We did see (but not eat at) the Muhlenberg dining hall when we did a self visit. Was very impressed with how it looked and have heard the food was very good too.
When D interviewed at Muhlenberg (in 2012) the interviewer first met with my D and then requested that I meet with her. I was not even waiting nearby…D had to look around to find me. The admissions brought up merit aid to us immediately . She said how much she loved my D and how Muhlenberg was a perfect fit and that she could see D getting at least $12K or more in merit aid plus several thousand more in talent money. (Through her art portfolio and by setting up vocal and theatre auditions.) It was rather a hard sell approach which surprised me because D’s stats were not sky high (29 ACT, 2000 SAT, 90.1 gpa weighted.) But maybe that was part of D’s appeal. She was a music, theatre and art kid with leadership EC’s and probably had stats that were at the level of kids who actually enrolled. The admissions rep then went on to give us a contact number to call. That person would ask for more specifics about D–before she applied–and would be able to give us a real number for merit aid before she even applied. We never ended up following up because D got into her ED school, but I had never heard of an early award of merit aid before. It was not done for my older D who had applied several years earlier and ended up getting the max in merit aid that Muhlenberg gives out.
@uskoolfish Interesting story. You do bring up another good point. You noted your D has states that were at the level of kids who actually enrolled.
My D is specifically applying to colleges where we can get merit aid so she will have stats (at least as far as GPA/SAT) in the very high range at some of these schools. We wouldn’t want some of these schools to think they are safety schools and pass her by entirely or not offer merit aid because they want to save the aid offers to people they think we’ll actually enroll. I guess as long as she shows true interest in various ways, they’ll get the hint.
@lexluthor5, she will indeed be wise to show lots of interest in schools where her stats are much higher than the average, but also in any school where level of applicant interest is a factor. D had good merit offers from both of her safeties but the best offer was from a school we considered reach-y. So spread the love around!
@lexluthor5, I think your strategy of having your D show love to these schools is a wise one. My older D attended Muhlenberg and got substantial merit aid. They showed her love back and it worked.
I think you will find that Muhlenberg tries to be transparent about merit aid. So although it might not be something she talks about in the interview, it is something she can follow up with and get meaningful information.
As I recall, at Muhlenberg, I sat in their very comfy waiting area while my D interviewed and then was called in to meet the AO to see if I had any questions.
My younger D did a lot of local alumni interviews which seemed to be as successful as the on campus interviews.
If your D is willing to look at women’s colleges I think she would find both admissions and merit success there as well. My younger D will be attending Mt. Holyoke after a gap year and they gave her a substantial merit award. ETA: I just saw in your other thread that your D isn’t interested in women’s colleges. My older D would never look but my younger D was willing to and wound up really liking them. If you could swing by Bryn Mawr on your way back to LI, she might see that a) it is a gorgeous campus and b) it is very close to Haverford with an active consortium. BM awards merit; it is in a consortium with Haverford and Swarthmore; it is train ride into Philly; she can take classes at Penn. It has a lot to offer. My younger D loved the idea of a consortium. Mt Holyoke is in a consortium with Smith (btw, ranked #19 in USNWR for what it’s worth), Hampshire, Amherst and UMass Amherst.
College of Wooster is another school that she might want to consider.
If you look on the common data set for Muhlenberg, you will find that the stats of the students who enroll are definitely lower than the stats for the students who are accepted. I think that’s why the admissions counselor was so interested. Plus D was very honest with her and told her that she had applied ED to NYU for studio art. I think admissions wanted to woo her if NYU did not work out. Like NYU, they liked that fact that she had high verbal scores, good leadership, and was very focused on music, theatre and art all through hs. Art is not a particular strength at Muhlenberg, but the counselor kept stressing how Muhlenberg would allow D to do both art and Musical Theatre.
I think there are a lot of schools that get frustrated that they award lots of merit money to students who in the end go to higher ranked schools. So I think it’s important to show a lot of interest to those schools for them to gamble on you. Brandeis is another school who has had this problem. They went as far as saying to students that they did not give out merit aid, and in the end did award it to students who applied anyway.
This is all very interesting. I suppose I should be prepared to possibly get called in and should dress accordingly. I wasn’t going to look like a bum sitting there, but I guess I should step it up a bit.
In the end, my D is going to accept merit money from one of these schools vs. going to a higher ranked school at full boat. There are different levels of schools we are looking at, so I guess the lower ones of the group may have the same frustration with us, but we aren’t looking at the much higher ranked schools that don’t give merit. Seems like if we, at some point in the process, express this to the admissions staffs in the correct manner, this could really be an advantage. We need to show interest in a way that these schools understand she’ll come if the fit is right for her academically, socially and financially and that they are not safety schools for the top schools.
