<p>Brandeis sent a brochure about the types of merit aid they offer to my D after sending her their Blue Ribbon app. It included the fact that students must submit FAFSA and CAS Profiles to be considered.</p>
<p>originaloog -
I believe that one should gather data from the college and other sources. The admissions materials, honest as they may be for a particular school, are marketing materials. Harvard's (sorry to pick on them but its the one I remember) materials said (at least last year) that scores in the 600's per section of the SAT were competitive. True (with a suitable bagful of caveats), but really...</p>
<p>Few schools are going to promise a specific award until after you go through the application process. Of course the exception many be i.e. $2,000 Merit if you have over 3.5 grade or NMF status. When d #1 applied to Boston U. 2 years ago, we knew they were fairly generous with merit awards, but until we received the acceptance letter and financial package did we know how much they were going to offer. So merit aid at colleges may be like Lotto- "You gotta be in it- to win it." Which means you gotta apply, get accepted and then find out how "valuable" you are to the school community.</p>
<p>Unless things have changed from last year, when our S was admitted, Brandeis offers significant merit aid ($ 5000 - 10000 and up) to many admitted freshmen with SATs over 1400 (old system) and high weighted GPAs. Consider it yield management or whatever, it still helps in the pocketbook division.</p>
<p>I believe that about 25% of our S's class received some type of merit aid. A much smaller number of students received full- or half-tuition merit scholarships.</p>