@markab2 I am glad you posted bc your last paragraph reaffirms the point I was hoping the OP would hear: retake the test. Making the stance to refuse to retest with a 1390 CR+M is an option, but it is a choice with very real consequences, especially for a student who wants to be a strong competitor for merit aid.
You can get a pretty good idea about financial aid form doing the college’s net price calculator.
For significant merit, you need to move down the ranking list. Getting your SAT score up will definitely help with merit $$. MOST colleges do not give out big merit money. If you run the Net Price Calculator, you can find out the financial aid part. Not sure how often school adjust those numbers significantly based on circumstances (beyond a change from what is put on the FAFSA). To get merit, you need to do a lot of research and make sure you look at very RECENT information.
In addition to the above suggestions maybe look at RIT, Syracuse, WPI, Case Western, Union College. I don’t think that RPI will be giving you merit money. UR will probably not give you a lot of money if you are not highly ranked within your class and have high SATs. Schools give merit to entice kids that would otherwise go elsewhere. Yes, Stuy is a great HS but you will be competing with other Stuy kids (and Bronx Science and Brooklyn tech and prep schools and other excellent public high schools) for very limited merit dollars.
Not trying to chance you. You will likely get into a lot of good places. But if you can’t afford to attend, it doesn’t really matter.
1390 is just 10 points away from a scholarship.
If your EFC is 35K, 100% need schools would be a good pick too.
Assuming you retake and get 1400 CR+M:
WPI, RIT, NewMexicoTech, UCF, Cal Poly SLO, CPP, SDSU, UAlabama Honors/Engineering, Union, Clarkson, Syracuse,Temple, would all be possibilities. Run the Net Price Calculator on every one of these.
@MYOS1634 i know this is a naive question, and I know the answer, but am in denial of it. Will just 10 points really make that much of a difference?
Look at schools where your stats put you firmly in the school’s top 25%.
Considering the threshold for most scholarships is 1400, and that is a cutoff (not a “roughly 1400” but exactly 1400 or above) the 10-point difference means thousands and thousands of dollars.
@vook99 If the question is not simply about acceptance into the school but enough scholarship $$ to bring your costs down to 50% of $35,0000, yes, your SAT score breaking 1400 (minimum for even most lower ranked schools) can make a difference.
As @mom2and stated, this isn’t about chancing you for admissions. You asked about merit $$. Getting accepted is meaningless is you cannot afford to attend. Financing college via scholarship $$ requires a different strategy than applying to be accepted. If you can afford schools simply based on their meeting need, than that opens up a lot more schools and a different application strategy than if your family’s ability to pay does not match the schools’ formula for giving need based aid. If their formula leaves a huge gap between what they expect and what you can afford, that moves the strategy to scholarship $$. (Which is not a complete mystery. Run the NPC at Tufts and see what it says your brother’s costs will be. Run calculators at the schools you are interested in and enter dates like he is already a college student and you are a sr.)
I know you haven’t appreciated my posts, but I am only sharing our experience in order to help you achieve your own goals. Scholarship $$ is competitive. That is the long and the short of it. A 1390 is not very scholarship competitive even if it is admissions qualifying.