We were in the same exact boat with our older D. She was top 5%, decent test scores, excellent EC’s which showed a lot of leadership (president of school), she had the lead in the HS musical and had made all state for voice (sent in voice recording), plus she had an art portfolio. So she could have gotten into some top schools, and perhaps had a shot at some ivies. But we wanted to get merit since full pay with a second child to send to college scared us. We were hoping for a minimum of $10K to $15K off from the privates she applied to. In the end, all of the schools came through with merit aid ranging from $11K to $24K off per year. She also applied to Binghamton University (a state school that offered no aid) and Barnard (which was a full-ride school, but somewhat local for us–so technically she could have lived home and attended if we had a financial crisis.)
When she started the process, we determined that her musical talent and art would help bring in additional money, so she applied to schools that tended to focus on the arts in some way. Besides Binghamton and Barnard, our list included GW, American, Brandeis, Muhlenberg and NYU.
It’s important to research schools and see which schools offer merit without need. The common data set is probably your best source. But since school’s policies change from year to year, you need to ask financial aid departments directly. And don’t listen to Admissions when they say that you should always apply because very few students don’t get aid. That is not true. It might be that very few people have high enough EFC’s not to qualify for aid, but it does not mean that there is flexibility if your EFC is too high!
In terms of showing interest, for us it was probably 2 visits per school minimally: one for campus tours/ admissions presentations and the next for an interview. For Muhlenberg, American and GW she also applied for talent scholarships and needed to audition. At Brandeis she went a third time to arrange for a voice lesson and meeting with the music department.
If your D has an idea of what she wants to major in, I would recommend contacting department heads to see if a tour of the facilities is possible followed by a meeting to discuss the major and its requirements, etc.
And if the admissions counselor wants to meet with you, there is nothing wrong with saying that you hope D would be a candidate for merit aid. You can add, that you ran net price calculators and know your EFC puts you out of the running for financial aid. They are offering the merit aid for a reason, so both of you are playing the same game. They want your D so they can raise the stats of accepted and attending students. You want them for the good education at a reduced cost. No reason not to be honest about the situation!
Good luck!
My father walked me into the office building because it was in a rather urban area upstairs (kinda difficult to find) but once the interviewer came out, he left and sat in the car. It would probably be awkward if you stayed in the waiting area the entire time. 
A lot of very helpful CC’ers have posted so far but I’ll add my two cents to things. (Sorry, it’s long!)
It’s important to find schools that offer merit scholarships and have on their website that they consider your daughter for them or D can apply for their college merit scholarships (aka Johnson scholarship at Washington and Lee). Don’t rely on need-based aid because that doesn’t always provide the best situation. The best situations for merit aid arise when she applies to colleges that publicly display their merit scholarships and tell their benchmarks (suchandsuch ACT/SAT and GPA)
I’ve found that during the process, financial aid is a tricky elephant in the room that no one really wants to talk about. It’s not the admissions officers that you would talk to anyways about FA. It would be the people in the financial aid office. The only thing the admissions officers would know is if your daughter checks off on the Common App that she is applying for financial aid.
Only once acceptance letters roll in with FA letters can you really scrutinize. If your D has really fallen in love with a school and she wants to go but the FA isn’t the greatest, then you can possibly petition the FA office and ask for a better offer. Your daughter should not bring it up in the interview or anywhere like that. It’s like when you go to buy a car. You don’t walk up to the cars salesman at the Jeep dealer and talk about money right away. You wait a while after looking at the car, feeling the guy out, and then you sit down inside at his desk and talk financials.
About interviews, I had never had an interview before so I was really frantic and nervous about everything. I had to Google a lot and discover a lot of things by myself before going in! The etiquette depends on what type of interview she’s doing. If she’s going in with an admissions officer and it’s a determining interview, it’s slightly different than if she has an alumni/informational interview. However, the basic do’s and don’ts are rather simple on the surface.
DO:
Maintain eye contact.
Make a good impression
Dress nicely; kinda formal, nothing too revealing or informal.
Act natural; she wants to remember important things but not sound like a robot spitting out answers to 2+2.
On that note, keep the interview like a conversation. It shouldn’t feel like a Q&A. It’s not always asking questions. It can be talking about the school, academics, student life, personal experiences, EC’s, etc.
DON’T:
Be overly nervous. It’s okay to be nervous but don’t let it overwhelm everything.
