I am strongly considering many of the top liberal arts schools in the country, and have that end of my college list figured out, but I feel like my safeties are lacking. Currently, I have CU-Boulder (in-state for me) and that’s really it. I would really love to be on the east coast, but schools like the University of Vermont simply don’t offer sufficient merit aid (unlike CU likely would). Does anyone know of great east coast schools (especially liberal arts for merit aid).
How much merit do you need? What are your stats? Dickinson comes to mind, but need to know your stats to see if it would work. They also meet 99% of need. Also, they care about interest.
ACT: 33 (Freshman)
35 (Junior)
AP: 5 (HUG), 5 (World History, Independent Study), 4 (Chemistry), 4 (Computer Science A, Independent Study), will take APUSH (Independent), Bio, Seminar, Lang/Comp, Lit/Comp, Stats or Calc AB (depending on what my school does), Research, Physics
4.00(UW)/4.21(W, Highest as a sophomore ever at my school, will rise to 4.6ish by the end of high school)
Various ECs (notably Varsity Captain, All-State Alternate for Band (likely will become All-State fully this year), in 3 leadership councils, organize a water summit/participate in citizen science work)
Basically, the lower the better (and at a public school I likely will receive no financial aid whatsoever) because my parents will not pay very much to “save for grad school”.
If female, Mount Holyoke, which is a member of the Five College Consortium with Amherst, Smith, Hampshire, and U Mass Amherst. Also, especially if female, WPI, which is great for your areas of interest. STEM school but with a New England LAC vibe. Great for science AND music. Dickinson too. It’s fantastic.
Good luck!
Any college you like from the College that change lives list - look at the East coast ones o their website.
The New College of Florida is a pretty good financial deal. All admitted out-of-state students get a $15,000 scholarship, which knocks the cost down to $24K per year for tuition and room/board. If NCF awards you additional scholarships - and you have great stats for merit aid - that cost can get lower.
Unfortunately, many liberal arts colleges are no longer the good options for merit aid they once were. Tuitions have skyrocketed at private colleges, and merit scholarships have not kept pace. To use the above suggestion of Dickinson as an example, its largest merit scholarship is the John Dickinson scholarship. The scholarship was $15K 15 years ago, when it covered 45% of the $33K cost of attendance (tuition and room/board). Today the scholarship is $20K and covers only 29% of the $68K COA.
Union college (ny) offers merit. So does Gettysburg. Dickinson has been mentioned already. Denison is a wonderful school and is also generous with merit.
Not exactly East Coast but Grinnell is generous with merit aid and top notch. Need to show interest and apply by scholarship deadline. It may be more of a match than safety just b/c they are highly selective across the board. My D had similar profile (slightly lower ACT) and had a great merit offer from them last year.
OP,
There are safeties among LACs. As an earlier poster mentioned, check out the CTCL schools, forty schools that are just as good (as its author argues) as many of the more selective LACs but are much easier to get into and are much more generous with financial aid.
Many of the CTCL schools have merit scholarships that will cut tuition in half for a student like you. A few of the schools even have full-tuition scholarships (Agnes Scott, Hendrix, and Knox have full-tuition merit awards (NOTE: Full transparency: I am a Knox grad)).
If you feel like you have the LAC spectrum covered and are looking for larger universities, well, you’ve already got one in-state option with CU. Another obvious choice would be CSU. OOS universities are not very generous with merit, you are right, but there are exceptions. The U of Alabama quite literally wants a 50/50 balance of in-state/OOS students, which is, of course, very rare for a state flagship. Bama is pretty generous with giving merit awards to OOS students.
Finally, you might Google to find a list of schools that offer full tuition scholarships. There’s a thread somewhere on this site that lists them as well. With your grades and test scores, you might be competitive for some of them, though keep in mind that such scholarships are incredibly competitive. Best of luck!