<p>I'm a senior hoping to attend a good engineering college. I have a 36 ACT, 1600 SAT, top 3% in my class and I'm a National Merit finalist. But I have yet to receive any significant merit scholarships from the schools I want to attend, like Purdue. I'm pretty disillusioned -- I really thought good grades and scores would count for something. Even my "backup" school, Ohio State, is only offering $6000, leaving $19K for me to pay, which I can't really afford. Needs-based aid is pretty much out of the picture due to my parent's income. I have one full tuition offer from Arizona State, which will still cost about $15K a year for board, books, etc. </p>
<p>Anyone else in a similar situation? Is there still something out there that will allow me to attend a top-tier engineering school? Any advise?</p>
<p>Sounds like you didn’t do a great job in picking your schools. What were your in-state options? Purdue gives little merit to OOS students. If you don’t want to attend AZ State then you could take a gap year and reapply. Alabama would give you full tuition and then some. </p>
<p>I think he is from Ohio, otherwise, the oos cost for OSU is much much more than $25K. Merit scholarships are very competitive and very often, they will even look beyond your test scores. If you applied to UMN, you would probably get a much better deal as they offer good scholarships to NMF. Perhaps you will get some more merit aid from your admitted schools later. Not all merit scholarships have been announced. Also, there are many students declining admissions and scholarships offers within the next 8 weeks that may free up some spots for merit scholarships too. So some students may receive scholarship offers over the summer. Of course, they would have to accept the offer and pay the deposit before that.</p>
<p>Since you’re NMF, Bama would still offer you their big scholarship.</p>
<p>You’d get:</p>
<p>5 years of tuition (you can use those extra semesters for a summer abroad or grad classes)
1 year of housing
$3500 from the college
$2500 from engineering
iPad
$2000 summer experience</p>
<p>This would leave you with very little leftover costs.</p>
<p>Bama has a new 900,000 square feet STEM Complex</p>
<p>The nice thing is that the College of Eng’g is full of high stats kids, because that’s where high stats kids often cluster.</p>
<p>Each school has its own guideline for awarding merit scholarships. They are generally based on GPA and test scores, and usually there is not too much wiggle room - either you meet the requirement or you don’t. Some schools have automatic awards, meaning that every student who qualifies gets it; other schools do not have enough funds to go around and the scholarships are awarded competitively.</p>
<p>"Is there still something out there that will allow me to attend a top-tier engineering school? "</p>
<p>No…those schools are filled with top stats kids, they don’t need to offer much merit.</p>
<p>For eng’g, you don’t need to attend a top-tier school. There are MANY very good eng’g programs. It’s not hard for a large well-established univ to have a very good eng’g program.</p>
<p>There are some top public engineering schools that offer good merit scholarships (e.g. UMich and Purdue), however, they may still be unaffordable for OOS students even if you got the scholarships except for a few very big ones. Both Purdue and UMich offer a few near full tuition or full ride scholarships, but those merit scholarships are very very competitive.</p>
<p>You should peruse the full ride/tuition scholarship threads and see if there are any schools there that are still taking applications. The source of most merit money is from the schools themselves, but you have to find the schools that want you the most and have scholarship money to attract talent. You look at a school like MIT–and yes, you are a contender for a spot there, ZERO merit awards. Absolutely NONE. So applying there is a waste for someone looking for merit money. You look on FastWeb and other outside scholarship lists and you can see how few full ride, or substantial dollar awards are out there, particularly for all four years. Many of the flagship state schools have no problem filling their engineering slots, and so why should they pay for students to come there? They might have some money for high stat kids, but the whole purpose of merit money is to lure students where they are most wanted. When you apply to a popular program, there is less of a chance of getting the scholarships, and even less so at schools where the competition is steep. </p>
<p>Purdue and UMich and OSU do offer some nice awards, but very few of them. I know a female engineering major that got one at Purdue, and a young woman who got a generous scholarship at Georgia Tech. But both schools are looking for FEMALE engineers The males are a dime a dozen for them. You have to fit what the schools want to have the best chances.</p>
<p>How much can your family and you afford to contribute each year? That will tell people how much merit you need. Previous posters have covered the reasons why some schools don’t offer much merit and why some do. Are you trying for the competitive scholarships at some of your schools?</p>
