<p>I was just cruising collegeboard and noted that BU gives an average of
$15500 "non-need" based aid. Can anyone verify they are in fact that generous? If so they must be near the top in that catagory.</p>
<p>They have a lot of half tuition merit awards.</p>
<p>They also have some full tuition merit awards.</p>
<p>When "average" is mean, the figures often aren't all they seem.</p>
<p>According to the nces website my son's college, Roanoke, gives 97% of the students institutional grants and the average amount is $11,209. Their sticker price is $35,000. My son has merit awarded grants for about $15,000. I think that people often don't realize that tier three schools with nice endowments are so generous. <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/screen.aspx?screenId=70%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/screen.aspx?screenId=70</a> </p>
<p>According to this site, 58% of the students at Boston U receive an avg. institutional grant of $18,410. With a sticker price of almost $47,000, that is sure to come in handy.</p>
<p>Boston University is very specific on what you need to qualify for their merit scholarships:</p>
<p>Can a "institutional" grant be termed free? In other words it is not a loan or a work study deal, but truely a discounted cost of attendence. I understand GPA's below those described will cause some, or all, of the "grant" to go away.</p>
<p>Yes. That's what my son has, a merit aid institutional grant. You just take it right off the top.</p>
<p>Hmmm. Yeah, well.... D was above the average for all the ones that pertain to her (and principal recommended her for Trustee, and Boston U was her #1 school, filed w/ National Merit.) Nada. Nothing. Oh well....their loss!!!</p>
<p>Well, BU's reputation for being generous with merit scholarships was one of the reasons S applied, and being awarded one figured in significantly in why he'll be attending. (Wow that was poorly written, it's Friday and I'm tired!!!) </p>
<p>However, the selection process for obtaining these scholarships is a mystery. The school's own website on merit scholarships, <a href="http://www.bu.edu/admissions/apply/scholar_merit.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.bu.edu/admissions/apply/scholar_merit.html</a>, doesn't make it any clearer. My son's rank and SATs were more in line with the $10,000 Dean's Scholarship than the 1/2 tuition, University Scholarship, and he was awarded the latter. Over at the BU forum there are a few threads where admitted kids state their stats and scholarships awarded, and though overall merit scholarships were given to the strongest applicants, many exceptionally high acheiving kids like astrophysicmom's son with stronger stats got nothing. I don't get it....</p>
<p>Astrophysicsmom - Did you file FAFSA/Profile? I suspect that their merit scholarships are tied in with financial need. My kid did not get the Trustee either, but was selected as an Emory Scholar, which I would have thought was harder to get. (Apparently not.) She did get the University Scholarship at BU. Go figure.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the selection process for obtaining these scholarships is a mystery
[/quote]
Colleges use merit awards as a way of attracting students who meet the college's needs and agenda, and also as an enrollment management tool to attract students who might not otherwise attend. The merit aid is not simply a reward for the student's accomplishments -- in fact, it is very likely that colleges pass over many high stat applicants simply because they are assuming the applicant is not likely to attend no matter how much money is awarded, based on other factors in the admission package. </p>
<p>The college's needs and agenda can seem mysterious, because they can change from year to year --- maybe this year they have too many pre-med kids coming in, so the kid who is a prospective German major seems more attractive to them than the kid who wants to major in biology, even if the bio kid has higher stats. Maybe they really want to focus on increased geographic diversity, so the kid from Louisiana looks better to them than the higher stat kid from Waltham.</p>
<p>Anyway: the point is that there is no "mystery", but you probably aren't going to be able to predict likelihood of aid unless you have some inside information as to what the college's current priorities are.</p>
<p>twinmom---we filled out the FAFSA--it illustrated that we are SO rich, we have all kinds of piles of money laying around in the corners. ;) (i.e. our EFC is laughable). Some of the merit-based awards do specify that they are somewhat need based, and she had no expectations of them. However, the NM 1/2 tuition one, and Trustee specifically, are strictly merit-based. D would mostly likely have gone to BU had she gotten the 1/2 tuition award...she LOVES the city of Boston, and really wanted to go to school there. But there's no way we could have justified paying full freight for BU. If she been accepted to MIT, we probably would have paid that--amazingly, BU tuition+room/board is more than MIT--go figure (and I would have worried consistently about her working herself into a burned-out zombie at MIT). So, I'm of the mind that things happen the way they are supposed to, and I think she'll be very happy with her choice.</p>
<p>An anecdotal piece of evidence that BU's merit award is random: I was definitely in great range for the half-tuition scholarship (2240 SAT's, great GPA, etc) and I also got acceptances from three Ivies including Harvard. I got NOTHING from BU. I was really a little bit insulted... :)</p>
<p>Astrophysicsmom: Hmmmm... we are rich too! Uh huh. Seriously, sometimes things do work out for the best ... I'm sure your daughter is in for a terrific four years. :)</p>
<p>astrophysicsmom-your D was a NMF and put BU as her first choice and she didn't get the 1/2 tuition scholarship?? I was a NMF, but didn't list BU as my first choice and was kicking myself, because I didn't get any aid, but after reading your post, I am starting to wonder if it would have made a difference anyway.