Rehearse answers. Like I said, she needs to remember important things but it’ll show if she immediately spouts out that The Great Gatsby is her favorite book because blahblahblah.
That’s pretty much it! I have some personal points below.
Bring a resume in a file folder. It wasn’t anything with my stats on it. I just had something organized from Word on a piece of paper that showed my extracurricular activities. It was great for conversation points and it helped me remember important details of my EC’s. This isn’t necessary if she’s going in with an admissions officer because they already have read that. This is more for an alumni interviewer who knows nothing about her besides her name and contact information.
If your daughter has any questions about the officer/alumni, it may be helpful to bring ANOTHER piece of paper with questions. I did that for my pharmacy interview so I could remember the questions I wanted to ask. My brain was fried after talking about other things for an hour. Sometimes the interviewer will ask at the end “Do you have any questions?” D shouldn’t just ask something stupid but at the same time, it is nice to ask something. For example, D can ask the alumni how he/she liked the school and what he/she would do differently.
Here are some great links that helped me out:
(http://greatcollegeadvice.com/tips-and-suggestions-for-alumni-interviews/)
(http://youngadults.about.com/od/collegeprep/qt/interviewquestions.htm)
(http://info.getintocollege.com/blog/bid/357902/Prepare-for-a-College-Alumni-Interview-College-Coach)
(http://www.collegeview.com/articles/article/college-admissions-interview-prep-tips-you-can-use)
Again, sorry for the length but I just found myself typing and typing LOL. I wish your daughter the best of luck with everything!
Out of all my D’s interviews, the one at Muhlenberg was the most relaxed and least academic. The interviewer was an older woman who after looking at her resume and stats (comparable to your D’s) and chatting with her a while told her that she would certainly be admitted, that they weren’t just looking for high stats students, they were looking for nice, friendly good people and she could tell that D was their type. She called me in (they do have a comfortable waiting area) and she told us about merit awards. You do know that Muhlenberg has a very small number of really big merit scholarships; D got an award for 18K and was invited to apply for another worth 4K, but she liked other schools better and we didn’t feel that 22K off was enough of a draw considering her other options.
D also interviewed at Lafayette which was more rigorous and academically focused. Again, the interviewer asked parents in at the end of the interview. I don’t know what went wrong but D was just waitlisted at Lafayette–a surprise to us considering that the main reason she applied was that her stats showed that she was competitive for merit aid there and also considering that she was accepted at more selective schools and got significant merit awards at schools with admission stats on par with Lafayette’s. Maybe she didn’t show enough interest?
I looked at your other thread and to answer a question from there, SUNY Geneseo, Binghamton and Stony Brook all have merit scholarships. We’re also on LI and quite a number of the high stats kids at D’s school got full tuition offers or 90% off tuition from the Honors College at Adelphi, which I know is nowhere near the level of the other schools you’re looking at. But the Dean of the Honors College (who interviewed D) is very personable, dynamic and did a great job of selling the school. They held an Accepted Honors Students brunch that had us feeling that if D wanted to accept Adelphi’s offer we would be fine with her attending.
A couple of other schools with significant merit are RPI and American. Not LACs but not huge either. American is strong in Poli-sci and Intl Relations and RPI has a lot more in addition to tech.
To answer another question from your other thread, NM Commended is a nice line on the resume. D missed NMSF by just a couple of points which was upsetting at the time (she would have made NMSF in 25+ other states) but I don’t think it ultimately made that much of a difference. Some well ranked schools have great scholarships for NMSF (Fordham, Northeastern) but I haven’t seen LACs on a comparable level that do.
We were invited in to chat for a few minutes with the admissions officer at the end of two of D’s interviews (out of 8); I think our parent “interview” perhaps served as an additional point of demonstrated interest at small LAC’s where that is tracked. We were encouraged by one interviewer to apply for merit $, but the topic didn’t come up at the other school. At a couple of other schools, the interviewer spent a few minutes with us in the waiting room after D’s interview. We never knew in advance whether parents would be expected to talk with the admissions officer or not, so we always planned to remain in the waiting room looking at the coffee table books, talking with other parents, or talking with the receptionist.
DH is not a small talk kind of guy, so we actually “prepped” for our part of the interview – he would open with a compliment about our tour guide or something we saw on campus, I would ask a question about some feature of the school that was relevant for our D, and then DH would ask for a recommendation for a local restaurant, afternoon activity, etc. that gave the interviewer an opportunity to talk about the community.
@TheDidactic Good post and we’ll review your links, thanks. I do think that, at least with some schools, it is the admissions office that will talk about FA. (merit based), rather than the FA office. I’ve called a few schools to and asked about merit scholorships and at least a couple of times, I’ve been told that merit is through the admissions office and not the FA office and been transferred to speak to an admissions officer.
