<p>Well, it looks new to me anyway - maybe I've just never noticed it before (doubtful!) but...</p>
<p>On the US News Premium edition (a bargain at $15) they now have summarized the financial aid data that you used to have to go digging for school-by-school. </p>
<p>It is called Where the money is: Schools that award the most (and least) need-based aid and they have it for Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities. I think it's pretty helpful (at least for big, general trends since even if they gave out merit money to 96% of their students it doesn't help you if your kid doesn't qualify).</p>
<p>Here's what's in the table:</p>
<p>Avg. amount of aid package<br>
% students receiving need-based package<br>
Avg. need-based grant<br>
Avg. need-based loan<br>
Avg. % of need met<br>
Avg. merit award<br>
% students receiving merit awards</p>
<p>I might sign up. There is also a lot of very good free info on their website. I just read an article in a recent issue (The article is available online too !!!) that at least to me was an eye opener. I was surprised that colleges (with the help of consultants) consider a wide variety of factors and carefully estimate how much merit aid will be required to convince a kid to attend their school. Some factors that I assumed were irrelevant (for example, other schools that my kid is applying to and the colleges that my wife and I attended) are part of the merit aid equation. </p>
<p>Check it out, if you haven't read this (it has been out for a while)</p>
<p>The article notes the sophisticated models used by many colleges to predict the level of aid to convince a top applicant to enroll. I believe this may have happened to our son. </p>
<p>Our EFC was $80k+, so obviously we were out of the need based finaid contest. Our son applied to a broad mix of colleges ranging from LAC's, to midsized universities to a state flagship university which he noted on his common application. He was intending to be a compsci major and the two midsized universities with strong compsci programs he applied to were Case and RPI. At RPI, he had two scholarships in hand prior to applying, the Rensselaer Medal@$15k/yr and the Legacy@$3k/yr. I suspect that RPI's model predicted that he would be a good candidate for one of Case's major merit scholarships and he was indeed offered a Trustee(?)@$17k/yr. At the time Case was about $4k/yr less expensive, so all things considered this may have given Case a financial advantage.</p>
<p>On admission, RPI came up with a Leaderscholarship Scholarship of $7k which came as a total surprise because, for all his research, our son did not even know that there was such a scholarship. Well that was the tipping point for him. And even though RPI was his top choice it made the decision a no brainer.</p>
<p>In retrospect this may also be a reason to honestly list other colleges applied to on college applications. its nice to be competed over.</p>
<p>Well an interesting thing, my kid received many infromation from need based colleges that offer more grants for summer help and some additional grants for leaderhip scholarships. These are beyond need based money. These are infromatioal emails and paper infomation. But do the kid recive these in actual life, we have no clue. These materails are from the top tier Ivy league universities that offer extra grants for doing things outside the classroom. If this money is given in real life, that will make life lot easier. I have no idea what is actual reality is, but I have a hunch that college will not mail these information if they do not provide these kids of help.</p>
<p>
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Well an interesting thing, my kid received many infromation from need based colleges that offer more grants for summer help and some additional grants for leaderhip scholarships. These are beyond need based money.
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</p>
<p>I have wondered for some time if need based colleges did that for very low income applicants that were highly attractive to the school.
If that is not your situation Newparent, please do not take any offense.
Even with Harvard etal waiving tuition for low income students, I am sure some students cannot think of attending because they provide income and support to their families that must be replaced to allow them to leave home. Especially kids that are farther from the school. They may truly need COA plus in order to go to the college.</p>
<p>Originaloog- I am going to agree with you about the benefit of listing colleges or awards on application. D had received the U of Rochester Award (Humanities/Social Sciences) which is worth about $11,000/year. We made it clear on her application that she was a recipient of the Award . CMU appeared to "counteroffer" by awarding her an $8,000 merit award. She decided to go to Cornell- but they in turn accepted her into the Tradition Program which also has some financial benefits.
