Best schools that give the most merit based aid

<p>Wooster has wonderful in-house merit scholarships.</p>

<p>I would say that state schools tend to give money mainly to in-state students, UCLA & UC Berkeley especially. Most Out-Of-State students & internationals must apply expecting to pay nearly everything on their own or via private scholarships they obtain without the help of the school. For people who aren't CA residents, this is > $40,000/year.</p>

<p>I still think you may bet more responses if you begin a new thread about "Merit Aid for International Undergraduate Students." Good luck!</p>

<p>By the way, what are you interestd in studying? I believe Grinnell in Iowa may give some international aid, but am not sure at this moment. I know they do pride themselves in having some international students. Rice, as a private institution with a large endowment may also give international aid, but it might be best if you correspond with each school you're interested in attending to find out their policies. Good luck!</p>

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<p>Vampiro, look into private schools with presidential scholarships. My daughter attends St. Louis University on a Presidential Scholarship. It covers full tuition for 4 years. They offer 30 a year. I know for a fact that there is one girl from Africa who won one of the scholarships the year or two before my daughter arrived. She did not have to come for the interview weekend. I just know that she was awarded one of the Presidential scholarships. She was very happy to be there. IF your stats are good enough, you would surely be in the running.</p>

<p>''At UNC you get paid tuition, room and board, meals, three summers of travel and community service, a $3,000 stipend for laptops, and dual access to Duke (meaning up you take up to half your classes there versus the regular policy of just one course at the sister campus''</p>

<p>Hey can you send me the link to the page where it says about full rides?? because i cant find it on their website. Also, what do you need to have to get that full ride?</p>

<p>Bucknell doesn't give much aid in ED....</p>

<p>hey anyone out here got any idea of what's the meaning of rolling ED??...thanks...</p>

<p>Somebody wrote on CC : "I do know that applying to schools where your SAT score is above the 75% percentile for their applicants puts you in the merit aid range " </p>

<pre><code>We used this rule --and also the rule of Ohio schools liking out-of-state students - in selecting D's colleges and this netted her a renewable $5000 scholarship , plus , some extra aid at HIRAM COLLEGE , and her room-mate who had a higher SAT scored a $10,000 renewable .
</code></pre>

<p>My son and his girlfriend both earned the Academic Honors Scholarship at UTD. My son had a 1440 on his SAT, and his girlfriend got the scholarship based upon her ACT score of 33. They both had GPA's near 4.0, but came from an extremely competivie High School where the top 10% is pretty much exclusively all IB students. Although my son is a CS major, I've not heard anything about TI giving jobs to graduates.</p>

<p>Other than a National Merit Scholarship, the Academic Honors Scholarship is the highest one they give. It pays for 100% of their tuition for 8 semesters. My son is fast-tracking and will complete both his BS and MS degrees during his 8 semesters there. He's on his 5th semester at the moment. In addition to the full tuition, he receives a check from the Burser's office at the beginning of every semester for $1,500. That pretty much pays for his rent. He did spend 2 years in the apartments at UTD, but recently moved off campus. Didn't like the ****-roaches there! While he did live at Waterview, the university gave him an additional $1,000 towards his rent. Off campus does not qualify for the rent stipend. </p>

<p>He works part time to pay for food, fun and car insurance and has a ton of money in the bank. The best part of all, is that he has not had to borrow one thin dime for college.</p>

<p>His only requirement is maintaining a minimum of 3.0 or 3.25 GPA. I can't remember which one. Since his GPA is 3.94, I've not worried about him ever losing the scholarship.</p>

<p>It's a great school for Engineering. My daughter who graduated this past May had also been accepted there as well. Her SAT score was only 1300, so she was not offered the same scholarship. She was only offered a stipend of $1500/semester. With current tuition there skyrocketing, that would not have covered as much for her.</p>

<p>She did receive a near full ride (merit based) at Northwestern State University of Louisiana. She is in the Scholar's College there. Her scholarship will cover all of her tuition and dorm for 4 years. Our only expense is her food and books.</p>

<p>Life is good! Two down, and one to go for college.</p>

<p>I know USC was mentioned earlier, but I just wanted to expand on it, since not many west coast schools are represented on this thread.
I got the trustee scholarship, which is full tuition for all four years. They give out 100-120 of these. Presidential scholarship is half tuition and goes automatically to national merit scholars and national hispanic scholars. There are about 150 of these. About 250 quarter tuition scholarships. There is also a half tuition scholarship for international students. They don't say how many of those they give out.</p>

