<p>Well, for those familiar with my story, my dad finally began the start of money. My parents make far too much for me to qualify for much, but not enough to pay it theirselfs. They also have only saved miniscule amounts through a state plan which quite frankly, barely benefits me, if at all. So he says I need to start applying to every scholarship I can get my hands on (which isn't a surprise, I've already been looking). My parents are very out of the loop with college, they don't even know AP tests are. So I'm in a position where my parents (who are seperated and can't agree on who should pick me up from volunteering, I don't know how they're going to work out this financial thing) say they'll pay for me to go anywhere I get accepted, but this would cause them to be in loans, oh, for the rest of their lives. They already have to push back retirement just to send us 4 kids to any college. This makes constructing a list of possible places I'll apply very difficult. My older sister received no money, and I won't be surprised to have the same fate. Also, do you know of any online sites that help clueless parents through the fin. aid process, especially for a more expensive school? Do you have any advice? Thanks for listening.</p>
<p>celebrian:</p>
<p>I can't help with the process, but just a bit of advice about looking for merit money. There are some threads on the parents forum and also on the financial aid board. Also check out the honors programs at some state universities such as Michigan or UIUC. These tend to have rolling admissions, so make sure to apply early. Some posters have mentioned fastweb.org as a good source of information about scholarships and financial/merit aid, so look that up. With a child in college, and two more coming up, your parents might be able to qualify for some financial aid. Also, as a URM, you may qualify for some specific scholarships; some of them are often quite local, so ask your GC about these.</p>
<p>Good luck. I'm sure that other posters will chime in with more concrete advice.</p>
<p>Also remember to apply to a couple of places that you can afford to go to even if you don't get any merit awards from them. Getting a merit scholarship is wonderful, but accept the fact that there are many brilliant and deserving applicants out there.</p>
<p>I am very aware of applying to financial safeties, but that's still 10,000-14,000 out of pocket a year. I doubt I'll get much merit aid through the colleges because I'm not spectacular or anything, not even at our regional universities.</p>
<p>Celebrian:</p>
<p>You don't have to be "spectacular" to win scholarships! Again, check out the admitted student threads, and the finaid board.</p>
<p>Celebrian, will you be in college at the same time as your sister, or will your other siblings overlap with you in college at any time? The parent contribution is smaller for each kid if you do overlap.</p>
<p>A good website for you and for your parents is <a href="http://www.finaid.org%5B/url%5D">www.finaid.org</a> which should help sort out the process a little. It has financial aid calulators, and links on the site really go deeply into the federal methodology. </p>
<p>If your parents are separated, the FAFSA will look at the income of only your custodial parent. The FAFSA is the financial aid form used by most state schools. Private colleges and some state schools also look at the information from the Profile form, which has a non-custodial parent part. Their information also is taken into account at those schools. The College Board website also has calculators which allow you to see both the FAFSA federal metholodogy for determining financial aid, and the Profile Institutional Methodology.</p>
<p>The best thing to do to start out is to check the websites of the schools you are most interested in to see what forms they require for financial aid.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for that information! When I'm a college freshman, my sister will be a senior, and when I am a junior, my brother will be a freshman. What is my custodial parent? Is that the one I live with?</p>
<p>The custodial parent is the one you live with. But beware, private colleges do look at the income of the other parent as well. One private college refused to increase the financial aid of an applicant whose father refused to contribute to her education, even though the father had been estranged for years.</p>
<p>So select a mix of schools that will be financial and academic reaches, matches, and safeties. apply early to safeties, especially if they have rolling admission deadlines and apply RD to the others so you can compare offers.</p>
<p>You could always look into taking out loans yourself.. That is what I did.</p>
<p>I have no idea what your stats are, but there are some schools out there that are simply dedicated to keeping their costs low - even lower than the surrounding state schools. Be sure to search those out. Two in PA are Grove City College & York College. Another avenue to consider is to go to a lower tier school that has a very highly respected program in your field of interest. The not so wonderful university may offer money for higher than average stats, while said department has an excellent reputation. An example is Temple's music program - well respected program, while the U itself is willing to give scholarships to attract good students. A friend of DD's was offered a free ride using this method.</p>
