Who the heck wants me?

College Search & Selection
1

I need to know if applying to any of the Ivy League schools is worth my time. If not, I’m looking for small/mid sized private schools (if religious, then Catholic) that have strong merit based aid programs. My goal is full tuition. I have a preference for east coast schools and southern schools.

STATS
-Cumulative GPA: 3.8/4.0 or 4.3/4.5
-Rank: 32/428 (top 7%, competitive HS)
-SAT: 1180 (Taken once, studying over summer for retake in August)
-SAT II: (Taking Lit/Spanish next weekend)
-APs: World (3), Spanish (4), Eng (Don’t know yet), APAH (didnt take), APUSH (didn’t take)
-Senior year: English 101 (college class), AP Lit, AP Psych, Poli Sci (college class), Teaching & Learning (2 periods volunteering with local elementary school)

EC
-XC/Track athlete
-Fellowship (won’t say the name)
-Rotary Youth Leadership Award
-Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Student of the Year campaign
-8 yrs Seminar program
-2 yrs religious ed (CCD)
-2 semesters of math at charter school (wanted to get ahead over summer)
-40 hrs feeding the needy

CREATIVE VENTURES
-Drafted bill against police brutality
-Founded campaign to save seminar program from being cut at local elementary school, was successful

SUMMER PLANS
-Applying for night job (just at the mall)
-Applying for internship with state assembly
-Interning for family attorney
-DC trip with fellowship program (I get to ask the supreme court a question, meet congress, tour NPR studios, etc)

HOOKS?
-Female
-Catholic
-Half Hispanic, half Middle Eastern
-First generation college student
-Middle class (I think ~100k)
-San Diego born and raised

HOBBIES
-Writing (should I submit a portfolio?)
-Public speaking

I am interested in majoring in English and Sociology. I plan on law school afterward. My goals are to run for a judge position and work in government, while publishing books on the side (hence English interest).

2

Full tuition or full college expenses including housing/books etc…? How much will your parents contribute since their income will make need-based FA difficult?

3

Full tuition. We can handle additional costs of housing, books, etc. Our issue is we house children part of our extended family which we cannot claim on our taxes. My mother has said that if I cannot get full tuition scholarship anywhere then I will be attending community college.

4

Have you run the EFCs for schools you are interested in? Most Ivy League schools do not have merit aid, but give very good need-based aid. I know at least Dartmouth will give full scholarships to those earning >100k. What schools are you interested in? To have a chance at any, you have to raise your SAT. Have you considered the ACT?

5

I’m not sure what an EFC is, would you mind explaining? I am confident that if I got accepted into an Ivy League that the cost wouldn’t be crippling, given their endowments. And I will consider looking into Dartmouth, thank you. Since science is not my strong suit, I have avoided taking the ACT and instead taken an SAT prep course to raise my score. Northeastern, University of Rochester, Berkeley, and Tulane look like good picks. I was looking at the Ivies and Duke as reach schools.

6

Run the Net Price calculator for UCB. With your family income, full tuition is most likely not possible.

https://saservices.berkeley.edu/calculator/
https://fafsa.ed.gov/help/fftoc01g.htm

7

If your family income is about $100K, then you may qualify for more need-based aid than you think, from some schools. Run the online net price calculators on any colleges that interest you.
https://professionals.collegeboard.org/higher-ed/financial-aid/netprice/participating-schools

If you decide you do need merit money, then applying to any of the 8 Ivies is a waste of time because virtually the only aid they offer is need-based. A few other highly selective universities (such as Duke , Vanderbilt, and UChicago) do offer some merit money, but the competition for it would be extremely high. Unfortunately, your 1180 SAT score probably wouldn’t be competitive even for admission, let alone for merit scholarships from those schools.

Even for schools much less selective than any of the Ivies, such as some state universities in the South, for full tuition merit scholarships or better, a typical minimum would be a 3.5 GPA (unweighted) and 1300 (or even 1400) on the SAT CR+M. http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

Some private schools that are a bit less selective than the Ivies offer merit awards averaging around $15K to $20K or so, but their average (or better) awards presumably go to students whose stats are within the top 25% (or so) for admitted students. For a school like Loyola University Maryland, I would think that means a SAT CR+M >= 1300 or ACT composite >= 30. Maybe less from some others.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php

Getting back to need-based aid …
For Loyola University Maryland, for example, I get a net price of about $36K after need-based aid (assuming $100K family income, $50K in cash assets, $50K in investments, $50K in home equity, and 1 child.) Couldn’t you do better than that from an in-state public university (such as one of the California State University schools)?

8

Each college and university has a Net Price Calculator on its website. That will give you an estimate for what your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is likely to be. Sit down with your parents and run a few of them. If your family owns a business or any property in addition to your family home or if your parents are divorced/remarried, the NPC might not be accurate.

Here are two older threads to look through. Check each scholarship to see if it still exists and what current eligibility requirements are:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/

And while you are at it, check your own local CC for any scholarships that you’d qualify for since that place is your current back-up. Our local CC offers several different merit-based scholarships that cover full tuition and fees.