@crepes Muhlenberg does have an honors program that goes with some of those higher value scholarships. That could be a very interesting option, if offered (and if she even likes the school). Don’t see RPI or American getting on her list.
All great posts in this thread. Thanks again for all of you taking so putting so much time and thought into this discussion.
@Didactic True merit aid–meaning aid that is given out to students regardless of their financial situation-- is often given out by admissions. It is different from financial aid/ scholarships that have a financial component as well.
Schools that give out merit aid are happy to discuss it with students and parents who do not qualify for financial aid. Merit aid is offered as an incentive to get high stats students without need to attend. They know that students with high EFC’s (higher than the cost of attending) might get into more highly ranked schools. But for that student to attend these more competitive schools (this includes the ivies), the student would have to pay in full. So schools that are lower ranked try to get these students to attend their programs by offering merit aid. The schools want these high stat kids to attend so that their rankings go up. Some schools offer merit, but many do not. The common data will show that very clearly.
So it is not a hush-hush kind of thing. It can (and should) be brought up at interviews. Nothing wrong with saying my EFC is high and I won’t qualify for any financial aid–tell me about your merit aid packages.
@lexluthor5 If you are from Long Island…Muhlenberg had an admissions night at a hotel in Garden City. We had already visited the school and it saved us a trip. It was there that D was offered $ and given the number to call for an early read on merit aid. D was also able to an interview for GW in Manhattan–another saved trip since we had already toured the school.
@TheDidactic ^^^^^^
@lexluthor5 my daughter was offered a place in the Honors college at Muhlenberg so yours should be as well. They have a few different 4K merit awards to add on to the bigger ones but students can take just one of them.
And yes, we’ve been told at a couple of schools that it’s Admissions that makes the merit scholarship decisions.
Had a good trip through PA.
Started with interview at Lafayette. I scheduled that over the phone and apparently there was some sort of mix up. I had it for 11:15 and they had it for 9:15. I looked at my paper notes when I got home and it said 11:15. No way I would have scheduled it for 9:15 as it would have been tough to get there that early. Anyhow, I can’t imagine they’d hold that against her. No one seemed upset and they were able to get her the interview. Seems like their policy is to interview the student for about 30 minutes and then they bring in the parent for the final 15. My D seems like like Lafayette and it’s definitely high on the list. Had a nice breakfast at the old book store/diner in town first, which was nice. Walked over to Crayola too. Never had been there before.
Next was an interview then a tour at Muhlenberg. Interview was with the admissions person we had previously met at Hofstra fair and he remembered her. Very nice guy. Brought me in at the end again and said something about her being a good candidate for merit aid. Tour was nice as well. We did eat their as well (main dining hall wasn’t open). D doesn’t seem to like Muhlenberg. Thinks it’s maybe too artsy.
We stayed over in Carlisle and had an interview at Dickinson the next morning. Was with a younger woman, not the admissions rep for our region. Again, D said interview went well. I sat and talked to a couple of tour guides (one was the one who did our tour last month). I really got some great insight into all different things from the female tour guide. She really was very nice and had a great story to tell. D loves Dickinson.
I was starting to get worried as the interview was running a bit long and we had an 11am tour at Gettysburg. We left Dickinson right around 10:15 and got to Gettysburg with about 5 minutes to spare. Luckily, admissions parking was easy to find and we get in on time. Had a very nice tour of their beautiful campus. Had an hour before the interview, so we walked into town. Very nice town since it’s a tourist town in the summer. Back for the interview which went well. Again, they brought me in for the last few minutes. D doesn’t like Gettysburg for some reason. I can’t really decipher why, but I guess it’s her choice. I enjoyed the tour and seems like the school has a similar profile to Dickinson, with a nicer campus, so I was a bit confused.
As far as bringing up merit aid, in one of 2 of the interviews when I came in, I brought it up by saying something like, is there any separate application process for merit aid or something like that. Seemed like a decent way to mention it.
All in all, the timing worked out just perfectly and we got a lot in in 2 days.
She’s got some drafts of follow-up emails to go out. Any suggestions? She’s noting some specifics of what they talked about as well as that she’s excited to continue to work with them through the application process. One specific question I have is if she met with someone who isn’t the area rep, should she cc the area rep on the follow-up email?
We may try to go to Clark this coming week and still need to set up a trip to Oberlin, Kenyon and Denison.
She’ll probably set up a skype or local interview for Macalester and Grinnell, but I don’t know if schools that distance are really on the table.