Hello. I am a home schooled high school senior intending to major in aerospace engineering. I was panicked and depressed throughout the spring of my junior year worrying about where I would go to college. Both of my two older siblings had gone to the local state university, the flagship, with one living at home for the first couple years then moving out and supporting herself, the second still here finishing up. The big obstacle to me doing likewise? The college does not offer my intended degree, and I decided to be stubborn about going into the particular field I mentioned. So, that forced me to look elsewhere. Also, I would be looking for some pretty substantial aid, since with one kid still in college, my parents won’t be able to afford much.
Also, I had not done any foreign language in high school through my junior year, and I slowly realized that would be a problem, as most colleges wanted it. (I am taking Spanish now so that I will have at least one year.)
I didn’t know what universities would have AeroE, so I resorted to Google. I searched for a list of all the universities in the U.S. that offered degrees in that field and found one on Wikipedia. I then went to each and every college’s website, finding the admission requirements and a general idea of price. I was getting pretty discouraged as I searched through the list, as college after college wanted 2 or 3 years of foreign language. (My other state university does offer AeroE, and only requires 1 year of foreign language, but I’m getting ahead of myself.)
Finally towards, the bottom of the list, I found a university in Kansas - Wichita State University - that did not require any foreign language, just 3 electives! (I had so many credits in math - I will be finished with Calc III once I graduate high school - that I knew that would be no problem.) I had struck gold, in more ways than one, though I didn’t know it yet.
Anyways, WSU stayed on the back burner of my mind, though my path was still not clear yet. I also looked into another in-state university, finding that if I did a language in my senior year, I could get in there.
Now, as to the scholarship money. Back up to last fall, the PSAT season. I had done a bit of studying, mainly in the form of a series of practice tests, in the 2 weeks or so prior to the PSAT. I found that my scores waffled around the state cutoff scores, which were usually around 208-210. I didn’t know much about the rewards of making the cutoff, but my oldest sibling had been a NMS. Their college selection story is one to itself, but they did not use a large NMF scholarship to attend college, but my mom had a vague knowledge that even just a Finalist could find some good scholarships out there somewhere. At any rate, luck was with me, and I got a 211, just a point higher than the highest cutoff score in previous years. I was confident that I had made NMSF, and I would find out that I had. I began to realize in the fall of my senior year, that oh yeah, I needed to APPLY to colleges, and remembered vaguely the colleges I mentioned before. I was in the process of filling out the NMF paperwork when I realized that WSU offered full rides for NMFs!!! I also found that the state university I was considering offered almost-full-ride scholarships for both NMF AND NMSFs! In addition, I learned that my SAT essay would not be graded, giving me an SAT score of 2000, above the usual 1960 cutoff score (which I confirmed with NMSC that that is indeed the score for this year.) I retook the SAT in Nov., pulling my NMSC score up to 2050, giving me a slightly better buffer.
Eureka! I now have a path. I have been accepted to both WSU and the state university. If I make NMF, I will visit WSU soon after, and if I like the campus, go there. If by some oddity I don’t make NMF, I will attend the other in-state university (a few hours away from home) on the NMSF scholarship.
WSU has an interesting program in AeroE - it is one of their star fields at the university, and Wichita is filled with aerospace companies. There seems to be a lot of co-op/internship involvement within the student ranks, and oh, a lot of things I really like so far. The in-state university seems decent as well - I have visited there and I like it a great deal. I think I will be happy at either place.
I know neither of the universities are top dog places, but I never wanted the top ones because I knew I probably wouldn’t get in and even if by some miracle I did, there was no way I could pay for it, and I do NOT want to get into debt.
So, moral of the story is, if you are a round peg trying to fit in a square hole, you can find a way! There is a college for you out there! Good luck to all out there in CC-land. This was/is just my story, in case anybody was interested.