<p>I took DD to visit Rhodes her junior year and she fell in love with it. She is interested in majoring in German and I believe what Rhodes has to offer in the department would serve her well. She is a NMSF with good grades and good ECs and will be applying for early action. But I am terrified that she will not receive enough merit aid for us to be able to afford to send her!<br>
How competitive are the full tuition and full ride merit scholarships? Does Rhodes give a stronger weight in the decision making process to NMSF? Any thoughts on what she should be doing to help in that regard?
Thank you!</p>
<p>on the website, under scholarships/fellowships, they list the number of available scholarships, and yes it is competitive. Curmudgeon posts have alot of information on Rhodes merit. if you go to the bottom of the page here, and pull down the older posts you should be able to find his. My son also loves Rhodes, and we hope for merit aid also.</p>
<p>My DD is a sophomore at Rhodes and a recipient of the Morse (full tuition). I’ve posted her stats on here previously, so you could find them by looking for my previous posts. (I don’t really remember the stats anymore–sorry!) My sense is that NMSF is less important than some factors like geographic diversity or passionate involvement in extracurriculars.</p>
<p>I’m a freshman student at Rhodes and I can tell you that Rhodes is very generous with Moderate amounts of Merit Based Aid. Most of my friends are here with at least 20,000 a year in various forms of aid. However, I have not yet found a single person with over 35,000 a year. I was NMC student, 12 in my class, accepted to UVA, UNC, WashUStLouis, Davidson, had 300 hours of Community Service, and had a 2200 on my SATs with a 4.85 GPA and recieved 20,000 a year. But I was late in showing interest and the money had dried up. However, I also had a friend who applied ED, and he hardly got any money because the admissions department knew he would attend no matter how much aid he got. So you might want to keep that in mind. </p>
<p>I’m sorry if this is confusing. I just saw this before going to sleep and thought I’d give y’all my thoughts. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!</p>
<p>I’m a Junior at Rhodes and have had a great experience with Financial Aid here. The office is great about getting to know your family’s situation with paying for college. For instance, I have a twin brother here and the Financial Aid office knew that we would both be paying for school ourselves so they were willing to help us as much as they could. From the Financial Aid page: The average aid package of students with demonstrated need is $28,561, including student loans.</p>
<p>That said, Financial Aid looks more at the students’ whole involvement in high school than one specific thing like NMSF. They want to see the same things Admissions looks for: extracurriculars, leadership positions, community service, good grades, challenging classes, etc. They’re not looking to reward just one specific thing like being a finalist for an award. So as long as your daughter is well-rounded I think she should do pretty well with merit-based scholarships.</p>
<p>There are also opportunities for fellowships after you’ve received your initial package. Freshman year I was given the chance to accept a fellowship that bumped up my aid package by about $3,500 which if course was very helpful. I would also suggest that your daughter plan on doing work-study which allows her to make up to about $2500 a year that can go towards tuition if she chooses, but otherwise is money in her pocket.</p>
<p>rfwcphs1 has good points - especially about the ED.</p>
<p>This is somewhat creepy, schnp, but are/were you a tour guide? I went to Rhodes and my guide was from some New England state (Vermont?-- although I could be mistaken about the New England thing) and he talked about his experience with the FA office and how Rhodes made it more affordable for him and his brother to attend there rather than a state school.</p>
<p>ArtemisDea, you blew my cover! Yes, I’m from Vermont, pay for school myself, and can only do it because of Rhodes’ FA (combined with some AFROTC scholarships too). And yes, even with ROTC monies, it was cheaper for me to come here than the state school I was considering. Of course, that may not be the case for everyone so take it with a huge grain of salt.</p>
<p>Hopefully the fact that you’re on the Rhodes message board here means you enjoyed your visit! Hit me up if you have any questions.</p>