When the time comes for you to apply to colleges and universities, you may find that your dream schools have tuition costs that seem more like a nightmare.

While it’s possible for you to take out student loans to help pay for college, this solution will impact your financial situation down the road when you have to pay your loans back. You can also try picking up extra shifts at an after-school job to help offset college costs; however, this will cost you time and energy that you may want to devote to earning good grades and preparing for the SAT.

Ultimately, the best way to ease the financial burden of attending college is to receive scholarships. Unlike loans, you don’t have to pay back the scholarship money you earn, which will help you save money now without costing you money later.

Although there are countless different scholarships you can apply for and use to help cover the costs of going to college or university, some schools help simplify this process for students by offering full-ride scholarships.

What is a full-ride scholarship?

A full-ride scholarship covers tuition costs, room and board, and book fees for all four years of college. These scholarships are not awarded based on need or any other factors aside from merit, and they are designed to help colleges and universities attract the top students across the nation.

With some private schools-like University of Chicago and Dartmouth college- charging upwards of $75,000 per year for tuition, the value of a full-ride scholarship can be as much as $300,000 depending on which school you attend.

Colleges and universities with full-ride scholarships

While not every college offers full-ride scholarships, you should pay close attention to the ones that do so that you can try to receive one of these awards to pay for your degree.

Here are some of the top-ranked colleges and universities that offer full-ride scholarships:

• Agnes Scott College
• American University
• Barry University
• Birmingham-Southern College
• Boston College
• Boston University
• Carthage College 
• Clemson University
• College of William and Mary
• Davidson College
• Duke University
• Elizabethtown College
• Emory University
• Fordham University
• Furman University
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Hendrix College
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• Indiana University Bloomington
• Lewis and Clark College 
• Louisiana State University
• Loyola Marymount University
• Mercer University
• Miami University, Ohio
• Michigan State University
• Morehouse College 
• Northeastern University
• North Carolina A&T State University
• North Carolina State University
• Oberlin College
• Ohio State University
• Providence College
• Purdue University
• Rhodes College
• Rollins College
• Southern Methodist University
• St. Lawrence
• Stevens Institute of Technology
• Syracuse University
• Texas Christian University
• The George Washington University
• The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
• The University of Texas at Austin
• The University of Texas at Dallas
• Tulane University 
• University of Alabama
• University of Buffalo
• University of California
• University of Chicago
• University of Delaware
• University of Georgia
• University of Hawaii
• University of Houston
• University of Kentucky
• University of Louisville
• University of Maryland, College Park
• University of Miami
• University of Mississippi
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• University of North Carolina, Charlotte
• University of Notre Dame
• University of Pittsburgh
• University of Richmond
• University of Rochester
• University of Southern California
• University of Virginia
• University of Wisconsin
• Vanderbilt University
• Virginia Tech
• Wake Forest University
• Washington and Lee University
• Washington University in St. Louis

Earning a full-ride scholarship

Because full-ride scholarships provide such a tremendous financial benefit to students who receive them, they are incredibly competitive scholarships.

You will only be considered for a full-ride scholarship if you have three things:

• A great grade point average
• An impressive list of extracurricular, leadership, and volunteer activities
• Great SAT scores

Here are a few tips to help you check all three of these boxes and improve your chances of earning a full-ride scholarship:

Hire a private tutor

Is Calculus BC giving you a run for your money? Is AP Chemistry proving to be more difficult than you imagined? Hiring a private tutor can help.

A private tutor will be able to work with you at your own pace and make sure you understand all of the material covered in class. 

Whether you are having trouble mastering the content, using effective test-taking strategies, or completing your homework, a private tutor will have the expertise and resources necessary to help you do well in each of your classes so that you can have a stellar GPA when it’s time for you to apply for colleges.

Fully engage in your extracurricular activities

While it might appear more impressive to have a long list of dozens of extracurriculars on your college application, many colleges look to see the depth of your engagement with these activities rather than the number of activities you participated in during high school.

Most universities would rather see that you devoted several years in a leadership position for two or three different clubs, teams, or volunteer activities than to see that you were an attending member of fifteen different activities. 

Being captain of the debate team and the vice president of student council will weigh more than being a participating member of several different clubs. 

Being a member of a club for four years will be held in higher regard than if you joined several clubs, but you only were a member for a few months.

When it comes to earning a full-ride scholarship, remember the quality of your extracurricular and volunteer activities is more important than the quantity.

Take an SAT prep course

If you want to have the best chances at earning a full-ride scholarship, you will want to score in the top 99th percentile on the SAT. However, this is a lot easier said than done.

Earning a high score on the SAT requires you to spend months completely devoted to studying for the test, and without the right study strategies and resources, it can be challenging to come close to scoring in the top 1% on the test.

To make sure you are able to master all of the test material and learn helpful test-taking strategies so that you can do well on the SAT, you should sign up for an SAT prep course. 

SAT prep courses, like the ones offered through Prep Expert, are taught by experienced experts who are knowledgeable about the SAT. They will teach you all of the strategies you need to tackle each and every type of question you might see on the SAT, and they will help you address any weak areas you may have so that you can be confident that you will do well on test day.

If you are a high school student aiming for a full-ride scholarship, let Prep Expert help you! We offer private tutoring and SAT prep classes that can make your application more competitive and attractive to colleges that offer full-ride scholarships.

Learn more about how Prep Expert can improve your chances of earning a full-ride scholarship today when you visit our website.