From what I’ve found online, U Rochester has Merit Scholarships from 2k to full tuition. I would need a scholarship to be closer to full tuition to consider going there.
My info:
White Male of upper-middle class ( not expecting much from FAFSA)
Intended major: Mechanical Engineering
U Rochester is OOS for me
ACT:34
GPA: 5.55 on our odd 5.0 scale where regular class As count for 5, and AP As count as a 6
Alright extracurricular involvement
I’m just trying to figure out how generous the school is with scholarships so I can guage whether I even want to bother applying. Any input is appreciated, thanks!
UR has a merit award eligibility estimator as part of its NPC.
After you complete the financial info portion, there will be a pop-up window where you have the option to pick the student profile that most closely approximates your academic and non-academic description.
From what I’ve seen, you’d probably get at least the $15k per year award. I wouldn’t think you’d get near or full-tuition.
What is your situation?
You won’t get a dime of free money by filing FAFSA. You’ll get offered a $5,500 loan…that’s it.
You say that you need full tuition. Does that mean that your parents have said that they’ll pay about $15k per year (the cost of room, board, fees, books)?
If not, what have they said that they’ll pay each year?
It’s less than $15k that my parents are offering, so I shouldn’t even bother applying if scholarships will be that limited, which is what I wanted to know. At that point I’d be much better off staying in state and going to UIUC. At least it narrows my list down!
@EllieMom I am curious how much merit aid your daughter received? And how could tuition from Rochester–even with merit aid–be less than UIUC? My daughter, a rising senior, has similar–well maybe slightly below your daughters stats–and even if she got the maximum of $24,000 merit aid from Rochester, that would bring tuition down from $48,000 to $24,000. Is UIUC tuition for instate higher than $24,000?? Even assuming we could get tuition down as low as to $24,000, the room and board (approx $14,000) and other expenses would bring cost of attendance to between $38,000 to $42,000, which unfortunately is out of our price range. If cost of attendance could gets down to low thirties maximum, she’d consider applying.
@EllieMom@trackmbe3 UIUC tuition is around 20k, so the UR merit would need to be around 30k to make it less than UIUC tuition… even then with room, board, and fees it is still very expensive…
@d012939 and @trackmbe3 D is in one of those majors that UIUC charges a premium for, so she would be at the top of the range (about $21,000 for tuition alone). UR’s half-tuition scholarship + an undergrad research grant made COA at the two schools virtually identical. She was also eligible for workstudy at UR, which made it just slightly less expensive than UIUC. What made the numbers work for us was not that UR is inexpensive but that UIUC is a VERY expensive public for in-state students.
The Research & Innovation Grant (RIG) is stipend used to fund a research project and cannot be used to pay for tuition or campus room & board costs. (Or at least that’s how D2’s worked.) Or maybe EllieD had something different.
Full tuition merit is very difficult to get at UR. The only scholie that offers full tuition is the Global & Renaissance Scholarship-- of which only 20 are awarded annually. Even NMF only gets you $20-22K/year.
The Ren Scholarships go to people who not only have excellent (though not necessarily top) academics, but to those who have the potential to be campus leaders and make a lasting impact on the student body. ECs and success in the face of adversity play a big role in getting the Ren. (D1 was a Ren finalist at UR.)
UR was more still expensive even after scholarships than our state flagship for D2 because she had an automatic full tuition + $12,000/year (more than full R&B) scholarship based upon her ACT + high school GPA.
@mom2collegekids dont worry I have plenty of schools on my list with guaranteed scholarships. I applied to Bama already, for example ( @thumper1). This is one of the expensive schools on my list that I’m iffy on applying to bc of the price, so I’m trying to figure out scholarship chances to determine if it’s worth it to apply. Your info has been helpful, so thanks!
@pickpocket unfortunately I just missed NMSF score on PSAT, and my parents arent alums.
@WayOutWestMom thanks for those details! In other words, I’ll still have to pay over $50k to go to UR, which is insane (Im not NMSF, and probably won’t get Ren bc ECs aren’t outstanding and no great overcoming adversity success stories to tell)
@mom2collegekids And UIUC is basically too expensive for me for that reason, which is why I said I’d be better off going there than UR, but schools like Bama with guaranteed scholarships are much more affordable. It’s just the tradeoff between prestige and affordability, which I had another forum on