So I think it is often a good idea for other colleges to know about these Awards as they may come up with a competing aid package without us not having to ask.</p>
<p>Cagel: I am not taking any offesne as I am trying to understand the system of financail aid as it is so confusing: In our case we neeed based aid and any extra merit based aid would be a nice incetentive. </p>
<p>I could use help in follwoing matters: </p>
<p>Is it a good idea to mention any nomination for private scholsrship from high school (only one kid is nominated from each high school) or college merit based nominations such as Trustees scholarship from (one kid from ecah high school).</p>
<p>So far kid has only added the real awards which she recived in real life. She has avoided mentioning any potentail awrads which are only just nominations and nothing else and are still in the process of being worked out. But there is no gurantees that she will be the recipient of these awrds, it is just a nomination phase so far.</p>
<p>"On the US News Premium edition (a bargain at $15) they now have summarized the financial aid data that you used to have to go digging for school-by-school"</p>
<p>CollegeBoard publishes the same info gratis.</p>
<p>e.g:Smith</p>
<p>Financial Aid Statistics
Full-time freshman enrollment: 615
Number who applied for need-based aid: 466
Number who were judged to have need: 366
Number who were offered aid: 366
Number who had full need met: 366
Average percent of need met: 100%
Average financial aid package: $29,183
Average need-based loan: $2,058
Average need-based scholarship or grant award: $25,169
Average non-need based aid: $3,465
Average indebtedness at graduation: $25,023
EFC Calculator
Compare Your Aid Awards
Financial Aid Distribution
Percent of total undergraduate aid awarded as:
Scholarships / grants: 79%
Loans / jobs: 21%
Non-need-based aid
determined by:
State/District Residency
Academics </p>
<p>Scholarship opportunities:
Zollman Scholarships: half-tuition; for academic excellence; 5 to 10 awarded. STRIDE scholarship: $5,000 per year for academic excellence; about 35 awarded. Springfield Partnership: full tuition; for academic excellence in Springfield public high school; up to 3 awarded. Picker Engineering scholarships: $10,000 per year. Mary Maples Dunn scholarships: $3,000 per year. </p>
<p>This might be a stupid question, but do you think that those numbers given for scholarships are for freshmen? It adds up to a lot -- 340, not including the ones they didn't give a figure for. </p>
<p>Also, I wonder how to interpret that merit aid figure, "Average non-need based aid: $12,213." How many kids get that? I don't know if you can tell from this?</p>
<p>I might add too that the US News has all the schools in a table. It's nice to copy and paste into excel and sort it anyway you want. Sort of interesting, if you have no life... :)</p>
<p>"This might be a stupid question, but do you think that those numbers given for scholarships are for freshmen?"</p>
<p>There are no stupid questions ;) Directly below "Financial Aid Statistics" it states "Full-time Freshmen enrollment" implying the stats are for 1st yrs.</p>
<p>The listed scholarships-- STRIDE, etc. are for 1st yrs.</p>
<p>The CB site does tell you how many merit scholarships are awarded for Smith. It does not seem to tell you the % or number of merit recipients for a host of other schools. I just plugged in four or five different schools and it did not say how many students (or %) were awarded merit scholarships.</p>
<p>"It does not seem to tell you the % or number of merit recipients for a host of other schools"</p>
<p>It does seem to be hit or miss. I found scholarship and aid info for Denison, Hobart and Hamilton but zip info, not even need-based aid stats, for Holyoke.</p>
<p>"I just looked up Holyoke on US News and it's all on there"</p>
<p>Opps, I looked at Mt Holyoke CC. The stats for Holyoke are there. It doesn't say, however, how many Mt Holyoke Leadership Awards are offered or how much they are. The only info supplied, "limited number"</p>
<p>"They may truly need COA plus in order to go to the college."</p>
<p>The problem is that "COA plus" is simply impossible for anyone receiving need-based financial aid. Unless one receives 100% merit aid (and not a penny in federal aid) it is impossible to receive a dime above the COA. This said, the COA does make provisions for a small amount of personal expenses.</p>
<p>PS As a little addendum to the posts by RLT, the most important information is not really about the number and size of scholarships, but how they are implemented. A merit scholarship that reduces your need based award is not that great, except for the prestige and ancillary benefits. Giving merit scholarships to needy students who qualify for substantial need based aid is a wonderful way to play with Monopoly money. And Smith and MHC seem to know that pretty well.</p>
<p>Tis true. But since there are only 5-6 half-tuition merit scholarships at Smith (not counting the STRIDES that are open to all), there just isn't much in the way of monopoly money, espeically as the little merit aid there is reduces loan indebtedness. (For many folks, it is essentially the same as Princeton's no-loan policy, except that it comes with enhanced academic research opportunities in the first two years.)</p>
<p>There's a web site called collegedata.com that you might find very interesting in terms of projecting college costs. It lets you create a free account and store stats & financial data to calculate a projected EFC, and then it compares your individual data to the specific data about financial aid policies for a given college - in order to calculate the net cost of attendance for you. </p>
<p>Note: when you register, the forms ask for a good deal of personal information - but you do NOT have to provide answers to all fields. Most of the info is optional, so use your discretion.</p>