- Which colleges, in your experience, really take care of their students financially?
- Are merit scholarships mainly based on objective or subjective stuff in your application?
depends…
If you have the stats to get into the schools that “meet need,” then those schools “take care of their students financially.”…BUT ONLY if the parents can pay the amount the school believes that the parents should be able to afford. That may work, and it may not work if the school looks at parents income and assets and believes that the parents should pay more than they want to.
Merit scholarships are usually objective, but at some schools they can be subjective.
@shana1
What do you really want to know?
Do,you want to know where you would have the best chances of getting great need based or merit aid?
If so…you need to provide your SAT or ACT scores, and your GPA for merit aid info.
Need based aid is based on your family income and assets. The policies for awarding need based aid vary from school to school.
Shana1
From your other posts, you seem to be finishing your senior year of HS.
Are you heading to college in the fall?
I think Shana will be a high school senior this fall.
Shana…What are your parents saying about how much they’ll spend each year on college? Your family has a high income. Do they also have assets? savings? property? investents?
Hi sorry for the late reply, so my parents have a high income, but not enough to pay for 60k a year. They are giving me 30k a year. They have assets, no savings, property and little investments, but they are pretty stubborn in giving me 30k a year max. Being a California resident, of course the UC’s and Cal State systems are a great options for me, but I was wondering if anyone knows of any colleges which have great merit scholarship programs for non-need based scholarships.
My ACT is a 32 and my weighted GPA is a 4.0. If you take out freshman year GPA, its a 4.2. UW is 3.67. I do go to a pretty rigorous college prep school (but I’m not sure how much colleges will look into that). My objective stats are not too great, but they’re ok. I know that stats are the biggest thing for college scholarships, but my subjective things are much better. I was wondering if there are any specific colleges you know of that have great merit based scholarships that I could start to look into.
And yes, I’m going to be a senior this fall.
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they are pretty stubborn in giving me 30k a year max.
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@shana1, this is incredibly generous, for a total of $120,000 over four years. Be grateful for what you are being given.
Here is the link to the most popular scholarship lists:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest
Your parents are being generous.
That said, with those stats, you can find merit at some schools.
What is your major and career goal?
What types of schools do you like? quiet? rah rah? big? small? rural? city? cold weather? warm weather?
@sciencegirlmom yes, i know that 30k is very generous, i was not complaining at all lol. And thank you for that list, I will start to look into it once summer begins.
@mom2collegekids I’m not really narrowing down my options quite yet, so honestly any colleges that you know of that give a good amount of merit aid to students, preferably enough so that I will be paying up to 30k a year, and most preferably on the east coast. I’m hoping to major in either spanish or linguistics.
Don’t overlook the south for merit!
@SOSConcern I definitely won’t! Do you know which schools have great merit aid programs? I know University of Houston has good aid, but that’s about it!
Alabama.
Kentucky
With your stats, you would likely win a merit scholarship at Tulane, which would cover half the cost.
Many of the CTCL LACs also give substantial merit money.
Temple in Philly.
OP I have attended U of Houston (one semester pre-reqs before moving to College Station and attending grad school at TAMU), and DD attends Univ of AL. I do know a grad student that attended U of Houston due to scholarship and study in her field.
You asked about merit. Many OOS students pay OOS tuition to attend UA. The OOS merit students enjoy the generous scholarships for their high stats. I know a number of students who are from TX but have stats high enough to come to Univ of AL with merit.
Not sure what your pre-conceived ideas are of various schools.
If you know certain fields of study you plan to be in, make sure the schools to examine have those majors.
Sounds like you are thinking way general. Need to get some ideas of what you like/don’t like. Get your boots on various campuses in your area - different sizes, public/private/city/college town/rural to see where you won’t go and what kind of campus you like best - how important are honors college, specific degrees offered, etc. Once you have narrowed things down more, you can compare for the schools in the geographic region you want to explore.
Are your parents involved in this process? The more you search and prioritize various things important to you, the more help posters can be on this thread.
We got very nice merit from Muhlenberg.
Gettysburg, Ursinus and Muhlenberg are three East Coast LAC’s that all give good aid and would put you under the 30k bar that you have. Best of luck to you!
@StPaulDad @beenthereanddone thank you so much! this is literally the only thing i was asking for! 