So here are my junior DD stats:
3.78 wgpa in a highly rated high school in our state.
32 ACT (33 superscored) and she is taking again
School does not rank
Major: bio engineering or possible chemical engineering
URM (African American)
EC:
Varsity basketball all years
AAU in off-season
Math league
Leadership in NPH club
Participates in a stem class/program that partners with local businesses in engineering projects and then presents solutions to the business teams
Was chosen to participate in a paid biomedical research internship this summer at a University of Pittsburgh/Magee Women’s Research Institute (one of ten participants)
Merit aid/financial aid is very important
We have reaches figured out:
Case Western Reserve
Vanderbilt
Emory
Matches:
Pitt
Alabama
Ohio state
Safeties
Mizzou
Temple
We’d like to beef up our match/safety choices. Thoughts?? Thanks for the feedback in advance
I think applying to state schools that are not in your state aren’t the best options for aid/merit unless it’s known for that, such as Alabama. Unless you live in Missouri their state school might not be the best option. With your D’s stats and hooks you might want to focus on meets full need schools and schools that tell you how much you get up front based on your stats.
We will look at all of these options and run the net price calculators on them. How about safeties? Estimated efc calculators give us an EFC of around $9200, which is around what we can afford. Looking for some safeties to add to our list.
You say 3.78 weighted GPA? When people only provide a weighted GPA it is difficult to assess because seemingly every school weights grades slightly differently–plus, colleges themselves aren’t always clear whether THEY are using weighted or unweighted GPA’s in calculating admission or scholarships.
Alabama I would call a safety as far as admission goes, but a match/reach for significant merit aid depending on your daughter’s GPA. If she is interested in engineering, also think about Auburn–same scholarships but a more engineering/science focused school. Also think about Georgia Tech–though I don’t know much about their admission standards, but I would guess your daughter is a match there (merit aid, I have no idea).
Missouri in Columbia is the main campus and has a good engineering school, but the top engineering program in Missouri is Missouri S&T, which used to be called Missouri-Rolla (and everyone still just calls it “Rolla” for the town) because it is part of the University of Missouri system. All the hard-core wannabe engineering students in Missouri go there and that is where national recruiters come. I would think your daughter with her resume would have no problems getting in, it merit aid I know nothing about. (The only engineer I know personally who did engineering at Missouri-Columbia became a patent attorney.)
I don’t think Emory has engineering. Also, I think your daughter is going to get into most of those schools. 33 act plus black woman engineer is a pretty good combo.
http://scholarships.ua.edu/faq/ suggests that weighted GPA on the transcript will be used. However, some schools use unweighted GPA or recalculate GPA their own way.
Other potential big scholarship safeties (check school web sites in case they have changed since this list was made; also check for the desired majors): http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
@Proudmama2 - Take a look at the following document from the ACT. It is dated, but the numbers will not have changed much. Page 12 has the relevant statistics. It shows that out of 240,000 blacks that took the ACT that year, only 475 scored a composite 32 or above.
That would place your DD among the top 500 AA ACT test takers in the nation. To put that in perspective, every year more than 75,000 students achieved a composite score of 32 or more.
Given that your DD will be a woman with a STEM background, she would be highly prized by any number of schools.
My advice would be to find a good safety you are comfortable with (Alabama sounds good) and then reach for the stars by adding some Ivies, Stanford, etc. The need based aid offered by these schools is excellent. The following is a link to Harvard’s Net Price Calculator which makes it very to check what the tuition would be.
Thank you for all of the replies. To be honest it is a bit overwhelming looking at those statistics (I found the 2016 report) and feel blessed that my daughter has performed well. I will definitely have her look at the additional possibilities for her college choices. I will keep everyone updated.
So after reviewing all of the information that was graciously offered we added another safety in Louisiana Tech, and some high reaches in Tulane, Duke, and John Hopkins. I Know that they are likely shots in the dark, but there is no shot if she doesn’t apply. We plan on doing a “Southern college tour” this summer to get a feel for the schools and where is a good fit for her. Our approach is for her to find something she like about every school so that you will be content no matter where she ends up. Let me know what you think about these options.
HIGHLY recommend University of Miami, RPI and University of Michigan. University of Miami has the Hammond Scholarship for AA candidates (~36 students per year) full tuition scholarship for 4-years and excellent support staff for their scholars. I would target schools with excellent support systems in place for AA students (RPI, Miami, Michigan, etc.). The sad realities are many capable AA engineering students start, but never finish their engineering degree.
As far as safeties are concern, I would add 1 or 2 Engineering-related HBCU (Howard, Prairie View A&M, NC A&T). These HBCUs are top universities for recruiting of minority engineering students.
OP, have you daughter considered Mechanical Engineering as oppose to Biomedical Engineering (may require an advance degree for employment) or even Chemical Engineering (tends to be “brutal” at most engineering schools)?
Please make sure she loves her safeties. An academically strong URM candidate is a draw, but bioengineering is one of the toughest majors to get into everywhere that admits by major. Read school websites carefully about how to get into the program. A few schools, like Hopkins, don’t admit by major overall, but do for bioengineers. Bioengineer applicants get some surprise rejections, just because their major is so “hot” right now.
Do you know about Net Price Calculators? There is one on every college website. Use them to check for affordability before you apply. Not all the schools being suggested above are equally generous for scholarships and aid. All NPCs report need based aid. If they ask about things like GPA, test score, and URM status, they may estimate your merit award as well.
I’ve run net price calculators on every school we consider to make sure they should be affordable for us. Much of her high school engineering experience has been in mechanical engineering. She has experience using CnC machines (sp?) And using inventor software and most of her business partnership projects have been related to mechanical engineering. She feels that she would like to end up doing tissue engineering in the future and knows that graduate school will be a necessity. My daughter has not expressed an interest in HBCU and would like a campus with diversity if possible, although her educational background has been she has always been a less than 1%. My H and I decided early on that education was a priority for our children and have made sacrifices so that we would be in a district that can provide them with a positive environment and opportunities to reach their potential. So far it has worked well. In our research of colleges with good biomedical programs Vanderbilt and Duke top RPI. Emory does a 3-2 program with GIT so that is why she is looking at Emory (net price calculator on Emory was affordable. GIT was not). Tulane is known to do some good work in tissue engineering so that is how it got on our list. Unfortunately our flagship state schools are quite expensive and not known for giving great merit aid. But if Pitt was affordable it would be an excellent school.