Hello. I’m a white male (not sure if that matters) New York resident.
Stats:
3.98 UW gpa
4.06 w gpa
1460 SAT
EC: 3 years varsity hockey, travel hockey, travel baseball, nhs, Spanish honors society, school newspaper, good volunteering 1 hr/ week, certified hockey referee and baseball umpire
Schools:
Binghamton
Geneseo
Albany
Buffalo
RIT
Cornell
Fordham
Syracuse
Ohio u
I don’t expect to have much trouble being accepted anywhere but Cornell (if I’m wrong let me know). What are my chances of merit aid at some of these schools?
I agree with your assessment of your chances of admissions. I know you will almost certainly get offered merit at Fordham and RIT. The SUNYs tend to be stingy with scholarship. UB a small award. Don’t think Bing gives much away if any, and no idea about Geneseo and Albany.
If you are in the top 10% of your class and enroll in a STEM program at any of the NY state schools, you get a tuition award up to about $7k automatically. That includes the land grant schools of Cornell. I don’t remember if it includes private colleges in NY, Do research that option.
If you are in the top 10% of your high school class, and are going into STEM, you will be eligible for a STEM scholarship that will cover tuition. Otherwise, you will have to look to see if you are eligible for the SUNY Honors Colleges and what type of merit (if any) that you are eligible to receive.
The STEM Scholarship does not apply to schools outside of CUNY/SUNY.
Since Cornell admits by school, it is not safe to say that you a re a lock for Cornell.
I wouldn’t count on much or anything from Fordham. My older son was NMF and did receive full tuition merit from Fordham for that.
My younger son who had higher stats (1550 M+CR old SAT) than the OP was only offered a small/modest award from Fordham…not making much of a dent at all. And I think he was really only offered it because he came from a Catholic school.
If you run NPCs for Fordham, they include merit in the awards. They do ask for stats, and I think it’s the test scores that bump up those awards. The amounts they give are supposedly minimums; it is possible to get more. Anyone can run these NPCs and if very high income is used, it’s clear that the awards are for merit.
Things do change. My youngest got full tuition even though he was not NMF, nor did he have as high Test score as your younger son, @mom2collegekids. That was just a few years ago. I just ran the NPCs recently.
Some of these Catholic schools are a bit fickle about who they admit and offer money. They give their local kids, legacies, Catholic school kids favoritism, IMO. Demonstrated interest can be very important too
The NY STEM scholarship does apply to private colleges in NY, not just SUNY/CUNY. You don’t get it automatically though, you have to apply. And there are strings attached which is why my d19 didn’t apply for it for Cornell for next year. We decided that ultimately it wasn’t worth the gamble to commit to stay in NY for 4-5 years after graduating with her degree. Paying it all back as a loan with interest would have been higher an amount than the loans Cornell put into her FA package.
I don’t think Bing has been giving merit to instate freshmen students.
Geneseo and Albany do but I don’t know how much. My understanding is that UBuffalo tends to give out more merit than most of the rest of the SUNYs. Instate, the amount this (excluding Presidential scholarship winners) was about $5k the last couple of years.
RIT will likely give you merit but whether it’s enough isn’t clear. They don’t stack most of the various merit scholarships.
Cornell doesn’t offer merit. If you run their NPC on their website, you should get a pretty good idea of costs (as long as your parents aren’t divorced or own their own business)
@mom2collegekids , you are right on about the NY schools. UB does not give large merit awards. About $2500. Only one big award given and very hard to get. It’s such a lottery ticket that, hardly worth discussing. I know kids with awards from everywhere and even accepted to top schools who did not get. In fact, I don’t know anyone who got The year I asked, only one applicant got.
There are performing arts awards at $3500.
Albany is even worse, and Geneseo gives out about 120 awards averaging $4k. I think of the 4 big SUNYs, Stony Brook is the most generous in this regard. I’ve heard of larger awards from the smaller SUNYs.
I’ve known kids with good money from RIT but no idea if FA or Merit.
OP should look up the average merit money given average school on list on Common Data Set. It will give you number of merit scholarships awarded, and average award.
@cptofthehouse No, UB has been giving $5000 in merit at least this last year and I think the year before as well. Prior to that it was $3000. (For similar stats as those posted above).
My d19 was one who got that offer (not the only one). They split it into 2 scholarships, one is Provost and the other is Pride of NY if I remember correctly. Each was $2500.
It’s best to apply EA for the best shot of getting those scholarships. If you apply later they may have already handed out the larger awards.
RIT gives a lot of money but they have a high starting point so for many people, RIT still comes out costing more than UB et al.
You should look at St. Lawrence University - they rank highly for merit aid, and matched the aid offered by colleges who offered to provide our full financial need. 99% of students receive some form of aid. My daughter is paying less than a state school with very similar stats.
@mom2twogirls It must be recent as it doesn’t show up on CDS.
UB’s $2500 award was not difficult to get but any more other than Performing Arts was lottery ticket.
Bing awards tend to be OOS tuition differentials.
Yes, it’s difficult to beat SUNY prices even without scholarships, especially going private. My late mother’s hairdresser’s grandson did get a large RIT award but whether it was Fin aid or merit within need is a question I can’t answer. Family reasonably well off so I don’t see high need there.
IIRC RIT’s largest merit award is about $20k and doesn’t stack with other awards (not sure about how it works with need based aid and whether it would stack or replace but I assume replace since most colleges don’t stack merit on top of need awards).
They had a chart on their website last year when we were looking, it’s probably still there.
Frankly, I do not get why kids pick RIT over a SUNY other than certain specialty programs. There are a number who do, however. They all seem to get grants to bring down the cost, but even $20k isn’t going to match the SUNY full sticker price.
My understanding of that one young man, who I’ve known for many years, since he was in same elementary school as my kids and then he went in to a Catholic school, is that he did not qualify for much in financial aid. Just some subsidized loans which disappointed the family quite a bit as they were not prepared to pay full price for a private college. RIT came in with what they felt was a good affordable price and it was a lot more than $20k. They are very loan adverse.
Sometimes there are merit awards that have financial aid components. They are hybrids in that they are merit awards but the recipient has to qualify for SOME financial aid to get them. I’ve seen these products in a number of private schools. Also in private scholarship programs. It’s not a dollar for dollar need meeting grant. I suspect that’s what that young man got. He did go to RIT.
My Performing arts kid got $3500 from UB, the two academic ones got $2500 in their packages. Bing offered zip to any of them. But that’s been more than 4 years ago.