<p>My Stats:
rising junior
192 PSAT
probably 4.0 weighted gpa
probably graduating top 10 at large<br>
public high school
many AP classes in future (scored 5 on ap world)
strong EC- 4 yr basketball, started and president of cancer awareness club, part time job, etc.
family income somewhere between $65-70,000 (mom on disability for cancer)
my sister will be a senior in college when I'm a freshman</p>
<p>So which of those 4 schools do you think would offer me the most aid and around how much? Which will probably give me the least?</p>
<p>Tufts does not award merit aid, it is all need based. BC awards a dozen or so full tuition merit scholarships to the topmost applicants, which you are not. No other merit aid. </p>
<p>Depending on your SAT/ACT scores you may qualify for merit aid at NU and BU, $20,000/year max. If you are an NMF finalist, you would get full tuition at NU. The rest would be need based grants and loans.</p>
<p>From what I could tell from the College Data website, both BC & Tufts meet 100% of demonstrated student need. Both of these schools are very tough to get into, though. BU & Northeastern do not meet 100% need.</p>
<p>BC & Tufts would probably be the best deals for you, if you get accepted. I would suggest putting a lot of effort into studying for the SAT, and also try the ACT. If you can get your scores up, you stand a much better chance of being admitted to these 2 schools.</p>
<p>You also need to talk to your parents and see if they can meet their EFC. If they cannot, none of these 4 schools would probably be affordable for you.</p>
<p>(Sorry about your mom’s cancer; that’s tough. I hope she can beat it.)</p>
<p>If you can make National Merit Finalist, Northeastern will be the cheapest, as they will give you a full tuition scholarship, guaranteed. The PSAT cutoff for that will depend on what state you live in, but in any case you need to study hard for the PSAT and bring your score up for your Junior year PSAT. If you are not a NMF, I believe Northeastern offers merit scholarships up to $20K which are competitive, and would bring the cost down to about $32K.</p>
<p>BU also offers a 20K scholarship for NMF, and other $20K presidential scholarships. But that will still leave ~35K to pay. They have a few very competitive scholarships for more money. For example the Alexander Graham Bell Scholarship for engineers covers full tuition plus research funding. I assume that’s extremely competitive but I don’t know how many they award. </p>
<p>I’m not as familiar with the awards at Tufts or BC. Also some of my info is a year or two old, so be sure to double-check before relying on it.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that at schools that claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need, it is the school’s own determination of need. This may leave a family contribution that is more than they are able or willing to pay.</p>
<p>Northeastern also has their coop program and many students earn money that they apply to college costs during their coop terms.</p>
<p>IF you get accepted at Tufts or BC, they do meet full need per their calculations. It has been reported that self employed business owners have some business expenses added back in as income at BC.</p>
<p>BU has a couple of highly competitive scholarships…look up the Trustee and Martin Luther King scholarships. They are very competitive awards. </p>
<p>What are you looking for in a college? There might be other more affordable options for you. Are you a Massachusetts resident?</p>
<p>You can use the Net Price Calculators for each school and get some idea as to what the awards might be. When someone asks which school costs less when s/he has not yet been accepted any of them, the chances of even getting the privilege of paying for them has to be calculated in the picture. None of them costs anything until then, and the cost is the sticker costs until the aid packages are released.
A school like Harvard would be just about free, if not free for someone with your stats, but the chances of getting accepted make that a lottery ticket. </p>
<p>Tufts and BC guarantee to meet full need for all accepted applicants. So their NPC should be pretty accurate for you. BU has a need/test score matrix, and you can ask for it and get an idea what they will give you, but it is not a precise formula in that you are guaranteed to get exactly what the matrix says, All probabilities there. Northeastern does not meet full need for all applicants, so you need to see where you stand in your test scores (top 10%, 5 %) and then look at what % of kids get full need met. If you don’t fall into that percentage, the chances are not good that your need will be fully met. If you are one of their top candidates, the chances are good that it will be.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the info. Thumper1- I am from MA and am looking for a school in or near a city on the east coast (mainly Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and DC) with good financial aid and communications program. I’m also considering Emmanuel in Boston as a safety.</p>
<p>Try to find a school that you know you can afford and will also be sure to take you to be on your list too. In my son’s case, he did get a full tuition scholarship to the local Catholic school as did my cousin’s son this year, but it was a bit of a surprise that the schools anted up that much and not something we had expected, nor would I count on it. For my nephew, his financial admissions safeties were a local state school and the local CC. As it turned out, he got more money from the the private local school, and the local state school (free tuition at both) than the community college, and the private school would be cheaper since it is a much easier commute and close to where he already has a part time job. </p>
<p>My son did not need a safety for less than that since we had an amount that we could commit to him, but had he needed something that he could have handled himself, the community college and some state schools would have fit the bill, but like his cousin, the with free tuition, the private college would have cost the least since it is closer with easy access, and job opportunities near by.</p>
<p>Being from Mass is actually going to hurt your chances at these MA schools. Unless you are at the very top of the pool of candidates from MA, schools will pass you by to accept students from other states so that they can say they have students from “all 50 and 14 countries”, etc. It’s just how it works, and reps have acknowledged that geography plays a part in their decision making. We are from MA too, and my D really wanted to be in Boston, but she should have looked at more out of state private schools to have given herself better odds and choices. Just consider this, please. Also, she was accepted to Emmanuel, but they expected us to come up with over 3 times our EFC, and offered less aid than American University, a much better school! (We make close to or just under what your family makes) We appealed our aid package, said even taking a triple dorm room, etc if possible, showed them the offer from American, and in the end, Emmanuel didn’t budge. They also, on Accepted students day, showed a tiny, dark, basement dorm room with one little window blocked by a bush to kids who were trying to choose a school and had lots of options! The fin. aid offer was a big factor, but my D was so turned off on the visit that she wasn’t crushed to choose a school outside Boston in the end!</p>
<p>Northeastern and BU may show some slight preference for students from outside the Northeast region, but teachandmom is greatly exaggerating the geographic preference. If you are a student that the schools want (top 25% of accepted students) your being from Massachusetts will not hurt your chances for admission and major merit/need financial aid. If on the other hand you are in the bottom half of the accepted pool, you may not get any need based aid beyond federal and state grants/loans.</p>
<p>You need to bone up on finaid- biggest mistake is assuming. The schools will examine family assets, not just income. Retirement funds are protected, but assets, depending on the college, can include cars, home equity and more. They then run their own formulas to calculate need. (What the Fafsa tells you is your “EFC” is usually lower than what the colleges come up with.)</p>
<p>You have to run the NPCs, you can run a sample Fafsa (eg, Fafsa Forecaster) or the one on College Board- all to get your bearings. See what the family can afford.<br>
Generally, while more than one is in college, there is an adjustment- your freshman year, while she’s a senior, you may receive more generous aid than while you are the only student. Bear that in mind.</p>