Pretty much all schools in the top 20 provide grants…need-based ones. Dataverse updated its merit aid table this month (November 2022) and it’s based on the Common Data Sets from 2021-2022. These are the results for some of the private schools you mentioned (along with other nearby ones). Even the most generous ones aren’t making a huge dent in the COA.
Wake Forest (#29): 7% of freshmen without need received merit; average award $12,366. COA $81,856.
Tufts (#32): 2% of freshmen without need received merit; average award $1,730. COA $81,700.
Boston College (#36): 2% of freshmen without need received merit; average award $22,279. COA $80,968.
U. of Rochester (#36): 40% of freshmen without need received merit; average award $15,133. COA $79,490
Tufts had an 11% acceptance rate last year. Boston College was at 19%. These schools are only selecting 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 of their applicants, and they have way more talented and highly-qualified students than they can accept. It’s not as though they’re filled with students with an UW gpa of 3.5 and an SAT of 1200 and that a student with a 1500 SAT and 3.99GPA is going to blow everyone else out of the water. For instance, the middle 50% for Tufts’ math SAT was 730-790 and reading was 710-760. At Boston College is was 720-780 for math and 700-750 for reading (source on SAT & admissions stats).
Makes sense. I have heard of one student (top ranked in High school) not getting any aid from Tufts, but got full ride from Rutgers. It was probably a hard decision, it helped Rutgers was honors college.
My daughter had several acceptances in the Top 50.
I believe I remember correctly that outside of the Ivy’s most of them (possibly all) came with various degrees of academic merit offers - some actually quite extensive. And as I scroll even further down to 75 in the USN list, I can say with certainty that each one offered merit - even out of state flagships.
I realize this is anecdotal - because we don’t know about the schools that she never applied to, but at least in her “sampling” the majority DID offer merit dollars.
We all liked Tufts a lot. The campus is quaint. It’s in a good location. Most importantly, the students seemed happy. At the time though, it was $250K. The school he chose met all the same criteria he wanted to meet, had far better engineering facilities, and was over $100K less…including his MS. It wasn’t a hard decision at all.
Caring too much about rank forces you to overlook many important things like class size, facilities and outcomes, especially for engineering.
That’s great to hear. Even if anecdotal, I appreciate knowing your story, as I’d basically written off most non-public schools as unaffordable. (I mean, they still might be, but it’s good to know that merit aid might not be as rare as I had thought.)
Yes, indeed.
I had looked over the T75 “National Universities” list instead, which is where I had found the universities where my daughter had been accepted into, 7 of which with substantial merit offers, the highest offers coming from Fordham, Northeastern and GWU - and UMass Amherst about half as much, and on the bottom NYU with basically a “token amount”.
All the schools listed above (plus the Ivies) don’t offer merit scholarships (it’s the same as saying they only offer need-based aid). All other privates, and some publics, do (to some degree).
I have good news and bad news re CMU. First the bad news - they are stingy with need based aid, and almost never give merit aid. The good news is that they have a policy of gender parity in STEM majors, so their acceptance rates for women into programs like comp sci and engineering are higher than their acceptance rate for men because they typically get more male applicants for these programs. Unlike some other schools (I’m looking at you, Harvard), CMU does not appear to discriminate against students of Asian descent. Note that comp sci and engineering are in different colleges at CMU, and you have to apply to that specific college.
Based on campus visits last year, CMU is very well resourced. They doubled the size of their main science building, increased the size of their computing center, and built a three building quad for the business school in the past few years. They razed Scaife Hall (an engineering building) and are constructing a much larger building in its place.
If you are looking for safeties, you should consider UIUC, which is very strong in both engineering and comp sci, and less expensive ($35-$42K OOS) than other options you are considering. The down side is its location in Urbana Champaign, surrounded by cornfields to the horizon.
CWRU (top 50 USNWR) gives healthy merit aid to strong candidates. They offered Thing #1 50% off tuition with his acceptance. Several other Case applicants on CC received similar, or more generous offers. We know an extremely gifted student who received nearly a free ride to their biomed engineering program.
If the OP is going to consider Harvey Mudd, she should also look at Rose-Hulman. For schools that do not offer PhDs, RHIT is ranked higher for engineering than better known schools like Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union and Olin. RHIT’s graduate outcomes for salaries and grad school placement are comparable to UofM. They are also very generous with student aid. The downside is that they are located outside Terre Haute, IN.
ucbal, You have a point that no top 10 engineering school should be considered a safety, but UIUC’s acceptance rate for engineering (37%) is a good deal higher than other schools she is considering.
What, if any, schools have you visited? Do you have friends and family members who are currently attending, or are recent alumni of, schools on the list?
Do you have some idea of where you want to land by geographic region, industry and employer? If you want to work in the auto industry, go to UofM. If you want to work in Silicon Valley, go to Stanford or Berkeley.
This is in no way a disparagement of Rose, but rather the rankings it falls within, schools that don’t offer PhD. Rose is number one with all ranked engineering majors either #1, #2, or #3. HMC is #2 with Civil, Computer, Electrical and Mechanical #6, #4, #7, and #3 respectively. They don’t offer any of those majors. Cal Poly is ranked #1 or #2 in every major, yet 6th overall. I think they’re all good schools, each with unique attributes, Cooper and Olin included. The rankings are illogical though.
First, you have to get in. Second, not every SV company drools over UCB and Stanford grads. The founder of the company my son started at has degrees from both and didn’t recruit from either.
I think it’s safe to say that no matter where you go, the record you amass, in grades, projects, and work experience, and your network, are collectively more powerful than the name on the diploma.
UIUC Grainger had a 23% acceptance rate for class of 2026….a reach for most students, including all OOS students. CS major acceptance rate was 6.7%, obviously a reach for all.
Mw, I was quoting College Gazette for the engineering acceptance rate. Even at 23%, it is far easier to get into UIUC than other schools on the OP’s list like Cornell, Columbia and Duke.
The tuition I quoted was from the same link you sent. Perhaps your higher numbers include all costs like room/board, fees, etc.