Will I get in? And if I do, will I get merit aid?

Here’s the deal -
My ACT is above average at a 34 (35E 31M 34R 34S).
My GPA is 3.7uw/3.81w.

BUT I’m graduating a year early (yes, I will have a high school diploma), and I don’t know how that will impact my chances. I will only have taken precalculus by the time I come, and the website says calc is highly recommended. I’m taking 7 AP classes next year, including chemistry and biology, and I want to be a bioinformatics/molecular bio major. I think I’m going to apply RD - my weighted gpa will be much higher if I do. I’m heavily involved in music (all-state every year) and volunteer at a hospital and a humane society (about 100 hrs. combined). I also have a disability which is why my gpa isn’t super high- it went from <3.6 my freshman year to >3.8 my sophomore year.

I really, really want to go to RPI, and I would apply ED if not for my gpa. According to the financial aid estimator, I would get ~$35000 a year in aid to bring it down to ~$33000. Unfortunately, this is about 15k more than my family can afford/year. Is there any way I would get a merit scholarship with my stats/early graduation?

@jstscn If I’m understanding you correctly you are a rising senior in highschool this fall?
With regard to your grades, your gpa is slightly above average and your ACT is 31M, which for engineering is all that matters and all their mostly going to look at, is also slightly above average there as well.

Plenty of people enter without having taken Calc1 (AP-Calc) so don’t worry about it. There is another thread on this forum talking about whether AP Calc should be retaken in college as calc-1 because they wondered whether it was equivalent enough. There is an open debate with good points on each side, but with you, you have your answer, just take Calc-1 freshman year just as your curriculum requires.

What is your intended major, or are you going to apply undecided? Your acceptance into RPI will slightly depend on that. If you are entering CompSci, then it will be harder for you to get in, and you may need better stats.

With regard to your money situation, I wanted to know if you are a senior or junior because if junior then you can talk with your hs guidance counselor about the RPI medal and ask them if you could be considered for it. It is 25k/4 yrs.

When looking at the cost of attendance, don’t take your net and multiply by 4. There are nuances on your 2nd to 4th year. For example, you can move out into an apartment and stop paying for Dorm and Meals. That will save you about 15k. Then pay for an apartment and groceries for about 6k instead. Also, if you do co-op between your sophomore and junior year, that’s an earnings of about 15k-20k for your pocket. Some people have reported earning 25-29k but that’s very rare, don’t go by that. There are plenty of things to consider but the one very important and absolute thing I was say you definitely must NOT do is apply ED. ED is only truthfully beneficial for athletic scholarships and other special circumstances. If you are concerned at all with money than ED is definitely not something you want to do.

@GoRedhead I am done with two years of high school, but next year will be my last year. So it will be a total of 3 years in high school. I will graduate from high school in May 2017, and I’ll be applying to start in fall 2018. That’s my issue - I think I have a pretty decent shot with my stats themselves, but there is a good chance they’ll hold the 3 years thing against me. I’ll be applying for the bioinformatics and molecular biology major.

Boy, I have no idea about that.
I’d only worry about c3 - c8 of [THIS LIST](http://provost.rpi.edu/sites/default/files/CDS_2016-17%20Final%20Version.pdf#overlay-context=institutional-research/common-datasets)

Why are you graduating early? If staying an extra year will make you eligible for a financial award, then don’t graduate yet. I don’t think graduating early will impress colleges.

The Rensselaer medal will probably have little to no effect on your EFC, since the need-based grant the NPC estimated is already close to, or greater than, the Medal’s $25,000. They do not stack the merit award on top of need-based.

You can run their NPC indicating you are a medal recipient to see whether it makes a difference. Our EFC was similar, and the overall award did not change whether we ran the NPC with an ACT 30/no Medal, or an ACT 34/with Medal.

The 25K guaranteed merit award will really only help someone whose need-based aid is lower than 25K.

@austinmshauri I’m graduating early because my school has very very little academic opportunity (all my APs are online) and I really feel like I could succeed in college at this point. I’m not doing it to impress colleges - in fact, it will probably have a negative impact on my app - but I know that this is what I want to do (I kind of need to, I’m going insane in small town Iowa)

Need based aid has nothing to do with scholarship awards. You can receive 30k in need based aid and another 25k in merit aid (or more) as long as your total aid doesn’t exceed the cost of enrollment.

As far as getting into the school they want to see that you are challenging yourself as much as possible and they’re familiar with what is available at your school of you’re going above and beyond and taking online so courses and excelling in them that should be 2points for you.

Your act is great, extracurriculars sound like they could be better hope you have a great teacher rec in your back pocket and an amazing essay. Not sure if you have anything else going for you that would give you an edge for money but you don’t know until you try. Always ask any college if they can do better on their offer to you even if the offer is amazing if they want you they’ll do better.

