Northeastern seems a lot more generous than Boston University. But for merit aid at Northeastern your stats need to be meritorious: ACT at least 34, SAT at least 2200.
Let’s examine 3 colleges and where they fall into your taxonomy:
Boston U, 8.1%, average $15,832 = “a decent amount of merit aid to a decent number of students”
Vandy, 10.0%, average $18,797 = “large aid to a minuscule number of students”
Lehigh, 4.9%, average $13,876 = “give only very small amounts”
Really?
As I stated before, except Villanova, the original list looks good. You can nit-pick all you want, but this list should be of help to those looking for merit aid.
Also, your data is from one particular year. Also, the table/data you provide doesn’t tell the whole truth somethimes. For instance, Vandy gives full tuition to a very small number of students, which makes these averages misleading. So, I am standing by my list, which is based on a combination of published numbers, trends, and insights I’ve received over the years.
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Sounds mysterious! From a spiritual medium?
Re: USC: I worked with a student last year who got a full tuition merit award from USC. Surprised me!
I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word “nit-pick”. It means to criticize inconsequential details.
USC STILL offers 1/2 tuition to NMF’s THAT IT DECIDES to admit.
These days, they are MUCH more selective than 10+ years ago.
That selectivity extends to their admissions decisions for NMF’s.
It really means to pick at the smallest details, the ‘nits’. They aren’t inconsequential, for it you don’t ‘pick the nits’ you will end up with lice (again). To me it comes from the same family as going over the matter with a ‘fine tooth comb’ to get to the smallest details.
I had a boss who always described his editing of my work as ‘just a few nits to pick’ when he had changed the most minute details of my work. They were inconsequential to him.
@twoinanddone this is from the Oxford English Dictionary:
I think we are off track…
% students awarded merit scholarships is not really a very helpful measure. That list is not overly helpful for the OP. A student who asks a question about the best schools for merit aid and lists Bama will quickly discover that just bc schools give out merit aid does not really mean merit aid will make the school affordable. Case, for example, might give a $30,000 scholarship based on the OP’s stats. Considering the COA is $62,000, that still leaves $32,000. If the student is stating they cannot afford the $17,000 in-state tuition and can only afford “a little more” than less than room and board at Bama (assuming the OP is already aware that that is reduced $2500 by the CoE scholarship), the Case $30,000 scholarship is meaningless.
OP, my kids fall into the category of college search that you are pursuing. The automatic scholarship link is the best place to start. Full-tuition scholarships are going to be the best source, then look for situations where OOS tuition is waived. For example, FSU waives OOS tuition for high profile students and in-state tuition for FL is around $6000/yr.
Fwiw, I’ll share my thoughts about Bama and engineering in general. I have a very high achieving student at Bama right now. He is an atypical student who started taking courses like algebra at age 10 and graduated from high school with 200/300 level credits in math and physics. He took 400 level physics courses his freshman yr. He received lots of “merit offers” from universities which left them still 100% unaffordable for our family. He loves Bama and has 0 regrets about attending there. He has embraced every opportunity and is actively engaged in UG research and is just happy about how his life is proceeding.
ABET the ensures that the education you will receive in engineering is solid. Our oldest ds attended a university lower ranked than Bama and is a chemE at a top global corporation working alongside top school grads. There is no difference in their pay. And as a matter of fact, he has received numerous promotions and awards since he was hired. The school on his diploma is not relevant to his career. Job performance is what matters.
What we are finding is that sciences/maths are easier to find matches. Our dd who wants to major in foreign language Russian) with a goal of superior and the schools we can afford have a student graduation goal of advanced intermediate (which means 3 levels of advanced between that goal and superior), their classrooms are not going to have students or instruction matching her personal objectives. Engineering does not have that type of discrepancy.
Good luck in your search!