I live in PA and my household has four people. My mom is not married and works full time. My EFC is around $45-50,000 but we definitely can’t afford to pay that for college, my mom can’t contribute more than $30,000. I am depending on a lot of merit aid, as I don’t think I am eligible for much, if any, financial aid. I am not 100% sure what I want to major in, I am thinking something along the lines of biostatistics, public/global health, or bioinformatics, but that is not completely decided. I also want a college that offers study abroad opportunities, as I am very interested in global studies. No matter what my major ends up being, I am planning on going to graduate school. I am going into my senior year this fall.
UW GPA: 3.96
Weighted GPA: 4.96
SAT: 1470, I am a National Merit commend scholar, maybe a semifinalist (results have not been released yet)
ACT: 35
At the end of this year (junior year) I will have taken 5 AP classes. I am planning on taking around 5 next year. I play an instrument and am in marching band, but my college does not have to have one, I am not going to go into any music related field.
I want a college that has more than 5000 undergrads and is urban. I don’t want to go farther south than Virginia (can’t take the heat). I’d like a diverse campus andI don’t care about sororities. The colleges don’t have to be an Ivy or anything too prestigious, but I want to go to a college that is well ranked and well-regarded in the eyes of employers.
Does anyone have suggestions on colleges I should apply to in addition to what I can do in the next year to make my transcript and applications better and more appealing to colleges?
Pitt sounds like your obvious in-state option. They are excellent in all things health-related and offer undergrad programs in Bioinformatics, Statistics, and International Studies; and their school of Public Health offers both undergrad certificate programs (i.e. Global Health) and a five-year accelerated BS-MPH (with potential emphases in Biostatistics, Global Health, etc.). The size and urban location match what you are looking for as well. It would be a great financial deal (even more so with likely merit aid) and you’d be automatically admitted to Honors based on your test scores. It seems to me that Pitt should set the bar in terms of offering a top-notch education for a great price in the kind of setting you want.
From there, you can look at what is out there that can do better than this high bar for quality and value. Basically, if you don’t go with a PA public U, then you’re on the hunt for merit aid, because top-tier schools that meet full need but don’t offer merit are not going to give you the money you need to attend. (And a lot of the tippy-top merit aid schools are farther south than you’re willing to consider.) There may be a few schools that have programs/settings that you like better than Pitt and that will offer the merit money you need, but I have a feeling it will be hard to beat Pitt on the combination of quality, fit, and price… especially once you rule out all of the big-merit schools south of Virginia!
Maybe USC (especially if you get NMF) - is SoCal too hot too? Case Western Reserve is a great urban merit-aid school that is strong in STEM, Medicine, and Public Health, so that deserves a close look. U of Rochester’s undergrad degree in Epidemiology might be a good fit, and they also have a 5-year BA/BS-MPH program. (And merit $, and a city) But coming in under $30K is going to be a tall order for any of these, and Pitt is competitive quality-wise with all of them, especially in your areas of interest.
Congratulations on your hard work and success!
Here’s an interesting article from the NYT about how much elite schools charge students based on their family income. NYT has a pay wall, but you can read a couple of articles for free.
Usually I like to see students on CC get away from the idea that only the Top 20 or Top 30 ranked schools are desirable. In fact, there are many, many excellent schools where students are just as bright and where they can get just as good of an education as at Yale or Harvard, which are terrific schools.
In your case, though, I’d advise taking a look at some very competitive schools where they have enough money to meet full financial need for a fairly large number of students. You have strong grades and scores. It is important to understand that these schools (Ivy League, etc.) deny admission to many more qualified students than they accept. We visited a top LAC. They said 70% of applicants were fully qualified, and the school thought they would succeed academically and otherwise. It accepted 14% at the time. So 4 in 5 fully qualified applicants were denied admission. Still, you’d be a very reasonable candidate at any school. You’d get significant aid if accepted. So maybe take a shot at some of those. But also have some safety/matches.
You can use that NYT list and google “colleges that meet full financial need.” Keep in mind that they might be “need aware” in admissions. Also, as you indicate, they might calculate a higher EFC than your family can actually pay.
Some I find that more or less meet your criteria Barnard College (smaller but connected to Columbia), Yale, Brown, Cornell, Duke, Case Western Reserve U. (CWRU, “Crew,” Cleveland’s really a pretty good city, and CWRU is in a pretty nice part of it), Wellesley (very nice suburban town near Boston), Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Tufts, Washington University in St. Louis.
Other schools might be WPI (I think you’d get good merit there, we really love the school, about 5k undergrads, beautiful campus, check it out, recent grads have some of the highest starting salaries), Pittsburgh, Rochester, and Syracuse (not sure about aid there).
