Looking for merit scholarships for college transfer student.?

Question:

My daughter is very unhappy at her present college. She feels like she is at a suitcase college with no social scene. She hopes to transfer for the fall. We are running into a big problem. While she is academically talented (top 3% of graduating HS class, 1350 SAT, 30 ACT and 3.5 GPA in engineering now) most schools do not offer merit scholarships to transfer students. She is at an excellently rated public college now, but hopes to go to a private school in the fall. How can we afford it? She is the oldest of four daughters and while we don't qualify for need based aide, we can't afford the private school pricetag.

We made a huge mistake when she applied to colleges last year by not applying to some safety private schools that would offer a lot of aide. Instead she got into Colgate, Bucknell, Holy Cross, etc. without much merit aide. She was competing with kids just as academically talented as her.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Answer:
Your daughter sounds like a strong applicant for private scholarships. She should check out online databases such as scholarshipexperts.com, schoolsoup.com and fastweb.com (these allow her to make a profile based on her unique interests, background and goals and help her find scholarships based on that).
She should also look in scholarship books, which she can find in the library or bookstores. Think broadly, too- sometimes people get scholarships from companies where their parents work, or from organizations they or someone in their family already have some sort of affiliation with. Check around in your community to see if anyone offers scholarships.

It's getting to the very end of the scholarship application period (for funding for the 07-08 academic year), so she should start her search asap. Most scholarship deadlines are in the winter and early spring. But if she finds listings now for programs she's missed the deadlines for, she can note them for next year and apply then.

Does the college have a scholarship office? Some schools offer guidance to students- it's worth checking. And once your other daughters start college, be sure to reapply for financial aid-- sometimes schools will take into account the fact that you're paying multiple tuitions.
Good luck!

Looking for merit scholarships for college transfer student.?

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