Where could I get a full-ride scholarship with these stats?

Paying for College
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<p>First of all let me make it clear that I am looking for merit-based scholarships. My family's financial position is such that I could not possibly get a need-based scholarship, but I have an interest in going to school at the most prestigious institution I can without paying much money, as I two siblings going to college at the same time.</p>

<p>High School Graduation- 2010
Location- Northern California (Bay Area)
School- Pretty competitive, top 20 in the sate
GPA- 3.8ish unweighted 4.2ish weighted
SAT I- 2180 (770 M, 690 CR, 720 R) I plan on retaking in October an hope to break 2200
SAT II's- Took Physics, Spanish, Math II in June. I expect 700+ on all except maybe for Spanish
Course Load- Very rigorous; I have taken 3 APs and 4 Honors classes so far in Sophomore and Junior years and next year my course load is 6 APs
EC's- Several leadership roles, including Boy Scouts, church committees, and planning youth events for youth in my denomination from all around NorCal. I am also fairly active in local community service, and go on a mission trip every year to build houses. Academically, I have been involved in Speech and Debate for 3 years and am a member of CSF and NHS.</p>

<p>I have been looking at schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Cal Poly SLO and consider them to be good matches academically for me, but I would be totally open to considering lesser known schools or out of state school/s it it meant that I could get substantial financial aid or a full ride. So what do you guys think</p>

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<p>It appears you are a boy. That is unfortunate. (LOL, just kidding, but what I meant by that is that there are a lot of really good women’s colleges that give fantastic merit aid. I used this strategy – my top two colleges were ranked #50 and #75 when I applied. #50 gave me a tuition and fees scholarship, #75 gave me a full ride, and I went there. Fantastic colleges, both of them, would’ve been happy at either, I just went where the money was.)</p>

<p>Anyway, your grades and scores are impressive, and you have the requisite ECs. What you want to do is look at schools where you are in the top 10-20% of applicants. For your scores and grades, those would be schools that probably fall below the top 20 or 30 of the U.S. News and World Report ranking list (don’t swear by it, but it’s good for general purposes). I tend to favor LACs when making this list because a lot of them give very generous scholarships.</p>

<p>Grinnell is known for its good financial aid, but it’s relatively selective and I’m not sure you could get a full ride there. Look at Macalester, Kenyon College, Bard College, Occidental, Connecticut, Union, Dickinson, Skidmore (although checking out their merit page their offerings are not so hot), St. Olaf, DePauw, Pitzer, Denison, Reed, Wheaton College (The one in MA), Beloit (in Wisconsin), Kalamazoo, Wofford (Wofford offered me a very large scholarship back in 2004, and my stats weren’t as good as yours), Muhlenberg, Lewis and Clark. These schools are all in the top 75 schools nationally and usually pay out big money to attract students like you – who could conceivably get into the top 20 but might come to their school if they wave enough money.</p>

<p>For bigger universities, look at Rochester, Case Western, Tulane, Miami, Syracuse, Pepperdine, Boston U, Fordham, Purdue, Clark U, American, even Wake Forest, Brandeis, Lehigh. Perhaps Northeastern as well. Heck, even Duke and Emory give large scholarships - one of my friends from high school (who had something like a 1510 on his SAT CR+M; you’re not too far off from there, and your grades) got a Woodruff Scholarship, which is a full ride to Emory. He’s currently in medical school at WUSTL. Another friend of mine got a substantial scholarship to Duke (not everything, but a lot) and another went to Chicago for much lower than sticker price, and not on need-based money.</p>

<p>My suggestion to you is to go to some of these colleges’ websites and see if they offer full-ride scholarships. Usually, colleges that do will announce it on their financial aid page. Sometimes they offer the requirements of the scholarship. Typically students who get the scholarship have much higher stats than the requirements (like if they say the minimum GPA is a 3.75, most winners probably have a 3.85 or higher).</p>

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<p>Take a look at these two threads by Momfromtexas. She found full-ride scholarships for both of her sons.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>juillet has some really good suggestions, but I thought I’d save you some research and tell you that the following schools definitely do not offer merit aid of full tuition or above: Macalester, Kenyon, Connecticut, Dickinson, Skidmore, Pitzer, Reed, Wheaton, Kalamazoo, Muhlenberg, Clark U (which is essentially an LAC). Some of the above are traditionally generous but in smaller amounts.</p>

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<p>Connecticut actually does not offer any merit aid whatsoever, nor does the rest of the NESCAC.</p>

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<p>Actually, IIRC Trinity College (CT) is part of NESCAC and has quietly started offering merit-based Presidential Scholarships. But yes, Conn Coll is purely need-based.</p>

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<p>Also try this thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/63770-best-schools-give-most-merit-based-aid.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/63770-best-schools-give-most-merit-based-aid.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>You’d probably get a full ride at UPitt with those stats, especially if you apply right away in November. I did and won it with basically the same stats.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all of the responses guys! I appreciate the variety of the colleges mentioned- it’s nice to know that even if a lot of things go wrong I have these fallback options.</p>