<p>Many of the colleges recommended to me based on my stats and interests include Rice, Emory, Washington St. Louis, and Brown. These are all great schools, but aren't safeties, which makes me concerned about both acceptance and merit aid. I can get about $20k a year from my parents, and their combined income is $150k a year. We're not rich, but we're not going to get need based aid, either- so merit aid is important.
I would like to know what schools may be safeties for me and/or provide merit aid. Liberal arts or universities, public or private, all welcome!
Here are my stats:
SAT - 2300 800 critical reading, 780 writing, math 720
GPA is 3.75 UW, 5+ W
9 AP classes, all 5's and 4's
Top 10% of class
From Maryland, extracurriculars include acting, directing, mock trial, dance, camp counselor</p>
<p>Thanks for any help, and if you have recommendations in general for anyone who needs a safety+merit combo, regardless of my stats, feel free to add that as well :)</p>
<p>I believe you’d get full ride at University of Alabama, which would bring your total cost of attendance much less than 20k/yr, within your affordability range.</p>
<p>W&L is probably more of a match than a safety, but you might want to check out their Johnson Scholarships <a href=“The Johnson Program”>The Johnson Program;
<p>My daughter borrowed my account to start the OP and pretty much restated info I posted in an earlier post. We can pay max $35,000 a yr, but all else is accurate.</p>
<p>She’s getting nervous about safeties and she is focusing her search on them now.</p>
<p>Meeting with her counselor again to get advice. :)</p>
<p>With your parent’s income, you are going to be expected to pay much more than $20K. If they really won’t budge on that, you should probably not get your hopes up for any high-ranking colleges that don’t give merit aid. My parents make about the same amount, and we have to pay $53K a year with our very small financial aid package (made up only of loans and work-study). Luckily for you, though, you could get really nice merit scholarships at just about anywhere that offers them.</p>
<p>With your SAT & GPA you may be eligible for a good merit scholarship at Tulane. It is not guaranteed, however, but the application is free. You could also apply for the competitive scholarship there as well.</p>
<p>If you apply to Tulane, do the Why Tulane essay and anything else you can do to convince them that you’re interested and not just using them as a safety. Might be good for 30K in merit, but that still leaves you with 35 this year.</p>
<p>On the low end, you have Alabama. If that doesn’t appeal to you, on the lower priced end of the spectrum, University of Maryland ought to be a no-brainer. If you want smaller, try SUNY Binghamton, Truman State, UMBC, SUNY Geneseo, University of Minnesota-Morris. You might get great merit at University of Pittsburgh which has a lot of high stats students who are attracted to their scholarships, urban life, and honors program. </p>
<p>Some privates that might provide substantial merit include Case and Rochester, but as jkeil noted, most merit awards still leave quite a bill. I think Dickinson provides quite a bit of merit. </p>
<p>35K isn’t that bad, the student can makup about 8K (5500 loan, 2500 work etc), so $43K cost of attendance leaves a lot of openings. I think Rochester attracts a lot of high stats students who pay in that range. They give you an idea of the merit you can expect right on their website. </p>
<p>Canadian schools like McGill and Toronto are well within your budget. A place like University of Wisconsin is right on the hairy edge. </p>
<p>Delaware has a great honors program and is within budget and a safety.</p>
<p>You could probably get merit aid at schools such as Fordham, Tulane, or Muhlenberg (to name a couple), although I"m not certain that it would be enough to cover the rest of the costs. In general look for some schools where you are in the top 25% or so of the statistics. Also certainly consider your state flagship as a financial safety. And the SUNY schools (ex. SUNY Binghamton or SUNY Genesco) have good OOS rates.</p>
<p>Hi, OP here. I only took the SAT once, so that score is a single sitting. My intended major is gender studies. I’m not a NMF. Thanks for the suggestions so far!</p>
<p>The thing that I am having trouble with as I try to find where I may get merit is how to gauge the likelihood just based off of a school’s website. When I go on some schools’ sites, I read that they offer merit aid, but there is no additional information supplied, or there are details about particular scholarships that I feel are unlikely for me to achieve (I don’t have a 4.0 because I got B’s in challenging classes; I didn’t do exceptional amounts of community service because I spent a lot of time doing specialized things like theatre and dance.)
As I have asked my school counselors or here on CC, places where I may get aid have been recommended, but due to the lack of information on websites (unless I’m missing something), no place seems to offer much more aid than another. I can’t just apply to 10+ schools hoping one might give me merit aid- how do I get more information so I can narrow it down? How do I know if I may get a scholarship or may simply get money with acceptance (my understanding is that is also a form of merit aid.) This is the most important factor right now, since I have my reaches figured out.</p>
<p>Can anyone link any threads where this is discussed, or give me tips on how to decipher these websites better? Thanks so much for your help.</p>
<p>Look at the threads in post #3. Those are assured merit aid. If the web sites are coy on supplying details it usually means the merit is competitive and then it depends on the quality of student from year to year. </p>
<p>UMCP is a near-safety for the OP’s stats. The in-state COA is about $20K.
St. Mary’s College of MD (Md’s public “honors college”) also is a near-safety. In- state COA is ~$28K. So both are well under the $35K this family apparently can afford. </p>
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<p>A $150K family income should qualify for need-based aid from Brown and other “full need” schools.
You might get as much as $25K-$30K/year or so. Unless family assets reduce that significantly, your net cost to attend a “full need” school like Brown may be under your $35K limit. Run the online Net Price Calculators.</p>
<p>Few if any of these are safeties, but many are less selective than Brown.</p>
<p>To roughly estimate the likelihood of merit aid and the probably amount, look up the number of students who receive merit aid and the average dollar amounts. This information is in the school’s Common Data Set file, section H (and on the Kiplinger’s site for many private schools).</p>
<p>According to Kiplinger’s, Case Western awards merit aid to 53% of students, averaging ~$21K per award. So the OP may have a decent shot of getting under the $35K limit after merit aid from Case Western.</p>
<p>If you decide to apply to Pitt Honors for merit aid, apply as early as possible. Rhodes has Presidential (merit) scholarships, which could put you under $20K without loans since their tuition is lower than many schools. One friend was offered a full merit scholarship to Oxford College of Emory a year ago, but she turned it down because she wanted to be on the main campus.</p>
<p>Check out University of south Carolina honors college. Even some smaller scholarships at USC come with OOS tuition waiver. Money Matters under financial aid gives you a good look at what it takes to get scholarship money. They are not absolute numbers since depends on class applying, but your stats put you in the top. There is guaranteed money and computer for NMF.</p>
<p>Ditto to @scmom12’s post. Nephew is at SC’s honors college; he was an Eagle Scout with good grades and decent (not stellar) scores and received a generous scholarship. He is really happy with their international business program, which is highly ranked.</p>