<p>I really just want to find a four-year school that I can attend with out obtaining massive debt. I'm searching for schools that give large amount of merit aid and most of them seem to be liberal arts schools. I'm planning to double major in biology (I'm thinking genetics or microbiology) and political science. I'd like to eventually get a Ph.D and do biological research. So do I need to go to a research school? It seems like I can't really afford to go to a research school unless I go to a community college first. Are liberal arts colleges bad for getting into graduate programs for the sciences?</p>
<p>Actually many small LACs are great for biology major who intend to get advanced degrees. Many have good research opportunities and strong track records for getting their graduates in to excellent graduate programs.</p>
<p>Not all offer merit aid, though, so check the financial aid information carefully. For merit, take a look at Grinnell, Rhodes. Smith if you are female. </p>
<p>Also you should ask your parents to an on-line calculator to see how much need based aid you may be eligible for. If that works for you, you’d have wider choices.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions! I am female but I’d prefer to go to a co-ed school. If I reconsidered that would I have better options? I think I might get some need-based aid but probably not much. My family had difficulty understanding the calculator for UC Berkeley. We weren’t sure what to include in the parent’s assets category. Does that include net worth of my house? My parents’ retirement fund? I played around with the numbers a bit and that seemed to be the deciding factor in whether or not I would recieve financial aid.</p>
<p>Many are outstanding for Biology. </p>
<p>Retirement is not generally considered at all when financial aid is calculated. Usually equity in a home is considered after a certain cutoff level that differs between schools. Other assets are considered such that 25% of their value is treated as available over the course of UG education. Current income is the most significant consideration.</p>
<p>If a college/university only uses the FAFSA for determining financial need, then dedicated retirement funds (IRA, 401k, etc.) are not assets, and the family home is not an asset. </p>
<p>If a college/university also uses the CSS Profile and/or its own financial aid forms, then retirement funds, the family home, and anything else they feel like asking about come into play.</p>
<p>This means that you need to dig a bit further into the college/university financial aid web pages to determine which form(s) that place will ask for.</p>
<p>If you aren’t in-state for Berkeley, you aren’t likely to get good aid at all. You have many other good options out there. Start reading some of the threads on merit-aid in the Financial Aid Forum for ideas.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>
<p>Your parents’ “retirement fund” has to be an actual government-denominated one with deferred taxation and early withdrawal penalties. It can’t just be a lot of money that your parents have saved up in an investment fund or account that they plan on using for retirement someday. Informal “retirement” funds are not protected from EFC assessment.</p>
<p>As noted, FAFSA EFC is mostly income based. Parents are generally expected to provide a quarter to a third of their adjusted gross annual income to send you to college. If they can’t do this, investigate merit aid options aggressively. There are some very nice private LACs that offer decent aid for stats. Sometimes it’s felt that undergraduate teaching is better at LACs than at research institutions.</p>
<p>If in-state need-based aid at UCs is insufficient for you, these threads may be useful to you:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-18.html#post15895768[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-18.html#post15895768</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-2.html#post15889078[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-2.html#post15889078</a></p>
<p>LACs will generally provide smaller chemistry and biology courses (which tend to be among the larger courses at any college); check the on-line schedules to be sure. But they may have a smaller selection of advanced courses, so check the course catalogs and schedules to see if their offerings are suitable for your interests. Some LACs have cross registration agreements with nearby research universities that can allow for greater course selection (but check on the convenience of such cross registration, including commuting logistics).</p>
<p>LACs are Arts & Science schools, biology is a specialty at them. Many of them have greater biology programs than their university counterparts, so don’t let that limit you if you want to go onto a grad school.</p>
<p>Many of the top schools for per capita PhD production in the life sciences and social sciences are LACs:
[COLLEGE</a> PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]COLLEGE”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>It is sometimes suggested that the only reason big research universities don’t do as well as LACs by this metric is because many of their students graduate with degrees in fields like engineering, which are highly marketable with only a terminal bachelors degree. There may be some truth to this.</p>
<p>However, we can estimate the number of biology/life science majors graduating from these schools by referring to section J of the Common Data Set. This shows the percentage of degrees conferred in various fields. In some cases, the actual number of biology/ls graduates is published on college web sites. Here are a few comparisons I came up with: </p>
<p>School … Bio PhDs … Bio Majors … PerCapita Rate
Carleton College … 79 … 43 … 37%
Reed College … …62 … 35 … 35%
Swarthmore College …65 …48 … 27%
Harvard University …222 … 202 … 22%
Cornell University … 412 …432 … 19%
California-Berkeley … 477 …971 … 10%
Michigan Ann Arbor … 228 …534 … 9%</p>
<p>The “Bio PhDs” numbers are for 2006-2010 (5 years), as documented on the NSF webcaspar site (<a href=“https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/[/url]”>https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/</a>).
“Bio Majors” is either taken directly from the college web site (in Reed’s case) or derived by multiplying the number of graduating seniors reported in a recent year by the CDS section J percentage.
“Per capita rate” is the 5-year number of earned Bio PhDs divided by 5x the number of graduating Bio Majors for the given year.</p>
<p>This data does not prove that any of these schools have better biology programs than any of the others. Presumably, self-selection factors are involved (i.e. a higher percentage of Carleton students WANT to get PhDs.) However, it does show that attending a LAC shouldn’t hold you back from getting a PhD in biology.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice. Also, do cars count as assets when calculating financial aid? I didn’t even know that there were colleges that give automatic tuition and full ride scolarships. Thanks for the list! It’s good to know that I have more options.</p>