<p>Putting together a list of LAC's that offer the best merit aid. After running net price calculators for D's top picks, it becomes pretty clear that we need some financial safeties as well. Although we qualify for FA, the difference between the college's idea of EFC and what we can actually contribute would require accumulating pretty significant debt. These are not all of the schools with good aid, just those that fit D's parameters (no big schools and no big cities, and strong preference for east coast going only as far as NY state and Ohio). </p>
<p>Competitive full tuition/full ride:
St. Lawrence University Trustee - full tuition
Davidson College Belk Scholarship and Thompson S & Sarah S Baker Scholarship - full ride + $2500 to $3000 stipend
Centre College Brown Fellows - full ride plus summer enrichment experience
Hamilton College Bristol Scholars and Schamach Scholars - full ride plus stipend
Ohio Weslyan - can't find amounts, but appears some of their top scholarships may be up to full tuition
Elizabethtown College stamps program - full ride plus stipend
Oberlin College stamps program - full ride plus stipend (I think - web site not clear)
Next one is a public liberal arts college (not LAC), but pretty similar vibe....
University of N. Carolina Asheville Laurel's scholarship - up to full ride and admittance to Honors program </p>
<p>Generous merit aid but not full tuition (some more so than others....)
Dickinson
Kenyon
Denison </p>
<p>Anyone have any insights on these particular schools or suggestions for additional ones to add to the list? Thank you!</p>
<p>Willamette, Guilford, and Eckerd were all very generous to my son, but didn’t offer a full ride. The automatic merit award for out-of-state students at New College of Florida made it comparable to our own state’s flagship.</p>
<p>I assume you are aware that for merit scholarships that are not full rides, many colleges reduce at least a portion of their need based aid before the merit aid “kicks in”. So you can’t just assume that you can take the estimated need-based aid, stack the merit aid on top of it, and find expected COA. Plus, some of these scholarships are highly competitive. Example: my D2 had a superscored SAT of 2380, SAT subject tests of 800 Math II and 800 Lit. She was accepted at Kenyon, but not invited to interview for their larger scholarships.</p>
<p>Colby offers full tuition scholarships? My daughter was named a presidential scholar there and I think there was a stipend for summer or research, no mention of full tuition. She did not choose to go there.</p>
<p><<<
Although we qualify for FA, the difference between the college’s idea of EFC and what we can actually contribute would require accumulating pretty significant debt. </p>
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<p>I hope you understand that the merit will get applied to NEED first. </p>
<p>Your words above sound like you think that you will be given need based aid, AND THEN you would be able to apply merit to reduce your EFC. NO, it doesn’t work that way.</p>
<p>Merit gets applied FIRST.</p>
<p>So…assuming your EFC is $35,000</p>
<p>Then…if…</p>
<p>$60,000 = COA</p>
<h2>$35,000 = EFC</h2>
<p>$25k = “need”</p>
<p>So…if…</p>
<p>Your D gets a $20k per year merit scholarship, the school would do the following…</p>
<p>$60,000 = COA</p>
<h2>$20,000 = merit award</h2>
<p>$40,000 = remaining costs.</p>
<h2>$35,000 = EFC (so subtract from remaining costs)</h2>
<p>$5k is your new “need” which would likely be covered by a student loan.</p>
<p>And, you would still have to pay your $35k EFC. </p>
<p>Yup, OP, mom2’s correct. you need full tuition or you need a less expensive school like New College of Florida or Pitt Honors with a lot of merit aid for high scorers. any other kind of situation isn’t going to work at an LAC for someone without stellar stats, and even then only at some LACs like Holy Cross.</p>
<p>woogzmoama, thank you for the suggestions. Especially liked Willamette. Just wish it wasn’t on the west coast. Quaker roots at Guilford would be a big draw for D as well - she’s very drawn to that philosophy. </p>
<p>mamabear1234, I just doublechecked their website and the Presidential scholar info. is rather cryptic. D has gotten some literature from them that has indicated, however, that they do offer competitive scholarships to top candidates that are potentially up to full tution. Can’t verify this though as we did not save the literature. Sorry, wish I could be more specific.</p>
<p>Rhodes, Sewanee (not East coast, but if you are considering Centre, not so different), W&L, University of Richmond, Elon all have good merit scholarships. W&L’s full-ride Johnson is awarded to nearly 10% of the class. </p>
<p>jkeil911, intparent and mom2collegekids, thank you for the clarification. Yes, I do understand that these are all highly selective and competitve options. Just trying to figure out if some of them are worth a shot. I’ve run the net price calculators at most of these schools just to see what the package might actually look like and, yes, there remains a pretty big EFC after the merit aid is factored in. Sigh. </p>
<p>So, for a kiddo with decent stats (2150 SAT, 4.0 GPA, rigorous courseload, NMF, and lots of leadership and EC’s) who really, really dreads the thought of a big university and strongly desires to spend 4 years with hard working and intellectual students, what are her other options? Our state school (NH) has a really nice honors program, but we’d still be looking at $16,000/year from us even if she got a merit scholarship. </p>
<p>Her potential major is environmental studies - particularly sustainability. She’s also intersted in international relations and is passionate about history, english literature, and spanish. </p>
<p>Budget-wise, we will be able to contribute very little unfortunately. No college fund or savings and household income at just over $115K for a family of 5. Realistically, we will have to work very hard to eek out $5000-$8000/year. Very willing to do what we can, but also trying to be honest in assessing what is possible.</p>
<p>When running the net price calculator, EFC estimates from some of her top picks (both reach and match) were coming in anywhere from $14,000 to $20,000. So, based on those figures, $16,000 for the state school didn’t seem all that appealing.</p>
<p>OP, we were in this boat last year. Basically there’s not a lot out there for families with good incomes who don’t want to pay more than 20K/yr. We weren’t afraid of the child’s having to take some responsibility for the costs of her education, but that still leaves her parents with as much as 15K each year. That’s not possible for some families in this income group.</p>
<p>One option is to examine honors colleges and programs at state flagships with lower Costs of Attendance and/or OOS merit. New School of Florida. Barrett, Clemson, USouth Carolina, etc. Often they will offer smaller classes with honors-only students. Your child might have to get herself out of the dorm to find who are serious about ideas as well as grades; honors dorms often are filled with pre-meds. Your child will have to build her own set of intellectual friends rather than have one built for her by mom and dad’s dollars. Fortunately, at larger schools there are tons of idea-obsessed kids in the same boat waiting to find their mindmates. </p>
<p>She discusses her strategy for finding affordable schools and her final acceptances with the amount of merit awards offered. She had a different budget but still worth reading.</p>