<p>I would suggest she look at James Madison, Elon, Muhlenburg in addition to the other schools on her list.</p>
<p>Slightly less competitive than UVA, Chapel Hill, etc… but may offer the flexibility and opportunities she is looking for in a school. </p>
<p>The only merit aid that Bowdoin gives is to National Merit Scholarship finalists, but only if the student indicates that Bowdoin is the first choice of school. The award is $2,000/year for those students who qualify for need-based FA, and $1,000/year for those students who do not qualify for need-based aid.</p>
<p>Intparent. Great ideas.I like the idea of visiting career center early on. James Madison,Elon and Mt. Holyoke have been on our radar. Her friends visited Elon and came back with good reviews. I have asked her to look at Mt. Holyoke but she said it was part of the Umass 5 college consortium so she would have access to classes there Nonetheless, it sounds like they have more they we initially thought. The equestrian program is a big plus. Though not on her list anymore, it is one of her interests that she could explore and is not really found at many other colleges.</p>
<p>Thank you for the additional information on Bowdoin. It sounded very interesting but $1K is not much.</p>
<p>If you are interested in Bowdoin you might as well run the NPC just to make sure. FA for many is one of those"you never know" things. :)</p>
<p>Thanks Consolation. I just ran the NPC for Bowdoin and confirms no aid. Work study 1900. Total costs 60K. Moving along…</p>
<p>Mount Holyoke could be a great fit. Both my kids ended up applying and being accepted there. Lovely campus, diverse student body, good academic focus, and gives merit aid. </p>
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<p>It can be very tough to squeeze in final visits in April. At most of these schools you have one month from hearing back (and don’t always have the FA package right away) until you have to give a response on May 1. High school is in session, spring ECs are going on, and plane tickets are expensive on short notice. A lot of students end up dropping schools they might have attended in April because it is not feasible to squeeze in the visits – sad to watch, because they might have been the best school for the kid.</p>
<p>If you want a sense of your chances for merit aid at a given school, look at the Common Data Set for each school (Google “<school name=”“> Common Data Set”). There is a section that shows what % of students get merit and the average award. If you compare her stats to the pool of accepted students, you can get a feeling for her chances for merit and the average award. </school></p>
<p>A general rule of thumb for merit aid is your student’s SAT score should be at least 100 points above the average or ACT 3 points above the average. You should check out schools with ACT scores of about 28 and see if they offer merit aid. There are still some competitive schools that fall in that range. Good luck!</p>
<p>Years ago (2005) S1 got merit money from Univ. of South Carolina with a 1400 (verbal+math),4.6 (w) gpa and ranked #6 in his class. I believe it was called the Cooper scholarship. There is another one for out of staters with requirements not quite as high. I think it was the McKissmick scholarship. S2 didn’t choose USC but we were very impressed when we visited and would have been happy for him to attend.</p>
<p>The Cooper and McKissick scholarships at U of South Carolina also reduce the tuition to instate costs…or at least they did when DD got the McKissick.</p>
<p>Happy to hear good things about U of South Carlina. This was a recent add on. </p>