<p>Newcomer here. Please forgive me if this is a silly question, but I am new to this whole college application thing. My daughter is a competitive student waiting to hear from an Ivy (ED) and 2 other top schools (EA). We do not qualify for need-based financial aid. I was wondering if there is any hope for merit-based financial aid that we could apply to in case she does get into one of those. I know the schools themselves won't offer anything like that, but how about external sources?? Or should I just forget about it? Right now, all we have is the National Merit thing. She is a semi-finalist who will most likely be a finalist.</p>
<p>Also, I am told that "no one pays the sticker price" at the Ivys/top schools, and that different people will get different financial packages. How does that go??</p>
<p>Ivies do not give merit aid. If you do not qualify for need-based aid, you will fall into the percentage of folks who pay full price.</p>
<p>Regarding the other two colleges, you should check collegeboard.com or U.S. News and World Report to see if merit aid is given.</p>
<p>Also, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if your daughter gets into her Ivy ED (that would be the good news), then she is obligated to attend, even if you think you can't afford it, unless the school releases her from her commitment.</p>
<p>Welcome to the I don't need a new car ( or anything else for that matter) club. Seriously, if there were such a situation I would love to hear about it. I am unaware of any major external sources of merit aid. Usually for top students merit aid is available from slightly less prestigious institutions especially for students with under represented interests. Someone please show me I am wrong.</p>
<p>Many of the top schools do not even participate in the National Merit program, so don't count on that either. The best bet for getting money is applying for local scholarships. </p>
<p>Plenty of people pay "sticker price" at top schools.</p>
<p>Cornell sweetens the pot abit by giving kids paid Research opportunities or having such programs like the Tradition where kids can have on-campus jobs and earn some money. They also reduce your bill by $600 if you are not eligible for financial aid and if eligible for aid that amount can go up to about $3,000 if in Tradition Program.
There are high quality schools that were pretty generous with merit awards- U of Rochester comes to mind. There are lots of threads that list schools that may be good for merit awards- but not the Ivys.</p>
<p>Just affirming what others have said, with a little slice-of-life personal experience. There will be no merit aid from Ivies or any other "need-only" school. Even if your D is accepted to and chooses an elite school which DOES offer merit aid, she will have to be at the tippy-top of their applicant pool to receive it - much harder at these uber-selective schools.</p>
<p>My S' first-choice school was one of those "slightly less prestigious institutions" and he had substantial merit aid from them. It was Tulane, though, and due to Katrina his major was phased out. Now he is at the more "elite" Johns Hopkins. JHU <em>does</em> give some merit aid, but not very many and not to him. So we are paying sticker price.</p>
<p>Yes, people do pay sticker price and it is those of us who do not qualify for need-based aid and whose kids go to schools where merit aid is not available or not for them. </p>
<p>It is also true that there are "different" financial packages for different students at the "need-only" schools, like the Ivies. So if they really want a student, they can offer a more attractive (more grant/less loan) package. But if you're not going to get any need-based aid at all, welcome to akdaddy's club where we pay sticker price and forego some of the other goodies of life to do so. ;)</p>
<p>No merit at the Ivys or most top schools since they do not need it to attract strong students and they reserve their help for those with true need. There are a lot of "poor" kids on these boards that are struggling financially to go to college and frankly while I'd love to have a new car these kids deserve that need based aid over our family for sure.</p>
<p>For merit aid you need to go down a little, many high quality schools that are not in the HYSP realm offer merit aid to help tip the scales for top applicants as do schools that are on the way up and trying to accelerate that process. Many quality Honors Programs at the better state schools can also be generous. There is a whole thread on these schools but your best bet is to go to a specific collegs's web site and "search" under merit scholarships. Most, not all, of the other type of outside scholarships are of small amounts and require a fair amount of work for the application process. If your child ends up applying RD she may want to ad a few of these schools to the full price ones and when all the offers come in she can make a choice.</p>
<p>The question of merit aid is largely moot since the student applied ED. As well, most (all?) Ivies do not participate in the NM scholarship program. If she does not get in, then she can apply to schools that do give merit aid.</p>
<p>If I were the OP, I would have an additional application or two ready to mail if this student does not get accepted ED. Pick schools where merit aid is a possibility. There are some terrific schools out there that DO give merit aid and are not in the top 50 USNews list. If finances are not an issue at all, then don't worry. If they are, this should absolutely be done. Also, as mentioned above, apply for as many local scholarships as you can get your hands on. Something is better than nothing!!</p>
<p>well, I know a young man who was offered half tuition at Duke and at Swarthmore, totally merit aid. Those are pretty high on the list schools..and to boot he was a white male. Ya just never know</p>
<p>About half the kids who go to ivies get financial aid. No merit from the schools as the posters have relayed. THere are top schools that give merit money such as Johns Hopkins, UChicago, Duke, Rice, UVa, Emory, Cal Tech, Davidson, UNC Chapel Hill, Swarthmore, Vanderbilt,Wash U, Boston College, CMU, NYU, USC. Getting a generous award from any of them is highly competitive, making getting into an ivy seem like a piece of cake. Nothing to count on, certainly. In fact unless you apply to a school where you are a very top applicant, getting substantial merit aid is very difficult. Even then, it is not a guarantee when you are talking about awards over $5K. As others have said, there are threads on this board that give lists of what is out there, and you may want to check them out to find some colleges where merit aid is possible and likely for your daughter.</p>
<p>The University of Chicago is a newly top-10 school that gives out $9,500 a year merit scholarships and full tuition merit scholarships every year. As long as the student remains in good academic standing (at least 3 courses and a 1.75 GPA), he/she will retain the scholarship for four years.</p>
<p>The best way to get merit aid is for the applicant to apply to schools a level or two below where he/she can get in. There are a lot of schools looking to attract top students with significant merit money. Many of these schools can provide top quality educations even if they aren't in the US News top 25.</p>
<p>I don't know much about outside sources of scholarship money. If your daughter has a strong or unique talent she can try entering competitions, but most competitions have pretty limited funds. Other scholarship organizations tend to factor need in heavily.</p>
<p>As corranged mentioned above, Univ. of Chicago has some merit aid: 20 or 30 of the full-tuition are awarded each year, and about 100 of the $9,500. In other words, not many. Washington Univ. has even fewer to offer. Carnegie Mellon has a few half-tuition. These particular schools do participate in National Merit, but it doesn't amount to a whole lot compared to the annual cost. (1-2K per year.)</p>
<p>The rule of thumb for ED applications is, only go this route if you are financially quite comfortable or if a wealthy granny is on her last legs and you know you are in the will. Or, of course, if you don't mind driving that minivan another 100,000 miles; or pretending you really do enjoy those driving vacations; or really think rental movies are just as much fun as going out...</p>
<p>My daughter is in her third year at UChicago. She was one of the lucky few who received a full tuition merit scholarship. She did not apply to any ED schools because we knew she could be locked in without aid.</p>