I know Brandeis says that they don’t give merit aid, but I have been hearing that they actually do. Do I have a chance of getting any?
Weighted gpa: 99.1
Act: 35
Math:35
Reading: 35
English:33
Science:36
Sat 2 biology m: 780
Sat2 math 2: 800
Previous APs: biology (5)
Senior year course load:
Ap psychology
Ap physics 1
Ap calculus ab
Ap French
Honors genetics (semester)
College seminar (semester)
Holocaust studies (semester)
Public speaking (semester)
Anatomy (semester)
Independent study in German (semester)
Extracurriculars: NHS, debate team, ocean bowl, service club, LOTS of volunteering, service trip to Mississippi, summer study abroad in Mexico
Please let me know! I really like Brandeis, but I hear they give crappy financial aid and I can’t afford full tuition! Thanks!
Look at the Common Data Set (Google it for Brandeis) to see if they do. There is a section on aid, and look for the info on non-need based aid. If they do give it, you can calculate what % of the students get it, and see if your test scores seem to fall in that percentile.
The financial aid webpage usually says if they do or not, too. If they say they don’t I would believe it.
I don’t know why they say they don’t, because they do. My son is a freshman this year and was named a Justice Brandeis Scholar with a merit scholarship of $17,500 per year for 4 years, and his good friend who is also a freshman there, received a $15K/year “Presidential” Scholarship. I would say your stats are between the two of them, but it’s hard to say because their GPAs were on 4 point scales and they took SATs rather than ACTs.
When my D applied in 2008, they were known as school that gave good merit aid to top students. D rec’d a $15,000 Deans scholarship back then. Someone else from our high school rec’d a full-tuition scholarship. Both my D and her friend ended up at NYU instead.
When younger D looked into Brandeis beginning in 2010 or so, we had heard that they were discontinuing merit aid (non-need.) There was actually a letter that stated that the school had changed it’s policy and was prioritizing financial aid only. It went on to say that the giving of merit aid had not really been successful in recruiting the top students they wanted. In the end, there was too much merit money left unused.
At an info session in 2011, all that same information was again repeated. So if younger D applied, we expected to be full-pay based on everything they said. As it turned out, D got accepted to her ED school, so never applied.
This was in 2012 and I was very curious about whether they actually discontinued merit aid. And to everyone’s surprise, merit aid was awarded to students that year and continues to be awarded. In 2012 all mention of merit aid was off the Brandeis web site, but now it is back on. I guess they have decided to use it as a recruitment tool after all.