anyone know any?
Many. How low do you need the cost after scholarships to be / how much can you afford to pay? What GPA and test scores do you have? Any other special talent or outstanding characteristic?
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Lots. What are your stats? How low do you need the cost up be? Starting at around #25 on the US News Liberal Arts rankings, most of the colleges give some merit.
Kipliinger’s lists quite a few:
https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts
(You can click-sort on either of the two “non-need-based” columns).
Merit awards at these schools typically are competitive, not automatic for specific qualifying stats. In some cases, the awards may cap out at half of COA, or lower. Even with an above-average award, your net cost might be above in-state public school costs (but perhaps competitive with some OOS public school sticker prices)
Unfortunately when it comes to making top liberal arts colleges affordable, student’s merit or dedication has no value. It’s strictly dependent on parent’s financial performance. If they did poorly, they are rewarded, if they did well, they are fined. If parents aren’t able or willing to pay that fine, students are punished. You can’t attend a top LAC, no matter how well suited you are for that college.
There are many. One of my child’s acceptances offered half price tuition, basically. It’s going to depend on your stats. If you’re a girl, many of the women’s colleges offer merit, some substantial. Also, several smaller or mid-sized private universities with a LAC-type feel offer good merit.
You’ll have to drill down at each school because some offer a lot of students a little bit of money and others offer a lot of money to very few students.
I have a 4.0uwGPA and a 1560- I’m going to need at least half tuition because my parents likely won’t pay past my in-state tuition but I won’t get much financial aid.
Google “colleges that meet full financial need.” You will find several top-ranked LACs. Unfortunately, most of these are the most competitive schools. Also, they might not in actuality meet your full financial need, and might be “need aware” in admissions. For example, Williams is a tip-top LAC. It is very wealthy and really does meet full financial need, I believe, and has need blind admissions. But is extremely competitive. The College of the Holy Cross is one that offers academics as strong as anywhere. It claims to meet full financial need, although I don’t know how it would work out in any specific case. It definitely is very competitive in admission, but not as extremely so as Williams.
In terms of merit scholarships, several excellent midwestern LACs offer generous merit aid to a wide range of students. These include Denison, College of Wooster, and Kalamazoo College.
Also, check out Colleges that Change Lives. It’s a pretty large list and financial aid policies will obviously vary. I get a sense that many often offer substantial aid packages but still cost a fair amount, if that works for you and your family.
Rhodes College is an outstanding LAC. It’s also competitive in admissions but offers as much as lots of schools that are much more insanely competitive. I’m not very knowledgable about financial aid policies there.
https://www.rhodes.edu/about-rhodes
If any of these schools look good to you, run the Net Price Calculators on their websites to get good estimates for how much you’d be expected to pay.
Good luck!
@harrypotter112 @CupCakeMuffins 's statement is a bit misleading. It depends how you define “top.” If you are willing to dip into the 20s-60s ranking per USNWR, you can find many schools that offer merit scholarships in the 20-35K range. Go from 60 to 100, and there are even more.
In the upper range: Macalester (20K), Oberlin (up to 30K merit), Grinnell (no longer offers full tuition but top award is probably in the neighborhood of 25K, maybe more), Kenyon (not sure of amount). A bit lower down: Denison (up to full tuition), College of Wooster and St Olaf (50% COA), Dickinson (up to 20K). All fine schools.
As mentioned above Rhodes as well as other CTCL schools like Hendrix and Centre have a few large merit scholarships. I believe that Lafayette offers some large merit awards, and possibly Lehigh as well.
If you are female: Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Bryn Mawr.
If you’re willing to consider mid-sized schools - U of Richmond, Case Western, Rice, Wash U, Vanderbilt, and Duke all have merit scholarships. They are highly competitive and many require separate applications.
Check deadlines for merit consideration as some are earlier than the general admission deadlines. Best of luck!
Pennsylvania and Ohio have many very good LACs. Examples of those that offer substantial merit aid (that haven’t already been mentioned): Allegheny, Susquehanna, Juniata, Lycoming, Ursinus, Ohio Wesleyan.
One of your other threads mentions being in New York.
New York has a public LAC, SUNY Geneseo.
There are some other public LACs that are not too expensive for out-of-state students, like Truman State (also has some scholarships awarded on stats), University of Minnesota - Morris, New College of Florida (after automatic Presidential Scholarship).
OP,
If you have a 4.0 and a 1560 SAT, there are indeed LACs that will offer half tuition. Most LACs top-out at half-tuition (that’s their highest merit award), but a few offer full tuition scholarships (Agnes Scott (if female), Knox College, Wooster (only one or two, I believe), Hiram College, and a few others).
If you are aiming for full tuition scholarships, a Google search will produce a pretty comprehensive single list. I believe that list is here on CC as well (maybe even pinned?). A good rule of thumb is that you will get your highest merit awards from the schools where are are a significant cut above the average admitted student.
But, yeah, there will be half-tuition merit for a student with your stats, at many schools probably.