Do merit scholarships actually exist?

Paying for College
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<p>This may be repeating some other discussions a bit, but I'd be interested to find out if my son is just unlucky or if there is really a severe lack of merit scholarships for better colleges. We just heard from Purdue -- $0 in merit scholarships. They were nice enough to follow up with a request to accept this offer and sign up for $44K a year!</p>

<p>My son has 36 ACT, 1600 SAT, 4.2 GPA, National Merit Finalist, APs galore, Eagle Scout, etc. Do merit scholarships exist and who exactly is getting them? Also got only $6K from Ohio State. We haven't heard back from some others yet, but I'm beginning to got despondent. </p>

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<p>In our experience so far, getting “only 6K” from Ohio State is getting a merit scholarship from a state school. We, too are getting despondent. It seems, if you really want scholarships that will make college affordable, you either have to apply to schools you consider “beneath you”, or you need to get into private and highly competitive schools. If you can’t get in there, then you have to pay big bucks to go to state flagship type schools. </p>

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<p>"We just heard from Purdue – $0 in merit scholarships. They were nice enough to follow up with a request to accept this offer and sign up for $44K a year!</p>

<h1> My son has 36 ACT, 1600 SAT, 4.2 GPA, National Merit Finalist, APs galore, Eagle Scout, etc. Do merit scholarships exist and who exactly is getting them? Also got only $6K from Ohio State. We haven’t heard back from some others yet, but I’m beginning to got despondent. "</h1>

<p>I may be wrong but didn’t you or your child start another thread about wanting big merit? And then people answered but I don’t think you came back to read the answers. </p>

<p>edited to add…yes, I just checked. Someone with this screenname started a thread about this subject and we posted answers, yet the person never came back.</p>

<p>Anyway…Purdue has a strict scholarship deadline so I suspect that your son applied after the deadline.</p>

<p>In the last thread, I mentioned that if your child applied NOW (even at this late date) to Alabama, he’d get nearly a free ride for being NMF. Bama extends its scholarship deadlines for NMFs. </p>

<p>He’s get…</p>

<p>5 years of tuition
1 year of housing
3500 per year stipend
2000 study abroad
iPad</p>

<p>And…if he majors in eng’g or Comp Sci, then he’d get an add’l 2500 per year. So really nearly a free ride. Your remaining costs would be TINY.</p>

<p>Bama has a new mega-sized STEM complex…over 900,000 sq ft of new STEM academic space. </p>

<p>The campus is gorgeous and the academics are strong.</p>

<p>And, the app is VERY easy…no essays, no LORs… you could do it in 5 minutes.</p>

<p><<<
but I’m beginning to got despondent
<<<<</p>

<p>It sounds like you need merit to help afford college. IF so, then you really need to get that Bama app in. Your remaining costs would be very low. He’s a NMF, he’ll DEFINITELY get that huge award.</p>

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<p>@homer9 - wow! That’s depressing. I’m hoping for better results than that for our high school junior. </p>

<p>We live in Pennsylvania and so our safety is Penn State, hopefully the Schreyer Honors College, where we would get 4k off, but that’s still not cheap. I suppose that makes our true safety Temple University, where her stats guarantee her a full tuition scholarship. </p>

<p>This year’s high school seniors are beginning to hear their acceptance and merit info. It does seem merit money at Fordham gets tougher to get each year. However, St. Joe’s and Drexel still seem to give pretty generous merit to a lot of kids so I am sort of counting on it, but maybe I shouldn’t be. Yikes, your post about Purdue has scared me.</p>

<p>I do have one thought - is it possible that they think your son isn’t really going to go there? We know a boy with stats similar to your son who thought he was going to get the Presidential at St. Joe’s who only got something like 9k, much less than kids with so so class ranks and 1800 SAT’s. That boy, who was accepted at least one Ivy, ended up at Schreyer. I haven’t heard of the lowball scholarship happening to other kids at St. Joe’s so I’m not sure if that was just an aberration or if it’s indicative of how some schools hand out merit money.</p>

<p>Edited to Add: It’s a big concern of ours that our daughter’s first choice school won’t think she’s a serious candidate because her stats are well outside the middle 50%. Her guidance counselor told us she had to interview at that school to tell them how much and why she liked it and also to let them know that she was only considering schools that offer merit or she’s risking being rejected outright.</p>

<p>p.s. Keeping my fingers crossed for you that you’ll hear better news from some of your son’s other schools.</p>

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<p>With those stat’s, your son would have qualified for [automatic</a> full tuition/full ride scholarships](<a href=“Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #300 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #300 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums) from any number of state schools . . . that he apparently chose not to apply to.</p>

