere. The town’s biggest employer is the state prison, despite the fact that it is a county seat. Strong in the sciences according to CC people, but I have not found that to be so in my experience with Juniata students. Both schools can be mind-numbingly boring if you don’t have a car or you don’t like hiking, climbing, fishing, camping, and the outdoors. St. Mary’s is a good public LAC, but it’s in the middle of nowhere like Juniata and is quite laid-back.
I’d also encourage her to look at Frostburg, Salisbury, and Towson. They are smaller than UM-CP and UM-BC, and would probably fall within your budget. Happykid transferred to Towson after two years at Montgomery College-Rockville, and never felt that it was “too big”. I’ve heard similar things from her friends who went to Frostburg and Salisbury either as freshmen or as transfers.
If you are willing to go just a bit farther west, Ohio has some amazing LACs: Wooster, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan, Kenyon, Case Western Reserve (which is kind of like an LAC with a bunch of great grad schools attached).
I’ll second Denison. They are very generous with merit aid (from large endowment for LAC). Excellent school, beautiful campus (designed by Olmstead) in a quaint New Englandy town close to Columbus.
Even with generous merit aid, many of these are not going to come in at the $25K merit aid the OP’s kid needs. Example: my kid with a 2380 superscored SAT, decent grades, and strong ECs got $15K/year of merit from Kenyon. Still leaving a bill of about $45K/year.
Kenyon is on the low side for aid (some extra aid offered for arts students, though), but Wooster, Denison and OWU can be quite generous. D got a substantial merit award from Wooster this year.
Those numbers may not be high enough to count on $25K/year or more in merit aid from too many private LACs, especially if you restrict yourself to small colleges in MD, PA, or immediately surrounding states. St. Mary’s College of MD is a good suggestion, though. It’s a beautiful college with a sticker price that puts it (even without aid) close to your budget (if you are a MD resident). Your D may prefer it to many private alternatives.
Most of these have sticker prices under $50K as well as relatively generous merit aid (averaging almost $24K at Hendrix). However, it looks like you’d need above-average merit from most of them to beat the sticker price at St. Mary’s College of MD. Your D’s stats appear to be high enough to get into schools in this range, but maybe not high enough for above-average merit awards.
The US News entries (under “student life”) generally indicate the percentage of students who join Greek societies. Centre College has high participation (~53% of men and women). St. Mary’s College of MD has none.