<p>Celebrian, I know that you are in Ohio. Some schools that you might consider. Ohio Northern. They have a PharmD program that they accept you into right as a Freshman. You don't have to do pre-pharmacy and apply after soph. year. I'm not sure of the stats but I think that they accept around 150 per year. I have also heard that they are very good with merit aid, I've heard that they will at least try to be competive with in-state tuition. </p>
<p>Another school with good merit aid is the University of Dayton. I know that these schools are not ivy league but they are something to think about as safeties. Also the University of Cincinnati offers merit aid for all who score over a 26 on their ACT.</p>
<p>I know quite a few kids who got merit money from OSU as well...</p>
<p>One of the biggest costs of a lot of colleges is room and board. Is there a school that you could commute to and still live at home?</p>
<p>I know that being a commuter student isn't "ideal", but remember that the most important part of college is getting the education.</p>
<p>You could also consider attending community college for a year or two and transferring. This may not be ideal either, but many community colleges have agreements with universities that guarantee your acceptance and that the credits will transfer.</p>
<p>Celebrian, You have a few special things going for you to keep in mind. First, you have a great state system in Ohio to use as a financial back up. Second, you are way ahead of most other kids your age in terms of thinking about what you are looking for. Third, your minority status could work in your favor if you target some schools that offer merit scholarships for minorities. </p>
<p>On my college blog, I recently gave a tip that I've found helpful in finding merit scholarships: go to google and type in 1200 SAT merit scholarships (you can also try higher and lower SAT numbers). You can do the same for your GPA, i.e. 3.5 GPA merit scholarships. Best to round up or down to the closest big number. I'd also do a search for minority student merit scholarship and diversity merit scholarship. This technique should help you to turn up colleges with merit scholarships in your range. Start going through those colleges using the links that turn up and see what you find.</p>
<p>celebrian - check out Bowling Green, my son was offered free tuition/fees automatically if you have a 3.8/30 ACT or 1300 SAT. Good luck!</p>
<p>Wow Mominsearch! Do you know if that offer is only for instate students or does it apply to out of state students as well? Either way, what a fanatastic opportunity!</p>
<p>carolyn - instate students, but if you want to make sure just go to their website & check it out. They have a really nice graph which explains all the merit scholarships (so much easier to follow than most of Ohio state colleges & only one which offers this GREAT deal). My son decided to attend Case Western Reserve University because they offered him about the same out of pocket money, but he would have went to Bowling Green if Case hadn't. We were very impressed with BG's Honor Program. I think the only downfall of this school is that I don't think they offer engineering.</p>
<p>Just looked at that page and you're right, they do have an excellent website. Looks like a VERY good financial value, even for out of state students - total annual cost for out of state students (including tuition, room board, etc) is $21,679. What's more, according to their scholarship page it looks like those full ride merit scholarships ARE available to out of state students (still need to pay room/board). </p>
<p>Here's the quote from the scholarship website:</p>
<p>Any student with a cumulative grade point average of 3.8 (on a 4.0 scale) at the end of the junior year and 30 or greater ACT composite or 1300 or greater SAT Verbal + Math will be awarded a full fees scholarship. This scholarship covers general and instructional fees and when applicable NONRESIDENT FEES. These scholarships are automatically awarded to any student meeting the above criteria and submitting the application for admission along with the required credentials by January 15.</p>
<p>Looks like even kids with lower test scores and grades are also considered for some nice scholarships, especially when you consider the low price to begin with. For example, URM's with GPAs of above 3.0 and test scores of above 1000 automatically get the same full tuition deal. When you consider that room/board is only $6224 a year, you could do quite nicely there for a very reasonable price. Looks like Michigan and Illinois residents get even more price breaks. Overall, may be a "hidden gem" for kids looking for a low cost option.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/admissions/choose/scholarships.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/admissions/choose/scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>By the way, Rugg's lists Bowling Greens strengths as art, business administration, Education, geology and music. They have a very strong and well-established creative writing program as well. Plus, looks like they have strong programs in some unusual majors like sports management, retail merchandising, and recreation, in addition to solid offerings in sciences, social sciences, and English. I notice that they also have an honors program. Thanks mominsearch for pointing out this school!</p>