<p>You could contact Michigan Tech and see if they have any $$ left for scholarships. That would have been a good target school if you were seeking $$. It’s an excellent midwest engineering school, off the beaten path so not as competitive as some of the more easily reached engineering schools in the midwest, but it’s late in the game to be looking for merit money. </p>
<p>However, the application deadline was December 1.</p>
<p>There is a big National Merit scholarship thread in the forum section about National Merit scholarships. In addition, there are the lists of automatic and competitive full tuition and full ride scholarships at the top of this forum section.</p>
<p>You are not complaining that you can’t get merit aid, because you certainly can get merit aid. Just choose a school that gives automatic Scholarships to NMF.</p>
<p>You are complaining that you cannot get merit aid at a top school, and many of those schools dont give merit aid, or only give it to a very select small sample.</p>
<p>ASU and Arizona would give you a pretty good scholarship, and they are rolling admissions.</p>
<p>““Even my “backup” school, Ohio State, is only offering $6000, leaving $19K for me to pay, which I can’t really afford. Needs-based aid is pretty much out of the picture due to my parent’s income. I have one full tuition offer from Arizona State, which will still cost about $15K a year for board, books, etc.””</p>
<p>Sounds like even ASU with full tuition isn’t enough. You don’t qualify for aid, and it sounds like your parents won’t pay much/anything. For those schools to be affordable, your parents would have to pay about $10k per year, so that a student loan would cover the rest.</p>
<p>At Bama, for frosh year (the most expensive year), nearly all costs would be covered since you’d get the $6500 per year to pay for meal plan, books, etc. </p>
<p>For soph year on, you probably would have to take the student loans of $6500/7500 to pay for housing if your parents can’t pay for anything.</p>
<p>You are NOT too late to apply for the Bama NMF scholarship. You will get it if you apply. The app is REALLY easy. NO essays, NO LORs…takes like 5 minutes. and fill out the scholarship app, also very easy, no essays, no lors.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>He’s already indicated that he can’t pay the rest.</p>
<p>If you add stafford loans and work study and pell and 2k parent plus you get to zero out of pocket for Arizona and ASU. And what does he mean my he cannot get need aid because of parents income, but at the same time says he cannot afford it? If he cant get need aid, he should be able to afford it. Unless the parent-student relationship is really bad.</p>
<p>rgosula, there are plenty of families that can’t afford their expected family contributions as determined by schools and there are plenty of reasons why.</p>
<p>Typical reasons that are out of the student’s control (and do not necessarily include poor parent/student relationships) include various divorced parent situations and parents who have high income but high spending and poor saving habits.</p>
<p>OP, please keep in mind that taxes need to be paid on any scholarship given above what the IRS allows (which I believe is tuition, fees and books). Its not a huge amount considering what you have been given, but still should be taken in consideration if costs are a problem.</p>
<p>If he cant get need aid, he should be able to afford it. Unless the parent-student relationship is really bad.</p>
<p><<<<</p>
<p>Definitely not true in many cases. As mentioned above, the custodial parent may be remarried and doesn’t have access to the money to pay. The family may have a high EFC based on things other than income, and those assets can’t/won’t be liquidated because they’re the source of income.</p>
<p>Sometimes the high EFC is from a rather recent increase in family income. If so, the family isn’t ready to make big tuition payments. Sometimes the high income is after a period of unemployment and the family has to play “debt catch up” for awhile.</p>
<p>There are a ton of reasons why a family can’t pay much of its EFC. </p>
<p>"" If you add stafford loans and work study and pell and 2k parent plus “”</p>
<p>???
Do even understand HOW FA WORKS???</p>
<p>You do NOT get Pell or Work Study if you do not qualify for aid. You do NOT get Pell if your EFC is above $6000.</p>
<p>And many schools can only give WS to those who are Pell qualified or even ZERO EFC because that aid is very limited.</p>
<p>You seem to think these aids are handed out to everyone.</p>
<p>And many parents won’t take out Plus.</p>
<p>if this student won’t qualify for aid, then if he only gets a full tuition scholarship, then he can’t just magically come up with the $15k to cover the other annual costs. He can borrow $5500. </p>
<p>He needs to accept a LARGER merit IF his family won’t pay for the rest.</p>
<p>To answer the OP’s question directly, what it takes is finding a school that gives out merit awards for students like him. The school GC is likely to know of some local schools that may do this My son’s ACT scores were very much average, but some of the local schools will pay for kids with good grades. He got a full tuition award. Since the school is less than a 10 minute commute from home, his cost would have been very low to have gone there, and many kids with higher test scores, grades and with well to do families did take that college up on their offer.</p>