Suggestions for Target and Safety Schools?

College Search & Selection
1

I’m a high school junior looking to expand my college list with more target and reach schools. My current list includes WashU, UChicago, St. Olaf, and Hope College. I haven’t taken the SAT recently, but I got a 1470 out of 1520 on the PSAT. I have a 3.9 unweighted GPA, about 4.5 weighted. I’m ranked 3rd in my class of 700, and I’ll graduate with 9 AP classes. I’m involved in choir, theatre, math team, NHS, and working with students with special needs.

I’ve been looking mostly at schools in the Midwest, but I’m open to schools that are farther away. My family will probably not receive much needed based aid, but we cannot afford the sticker price of most private schools. I’m looking for some schools where I could receive merit scholarships but still be intellectually stimulated and be around other students who love learning.

2

Depending on major, I would suggest UIUC and possibly UMich for “safeties”. I know these aren’t really safeties for anyone since state schools are so heavily skewed toward those who live there, but I think you’d have a good chance. If you’re really open to going far, I would recommend the Pomona consortium (again, depends on major).

3

UIUC and Michigan are NOT safeties. Match, maybe high match? Sure. To suggest either is a safety though is to not understand the concept. A safety isn’t a school where “you have a good chance.” A safety is a school you KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt you will get into AND you KNOW you will be able to afford.

As for midwestern schools known for merit aid, you might want to look at Case Western, Macalester and Kenyon.

Good luck!

4

There are pinned threads about automatic merit award schools, which include Alabama and others. For schools which do not use a simple stat based system to award merit, you want to be in the top 25% of admitted students plus bring leadership or other desirable skills/experience to campus. Hope, St Olaf’s and Case are good to have on your list for merit purposes. Michigan and Illinois do not give/give very little merit money to OOS students, so not good options to meet the merit goal. I also believe that Claremont College consortium does not give merit awards, so again, not an option.

As a parent, I suggest that your family run the Net Price Calculator at a few schools (if you haven’t already) to get a sense of what the financial aid eligibility might look like. If you can afford close to full pay, but not quite full pay, then some state flagships like Wisconsin (no merit aid), Minnesota, which are around $10-12k less than privates per year, might be affordable. Midwest publics which do give merit awards to OOS students include Indiana and Iowa.

In the midwest, the schools I know well which give good merit include Denison, Kalamazoo, Wooster, Knox, Earlham, Lawrence, Beloit. Dickinson and St Lawrence in central PA and upstate NY respectively, also give about 1/2 tuition in merit awards, I don’t believe their awards go higher than that. Rhodes College in Memphis, Centre College in KY, also give good merit awards. Many highly ranked schools on the east coast do not give merit awards so – the NESCAC schools like Amherst, Williams – as well as Haverford, Swarthmore, Vassar do not give merit awards.

At a certain point – and preferably sooner rather than later – you and your family will want to have a good handle on finances. Depending on where that stands, reaches could have to come off your list, because they won’t give merit to students for whom they are reaches. For what it’s worth, my own student had only safety/matches on his list because we are full pay but cannot afford full pay price – so only schools which would give close to 1/2 tuition awards remained on his list. That kind of adjustment in expectations is reality for many students.

5

^^what @Midwestmomofboys said.

You can ask the GC at school & the folks here on CC as to experience with merit aid, but you can also look at [url=<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/%5Dthis%5B/url”>http://www.collegedata.com/]this[/url] site, search by college, and go to the “Money Matters” page to get an indication of merit awards- how many they give and what the average award is.

6

Thank you all for your help! I really appreciate it!

7

@bookworm346 Ask your parents how much they WILL pay per year for college.

8

Check out Macalester and Denison.

9

@eyemgh yes, I know what a safety is, but if the OP keeps up his/her stats if they are in state for either of these schools (especially UIUC) I think they should consider Michigan as a match/high match (OOS, IS) and UIUC as a high match/safety (OOS, IS) depending on major. If their major is engineering, UIUC will be harder. I’m just saying, for most of their colleges, there is a very high chance they would get in.

@bookworm346 - apply to schools that you wouldn’t normally consider (e.g. the University of Iowa) because there is a good chance that you could get a full ride based on merit. Iowa’s facilities are amazing and Iowa City is great. This all depends on how focused on financial aid you are.

10

@futureengineer02, I mean no offense to the OP, as an unweighted 3.9 is nothing to sneeze at. GPA is the number one factor in predicting future success and typically the highest weighted piece of data in an admissions portfolio though. A 3.9 will be a strike at Chicago, Wash U and Michigan. Major will dictate where UIUC falls. I wouldn’t recommend it as the only safety school. This forum is littered with applicants who were too narrow in their lists and aren’t getting in anywhere. This isn’t because they aren’t qualified, but that there are simply FAR too many qualified applicants for the limited schools they are applying to. As an example, Cal Poly rejected 6000 4.0 students last year. The OP needs a sure thing safety.

11

What’s your parents’budget and how does that compare with your EFC? This will guide your college search.

To get you started, look into Grinnell, Denison, Case, Wooster, Beloit, Lawrence, Gustavus Adolphus, Macalester, Butler, Drake, Hendrix.

12

State schools that give good/decent aid to OOS students are UNC, UVA and Michigan… but none of them are matches. At best, they are high matches for unhooked OOS applicants. (25-40% chance of admission)

For strong merit-based aid for a kid with your likely rank, GPA and stats, I think you should be looking at LACs ranked about 30 and lower on the US News LAC ranking and maybe 40 and lower on the University ranking. Those are also going to be match-range schools for you. (and once admit rates hit about 50% and your stats are at or above the 75th%, you can start to call it a safety.)

And then there are the schools with automatic merit, like Alabama and Ole Miss.

13

UC schools
Colorado College
Carleton College
Macalester
Mizzou

14

UC’s give NO financial aid to OOS. so, 60k/ year every year.
I don’t think Carleton gives merit.

15

Lots of good intel above… a couple add’l points…

I note the choir / theater / math combination in your interests. That begs the question about how important the arts are to you - and suggests a LAC could be a great match.

They all have specialties… so for example Middlebury is a great LAC, and is particularly strong in languages, has a stunning campus and a lot of winter. Grinnell is highly ranked, sends a lot of kids off to graduate school, and has very few required courses so you can design your own learning. It is a smaller college with about 1800 students (if memory serves.).

St Olaf offers both casual music (⅓ of the students participate in some musical group) and also conservatory level music without the conservatory. They have more required courses because they seek well rounded graduates, and they also are something like 12th among all undergraduate colleges in the number that go on the PhDs (particularly in math - one of your core interest, perhaps.)

Merit - all three of these offer both merit and need based assistance. There are many other options. If music is important to you, you really need to visit Olaf.

Here is a way to estimate your chances for merit aid: If your SAT /ACT scores fall in the middle or higher of a college’s top 25% (and if they offer merit aid), then they are likely to throw a lot of money at you. My DD falls in that camp and was awarded a considerable amount of merit aid (about 27K per year). And that merit aid doesn’t go away (for example when her brother graduates in two years and the need part of the package will evaporate.)

All in all - you want to find the place that feels like the right fit, where you find your tribe, where they offer what you want to study, and where – if you need merit aid, you fall in that 25% of the typically admitted class.

Hope that helps some.

16

Have you looked at Lawrence in Wisconsin?

As a larger school, I have heard that Creighton in Omaha gives good merit money. They have a med school and hospital where you could probably continue volunteering with children with special needs.