<p>Additional perks are that you can apply for Thematic Option, the schools honors program, if you are considered for a scholarship. Really good classes, special seminars, and trips to the city. Also, there is ATPS, a program for those with the top two scholarships. We go on trips and have big/little sibs and tailgate. Tons of fun</p>

<p>Ask any questions if you have them!</p>

<p>If you have need, USC can also be exceeding generous.</p>

<p>Until they take it all away the next year...</p>

<p>You should really check out Texas A & M for excellent funding for highly competitive students such as Natl Merit Scholars. It is possible to receive a full ride between the National Merit related scholarships and other Honors based scholarships as well as scholarships specific to individual colleges. These are based on merit, alone and are very generous - far more so than University of Texas at Austin. TAMU appears to be very serious about attracting students of this caliber.</p>

<p>Additionally, they have a very strong and loyal former student contingent which offers other scholarship opportunities of substantial amounts of money. The school also allows these merit scholarships as well as outside merit scholarships to be stacked which means that it is very possible for a very highly competitive student to get an excellent education for free. (That is if you consider the sacrifices made over a twelve year time span to achieve this level to have come at no personal cost!)</p>

<p>TAMU offers another excellent feature which is attractive- an all freshman Honors dorm which houses only students who have received a certain level of scholarship and has more applicants than rooms, as well as an upper classman Honors dorm. </p>

<p>They also select 25 or 30 of the top applicants each year and offer them the opportunity to attend a leadership program at their facility in Italy for 2+ weeks prior to the Fall semester. </p>

<p>Anyway, check it out at tamu.edu- find the link to the Honors program and it lists the available honors based scholarships. Information about financially based scholarships are listed elsewhere.</p>

<p>Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. You don't have to be a genius to get one!!!</p>

<p>I have kindve a twist on this question. What are some schools where a student from FL could have a good chance at a full ride, if he is interested in engineering, physics, or math with a 4.0 unweighted gpa, a few ap's and a 2260 on the new SAT, and NMSF. Not much in extracurriculars other than a part time job. I've been reading the thread and i've noticed a lot of the schools with good merit aid would be difficult to even get into, much less get a full ride!</p>

<p>PS. I already know UF...</p>

<p>ExRunner-</p>

<p>We visited 10 schools this past summer. Of those, Baylor & the University of Tulsa (and UF) were most likely to give full rides. You can plug in your stats on Baylor's website and find out exactly what you would receive. I believe that Tulsa is limiting full rides this year to 75. Rhodes and Emory have a few full rides but the scholarships (Bellingrath & Emory Scholars) are highly competitive.</p>

<p>ExRunner-
Many state schools throughout the country offer wonderful scholarship opportunities. Pick a state that appeals to you and check out the state schools and whether or not they have honors programs which are often the source for many of these scholarships. Many state schools really are interested in out of state kids.</p>

<p>In Texas, UT Dallas has excellent scholarship offers. As to the bigger state schools here, both Texas A & M and UH offer far better scholarship money than UT if you're talking merit as opposed to FAFSA aid. For Natl Merit scholars last year, UT was offering only $13,000 as their standard offer as opposed to a possible $38,600 at TAMU with freshman honors housing and at UH you could pretty much get a free ride. Southwestern, which is not a state school, has on their website, the formula for exactly how much they will offer, or at least they did. And Tulsa, which alpha mentioned, is pretty aggresive in trying to attract good students. </p>

<p>In your research make sure to see what the school's policy is toward stacking scholarships- which some schools allow and others don't. This can make an enormous difference. If you get busy and look for outside scholarships which are well suited to your particular circumstances (and don't waste time on those which are not), you might be quite surprised at what you can patch together!</p>

<p>exrunner - txmom gives some excellent advice. take a look at the "stacking".........that can make a difference. suggest you look at the SAT ranges for the schools that you may consider - and see where your SAT falls. merit aid may be better where your scores fall above the high end of the range. check cc threads for more info. on merit aid and which schools are better known for it.</p>

<p>I know people have already said this, but Washington & Lee has been basically buying really good students to come, so they are definitely not bottom tier and have first-rate merit aid.</p>

<p>hey everybody, my name is akile, im new to cc and i haven't really read through all six pages of posts, but i was wondering if u guys knew if yale gives out a lot of finiancial aid...either merit-based or need-based for early action candidates</p>

<p>Ak88,</p>

<p>NO merit aid at any of the Ivies, but they guarantee to meet "demonstrated" need.</p>