I think BU probably loses out on a few good candidates by not offering any aid. If other students are like me, they figure, if I am not getting money from anyone, I am going to go to the best school I can. Whereas, if you received some aid that would increase your chance (greatly) of deciding on BU.</p>
<p>If you child loves Boston so much , don't rule applying to BU but also consider applying to Northeastern . Many kids from my son's magnet school ( which is a very competitive honor high school )- even with IB diplomas and a ton of AP's , did not get much merit at BU but they got a lot of aid at Northeastern .</p>
<p>Be careful with terms. </p>
<p>"Institutional grants" are need-based. They are NOT merit scholarships, but a part of the financial aid package. You can't get them if you don't have demonstrated financial need. Boston U does provide "institutional grants" to 58% of students who have demonstrated need. As at all schools, financial aid leveraging means that your chances of receiving a larger institutional grant are partially tied to where you fall in the admissions pool -- the higher your stats and other talents, the more likely you'll get more institutional grant money and less self-help aid such as loans. So, there is a bit of "merit" involved.</p>
<p>However, MERIT scholarships are not the same thing as institutional grants. Merit scholarships do not require demonstrated financial need, they are based purely on "merit" alone. Boston University provides merit scholarships, based solely on the criteria above, to only 10% of students. The average merit scholarship received by those 10% is around $16,000. By the way, I don't consider awarding merit scholarships to 10% of students to be particularly generous across the board. </p>
<p>BU CAN indeed be generous to students who fall in the very top of their admitted range, but there are many schools out there that award merit money to 15%, 20%, and even, in some cases, 30% of admitted students --- when you're talking numbers like that, then you're talking generous, in my opinion, because everyone has a pretty high chance of receiving something.</p>
<p>Just want to clarify all of this as some might get the idea from reading the posts above that BU provides merit scholarships to 58% of students. That is absolutely not true.</p>
<p>One other factor to consider with Boston U: they "gap" about 10% of students with financial need. In other words, about 10% of students will receive a financial aid package that is smaller than the family's EFC, and the family will need to come up with the "extra" amount. The students most likely to be gapped are those who fall towards the middle and low end of the admitted student pool - in other words, good enough to get in, but not worth, in BU's mind, being particularly "generous" with. </p>
<p>While the percentage being gapped at BU is lower than at many schools, given BU's relative high costs, some families I have worked with have found that they can not afford BU if they're gapped. So, I always advise caution where BU is concerned, unless you are sure you fall into the "merit scholarship" category. Typically, that will require stats towards the high end of their applicant pool.</p>
<p>There's lots of mythology about Boston University's aid policy. If you want the real skinny, go to their Common Data Set.</p>
<p>In their most recent CDS filing, BU gave out $127,392,058 in need-based grant aid, and only $22,998,142 in merit aid. 93.9% of students needing need-based aid received it, with an average grant of $19,364. 41% of all students received need-based aid. Need-based aid per student enrolled (a very good overall measure) is $7,907.</p>
<p>All of these numbers indicate BU is comparable (without merit aid) to Brown (with merit aid, BU is substantially more generous), and well more generous than Davidson, Emory, and Cornell, even before merit aid is taken into account. </p>
<p>Do they gap? You bet. They met 89% of need through need-based aid (add merit aid, and that percentage goes up.) But average indebtedness (at $22k) is not unusually high for a private college.</p>
<p>"did not get much merit at BU but they got a lot of aid at Northeastern "</p>
<p>Indeed, Northeastern (according to their CDS) gave out $28+ million in merit aid last year (compared with only $23-million at BU), and this with a smaller student body. But, compared with BU, overall Northeastern is far, far less generous, meeting only 59% of need, and with average grants only about $11k. I have no idea, however, what impact pay earned in coop programs has on the overall data.</p>