Here’s a nice, concise merit aid chart for Miami of Ohio (from last year). Note that it super-scores for admission AND aid. Also note the early deadline for merit aid and that these numbers qualify a student, but don’t guarantee these levels of award. Still, a terrific school that I’d think would be a safety for you, and would offer the possibility of significant merit aid.
http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/
Good luck!
Look into University of Delaware! I am an out of state student. With stats even lower than yours, I received $15,000 a year in merit aid and got into the honors program. This brought my cost of attendance including room and board down to $26,000 a year. A great deal for a really great, well known college. They also have tons of programs.
OP—your mom can contribute $30K total or $30K per year?
@TTG “In your case, though, I’d advise taking a look at some very competitive schools where they have enough money to meet full financial need for a fairly large number of students.” What am I missing? If their EFC is $45-50K per year, there isn’t much financial “need” that these schools are going to fill is there?
@carachel2 $30K a year. Yeah the big issue is that we are in that upper-middle class range. We have enough finances that we won’t get need based aid but not enough money to be able to afford just covering the cost of tuition, especially for OOS or private schools
Pitt would be a great choice.
Do not be dissuaded from checking out WPI because of costs. The latest data on the WPI website CDS regarding FA is for the 2016 year. From their own endowment they paid out $54,746,490 for undergraduate scholarships to meet financial need and it appears they are anxious to raise the ratio of women to men to 50/50. A biomedical research center is on campus and a good deal of joint research is ongoing with the U Mass Med school just across town. All students receive an automatic credit of up to $5,000 toward the cost of participation in their overseas project centers. Just this past week another alumnus just dropped an anonymous, unrestricted $12,000,000 gift on the endowment. There is no guarantee that your need will be met, but TTG’s referenced article tells a story (see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/05/opinion/columnists/what-college-really-costs.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region)
The entire university program is based on three undergraduate projects, see https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan
For Biology and Biotechnology see https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/biology-biotechnology
For Bioengineering see https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/biomedical-engineering
The seven week overseas study programs are generally research projects to solve real overseas problems on site. Students prep as a team with selected studies and generally go over for the seven weeks in their junior year to work only on the project solution. It is about teamwork and women seem to do well in that environment. See https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/global-project-program
WPI does not have a music major but has a very serious minor program.
Shortfalls: There are only 4.432 full time equivalent undergraduate students and only 1,346 FTE graduate students.
By the way CWRU is well worth a close look!
WPI '67
@aquapt Thank you so much that was very helpful-I hadn’t really considered Rochester or USC. I’ll look into that. But yeah Pitt is definitely a front-runner for me.
@TTG Thanks so much, this was actually pretty reassuring and I appreciate the resources! It’s a little hard sometimes to get out of that Ivy/Top 20 mindset haha.
@collegebound7789 Thank you, I’ll look into UDelaware!
Pitt
If you are interested in Case Western, you can play around the potential financial assistance using its net cost calculator https://case.edu/financialaid/resources/net-price-calculator. We did the same last summer and the final package was very close to the original estimate. CW is very generous in merit (Son got 28K) and we didn’t qualify much need-based aid. For most applicants, I think CW’s merit aid package is purely based on stats and your high GPA and 35 ACT could get you a good package (25K or more) if you get accepted. I think your stats and the potential majors are very competitive (and a good fit) for a school like CW. Tulane is another school that gives a lot of merit aid and high national ranking, but unfortunately, it is way to the south of your desire locations.
Just in case you are applying to CW and it is your top school, make sure you apply through the early rounds. CW used to pull a fair number of kids from the WL for its incoming class, but for the first time in many years, it is not using the WL much (if at all) this year. CW admissions will probably be significantly more selective next year. Since there is no additional essay requirement (unless they change for next cycle), you have to standout in some ways with the details include in the Common App. If you can, visit the school, apply early, and see if CW is a good fit for your goals and finances.
You didn’t indicate male or female. If female you might look into women’s colleges that are strong in sciences such as Smith and Mount Holyoke as they offer merit money. If male you can look at schools with higher female enrollment that offer merit money, places like Vassar
Can’t take the heat?? 
Right now, Alabama and Auburn would give you a near full tuition scholarship. In Texas, you qualify for the Regents scholarship at TCU(urban location), which covers full tuition. Same with Baylor.
For your area, Penn State could work. With your family contribution, you should be able to cover the tuition with minimal loans.
Agree with @coolguy40 - with your stats I would look hard at Bama - automatic Presidential close to full tuition. Beautiful campus and strong alumni network. Good luck!