9

Ivies will be a high reach. Apply to UCs and take advantage of in-state tuition. Just because schools have large endowments doesn’t mean you will get a good financial aid package. Ivies and other prestigious universities will give great financial aid for low income students, but it still might not be affordable for some middle class families. Use the NPC calculator to see how much aid you are likely to get.

You will need to raise your SAT by 300 points to be competitive for Duke and Ivies.

10

When students take the SATs a second time, the average improvement is much less than 300 points, even after test-prep courses.
https://www.fairtest.org/study-sat-coaching-raises-scores

Some students do better on the ACT, though.
And some colleges are test-optional (or test-flexible).
https://www.niche.com/colleges/rankings/best-test-optional-colleges/
https://www.fairtest.org/university/optional

11

You could look at Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby. All are test-optional LACs in Maine that are small and private, per your criteria. You could also look at Hamilton, Bryn Mawr, Pitzer, Brandeis, Trinity, and Mount Holyoke. All these are test-optional, and excellent schools.

EFC is estimated family contribution. Most schools have financial aid calculators on their website. Use this and it’ll help you figure out if Ivies are financially realistic or not.

The ACT science section is also all data analysis! It’s not actual science knowledge, just interpreting graphs. Maybe you should take a look at a prep book in your library and see how it goes?

12

FWIW, since someone mentioned the UC’s. Cost of attendance at UC’s is about 34K, and I don’t think there’d be need-based aid for >$100,000. The merit aid is for very high stat kids. The cal states are more affordable, (and less selective, so maybe a chance of merit aid?) at around 27K cost of attendance.

13

For Catholic schools, you may get some merit at Loyola Maryland, Scranton and St Michael’s. For Fordham and Santa Clara you would likely need higher scores. College of the Holy Cross is test optional and meets 100% of need.
Many Ivies will give a full ride if your income is less than $60k, but your stats don’t line up for them.

14

For schools that claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need, I’d expect net prices to fall roughly in the $25K-$30K range assuming $100K family income, $50K in cash assets, $50K in investments, $50K in home equity, and 1 child. That still might be too high if the family cannot cover much more than R&B. If you toss in “self help” (loans + work study) it might almost be do-able, at a stretch. Run the NPCs with your own data, though.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2016-09-19/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need

For an otherwise well-qualified first gen URM, scores above 1200 might be competitive for some of these colleges. Some of them are test optional or test flexible as well as “full need” (Bates, Bowdoin, Colorado College, Smith, Wake Forest, Wesleyan … maybe a couple others).

15

There would be some chance for need-based aid from schools like Rochester, Northeastern, or Tulane. But not a lot. And probably not anything close to full tuition. So it sounds like you would need merit aid to make schools like those work. You’d really have to up the SAT scores to be competitive for significant merit, which is usually reserved for those in the top 25%, which would probably be around 1350-1400 at minimum (based on College Data stats). And even then, it may fall short of full-tuition…a more common award might be in the $20-$30K range, which sounds great until you realize that tuition is around $60K. You would probably get into those schools, but I wouldn’t count on the money being there.

Have you looked into schools with guaranteed scholarship programs based solely on test scores and GPA? Alabama comes to mind, but other state schools do that as well.

16

1180… this would need to be raised by at least 300-350 to even be competitive for the ivies.

If you’re looking for merit based scholarships then check out this article:

http://blog.prepscholar.com/guaranteed-scholarships-based-on-sat-act-scores

17

<<<<
SAT: 1180 (T
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this is your issue. You need to spend this summer practicing for the SAT AND ACT to get that up a lot.

When you family says that they can handle room and board, please get a figure from them. some schools R&B is now $15k per year. Plus there’s books, fees, and airline travel costs.

Ask your parents how much they’ll pay PER YEAR. Your parents may not realize that those non-tuition costs can be $20k per year.

18

I am aware that my SAT score is the issue. I know better than to leave that score as is. I can and will raise it through the summer.

I was also just informed that our income is 83k. I still don’t think this would qualify me for a good amount of need based aid.

19

It depends on the college (and what you mean by “a good amount”). Run the online net price calculators on any that interest you.

Here’s what I get for a few schools (assuming
$80K family income, $40K in cash savings, $40K in investments, $40K in home equity, 1 child, California resident):

Net Price … Grant Aid … College
$18K … $5.5K … CSU LongBeach
$20K … $51K … Cornell
$22K … $41K … Holy Cross
$29K … $34K … Loyola MD

Your Mileage May Vary.

20

You will get a decent amount of aid. Whether you get full tuition or not is entirely different, and I must say I sincerely doubt you will for any school you apply to. Have you considered Questbridge? Your income is higher than their suggested cut off, but it might be worth it to apply anyway (I must admit I don’t know the specifics of the program very well though, so I don’t know how strict they are about it. Probably worth asking your guidance counselor about and/or looking into regardless)

Do you have any siblings? That will help your chances at gaining more aid.