Happy 2019 first off (finally applying to college this year).
I was looking for more colleges that have good reputations (or pResTiGe whatever), good financial aid (I am low income) but are not as selective as colleges like Columbia or Brown, my faves.
I came across Washington University in St Louis. and Tufts University. Both have around 14-15% acceptance rate and also have really good aid. They’re both really appealing to me. Tufts a little more.
Does anyone have any other recommendations? Or maybe reasons NOT to apply to WashU or Tufts?
Wash U and Tufts are also very selective schools. That doesn’t mean you should not apply, but it does mean that you need to craft a list that includes some likely schools as well.
A few questions:
Can your family contribute anything to help pay?
Do you know your EFC?
Have you used the net price calculators?
What are your stats? Have you thought about schools where you would get significant merit?
What are you looking for in a school? What is it that you like about the four schools that you listed?
If you provide some more information you will receive a lot of good advice.
As a general rule of thumb, the better, or more generous the financial aid, the harder it is to get in. If the 85% reject rate is comfortable for you, there a lot more than two colleges in that niche. If you like Brown and Tufts, you might like Emory (18.5% admit rate); Wesleyan U. (16% admit rate); Williams College (15%); Most of the NESCACs, depending on your tolerance for cold weather: https://www.nescac.com/about/about
“As a general rule of thumb, the better, or more generous the financial aid, the harder it is to get in.”
This is not necessarily true. It MAY be true for need based aid, as very selective, long established universities, like Harvard for example, have very large endowments.
It is absolutely not true when it comes to merit aid. Highly selective schools do not need to offer merit to entice students to attend. In fact, the whole Ivy League forbids it. Tufts gives no merit aid.
There are quite a few more colleges that meet need, but are not need blind (so if you need a lot of aid, you want to have high stats for that particular school to improve your odds).
The more outstanding you are compared to a school, the more likely they are to want you and thus throw money at you. Since fish size is pretty much fixed by junior year you can only adjust pond size at this point, so the schools you need to look at will be determined by how big a fish you are and how much merit you need.
As pointed out above, you’d need to be a whale to get a lot of merit at some of the schools you’ve named. If you need a lot of merit then you’re going to want to start looking at smaller ponds and working your way back up to Emory or WashU or Williams. As an example of this, Brown famously publishes a list of the high stats of the kids they don’t take, so your sanguine approach to 15% acceptance levels may be misplaced. Do some more looking around if you really need the merit money.
@circuitrider, the most of the ultra-selective schools in the country do not offer merit aid of any kind, only aid based on financial need. Why? They don’t need to and don’t want to get into a financial arms race with each other. That includes, but is not limited to, every Ivy, Tufts, MIT, Stanford, and many of the most selective LACs including Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, Wellesley, and Vassar. Many of these schools meet 100% of financial need through. This will be EFC dependent and may include loans.
@circuitrider, you said: “As a general rule of thumb, the better, or more generous the financial aid, the harder it is to get in.”
For merit aid, it is completely opposite. The hardest schools to get into are the LEAST generous. They give ZERO merit aid. Less selective schools, some even ultra easy admits, primarily ones trying to boost their national profiles, are the schools that offer the best merit aid. Think engineering at Alabama as an example.
If you are from VA, UVA is definitely one to consider (or try VT - my Alma mater…as it “kills” me to only recommend UVA ).
If you prefer private and a research U, run the NPC at the University of Rochester to see how it turns out for you.
If you want smaller, try Union College in NY or Wake Forest in NC.
If your stats are high enough to have a realistic chance at very selective schools, consider looking for schools with potentially good merit aid too (like Pitt).
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