Good luck

Hey! I’m currently a rising sophomore and have to say that you have very good stats. You’ll be in the top 25% of applicants for sure. I don’t think you’ll have an issue getting in or getting merit aid, granted don’t see RPI as a safety school. There’s always the chance that you can still be rejected, I know someone with a perfect SAT that got rejected. You have the grades - the rest will depend on your essay and how unique you are compared to people in your grade category.

Also, don’t rely too much on the financial aid calculator. I ended up paying vastly less than was estimated and so have many other people I know. Most of my aid was merit-based, but I also got some need-based aid, which was pretty substantial.

The number one advice I can give you is BE SURE TO VISIT if you live reasonably close to RPI, otherwise they’ll think you’re not interested.

My stats: SAT 2120/2400 (1420 M+CR), ACT: 31, GPA: 4.0, APs: 8 (all 4s and 5s) include Chem, Calc AB, CS, etc. Parent income: around 80k. I got roughly $48k in scholarships both need and merit based. ECs: hospital volunteer work (like 250+ hours), Fortune 500 internship, public service internship.

In terms of financial aid, here is information from RPI posted by TQfromtheU (thanks for sharing!)

  • 83% of the people requesting need assistance, received need assistance from RPI. (Determined by RPI to have a need.)
  • Every student determined by RPI to have a need received some assistance.
  • The assistance received covered 86% of the need, on average (an increase of 2 percentage points from the previous year)
  • Average award was approximately $42K, of which the average need-based scholarship/grant was $36K
  • 249 Students had their full need met. (Not the same as full ride, of course.)
  • Which would say that 1,110 - 249 = 861 freshman received less than full need.
  • Of the 581 freshmen who either did not apply for need based aid or were determined by RPI not to have a need, 372 received non-need based scholarships or grants, averaging $21K.

Best of luck! PM me if you have any questions and I’d be happy to share my experience!

@joedoe if you are calulating your sat by just taking out the math and creading then you are off by quite a bit. It’s a known thing that the tests are different. You don’t have a 1420 by the new standards, you actually have more like a 1480. You can google for an sat chart conversion, there are plenty online but here’s a trustworthy one. https://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■/blog-0/sat-score-conversion-chart

I agree strongly with joedoe about visting. I believe the perfect sat scoring people and other very highly qualified people get rejected because it appears to them like you are using them as a safety which would increase their yield. By showing interest, they know you are serious. If I had to do it over again, I would have gone further and even put in a letter to admissions telling them “I will definitely be enrolling so here’s your $500 depot, please accept me!”

@Sunnydaydream, are you sure your info is correct? Many colleges replace need based aid if you get merit aid. Some colleges will replace loans or part of your student contribution first, but not all do that. So someone who had $35K of need based aid and $25K of merit may see no change in their cost of attendance just because they got the merit aid. Now maybe RPI handles it differently than other schools that give pretty good aid. But the OP should confirm the policy with RPI.

Again visiting not necessary if they want you they do if not all the visits in the world won’t matter.

My daughter did not visit (& we live well within traveling distance) & they awarded her completely merit based full tuition & dorming.


@intparent RPI does not replace need based aid if you get merit aid - they combine them. They try and get you as much funding as possible to make RPI affordable. I can attest to this as a current student that got a great package which included need-based and merit based aid from RPI. It’s even possible to get several need-based awards.

@Sunnydaydream would you mind sharing her stats?

Thanks for the info. Kudos to RPI!

She’s a junior this fall so I don’t have her stats committed to memory (I’m sure you can google them on this site) I will say they were far from perfect. If you ask me rpi looks for a well rounded student you could have a perfect sat but not the grades to go with it or not the extracurriculars or the essay etc as much as you want to write that essay on why Stephen Hawking is your hero write about something completely out of the box and get noticed.



(For the record she was also admitted with nice scholarship offers to Norte Dame & NYU stern, also Cornell & Cooper Union accepted her)

Visiting can certainly help as RPI indicates that demonstrated interest is important on their Common Data Set.

Every college says that. I assure you completely unnecessary. Will it hurt no but not needed.

Actually, @Sunnydaydream, every college does not say that. There are other boxes to check and many are quite clear that demonstrated interest is NOT a factor. That is NOT the case with RPI. It may have worked out fine with your child being accepted without a visit but I think it is incorrect to state that it might not help others if they are on the margin decision-wise. You cannot extrapolate from one student’s experience. I’d prefer to go by the official Common Data Set that indicates that the Admissions team at RPI does like to see signs of expressed interest (although that can take forms other than visits).

You’re joking. Every single solitary college at every single solitary college expo I’ve ever been to has stated that if you’ve got one obscure college that doesn’t it’s probably not worth going to. Also I did not say that it wouldn’t help someone I said it wasn’t necessarily a need to do so.



You guys don’t get it. If you’re a good candidate for them you get in if you’re not you won’t. They’ll never say oh wow this is the perfect candidate but wait they never visited forget it they must not be that interested.