<p>If you’re looking for competitive merit scholarships (i.e. not the “automatic” ones), then you need to focus on schools that are safeties or, at most, “low reaches” for your son. Look at it this way, if the majority of a school’s applicants have the same GPA and SAT scores as your son, why would they have any incentive to offer him money to attend? You needed to focus on schools where your son’s stat’s made him the exception, rather than the rule.</p>

<p>concernedmom27’s reference to “private and highly competitive schools” is misguided. Yes, those schools tend to offer excellent need-based aid, but they generally don’t offer any merit aid whatsoever. So if you are looking for merit, and not need-based, aid, those “highly competitive” private schools are NOT the place to look!</p>

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<p>What is your S’s uw GPA?
From the Purdue subforum, there are thorough discussions on their merit scholarships. There should be over 1000 freshmen getting the Trustees and Presidential Scholarships each year. My D got the Presidential one with ACT 35, uwGPA4.0, NMF, AP scholar and a state level award.
With NMF title, your S should be able to get merit scholarships from many schools. For instance, my D also got several merit scholarships from UMN that almost matched the total oos tuition cost when combined.
I know the top scholarships are very competitive in any school. There are some students on the Purdue subforum with ACT 35 and GPA 3.9+ not getting any merit aid.</p>

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<p>mom2collegekids:
Yes I had a different thread and I wasn’t ignoring anyone – I appreciate all the feedback. But this is a different thread (at least that was my intent). I asked for a Poll because I want to get specific examples from others. And I’m hoping to inform others who might be in the same boat. </p>

<p>To answer some of the other comments/questions so far: a) he applied on time and for all scholarships at Purdue; b) he has a 4.0 unweighted GPA; c) Purdue was his number 1 choice and he told them so.</p>

<p>And I appreciate all the info about Alabama. He can get NMF money at multiple schools, and Alabama has already made an offer. This point here is about top-tier schools (no slur on Alabama intended) and the realization that they are pretty much out of range for any middle class family no matter how well their kids do in schools. This was a shock to us. Or maybe we just applied to the wrong schools – that;s what I’m trying to find out. </p>

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<p>There are threads in the Tulane forum where lots of kids are getting merit scholarships. Same for the threads in the Duke and UNC forums, along with the Vanderbilt forum. Those are the very competitive large scholarships, but if you read through them you will see kids that get them.</p>

<p>ETA: Here’s an example: <a href=“Duke Robertson vs Princeton - Duke University - College Confidential Forums”>Duke Robertson vs Princeton - Duke University - College Confidential Forums;

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<p>Also go to the USC (SoCal) forum. USC offers full and half tuition scholarships. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1608845-fall-2014-usc-decisions-stats-only-thread.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1608845-fall-2014-usc-decisions-stats-only-thread.html#latest&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The thread above shows you the stats of kids that are finalists (read minimum 1/4 tuition merit aid).</p>

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<p>Besides Alabama, Texas A&M also has a good National Merit scholarship. So do many other schools, as listed in the various large merit scholarship threads (including the sticky threads at the top of this section).</p>

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<p><<<<
This point here is about top-tier schools
<<<<</p>

<p>the point is that at top tier schools, kids with tippy-top stats are a dime a dozen. So what are those school supposed to do? Give everyone merit? If so, then they may as well discount the tuition. lol </p>

<p>To these top schools, a student with a 2300 SAT or a 35 ACT Is the same as one with perfect scores. </p>

<p>There’s a reason why top tier schools don’t give out merit (or only give very targeted merit)…every student is deserving of that merit.</p>

<p>So, they give their merit to “fine tune” their class…to get more URMs, or to get more female eng’g students, or to get more regional diversity…the school may not have anyone from Alaska, or Hawaii, or North Dakota.</p>

<p>As long as your son has some financial safeties in his pocket, then things will work out. What are his financial safeties? </p>

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<p>

Depends on your definition of better colleges.

Yes. Both my Ds received merit scholarships to LACs.

Then I wonder why you’re asking the question. It reminds me of the Groucho Marx quote:
" I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER"</p>

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<p>You answered your own question. Your son DID get a merit award. From OSU, and congratulations to him for that. He missed out upon being one of the fewer than 10% to get such an award from Purdue which averages about the same amount that OSU gave him. Win some, lose some. </p>

<p>You have to apply to those colleges where the stats give you the best chances for money and that have it. There are some schools where your son could, maybe still can get merit money guaranteed. Others schools, he takes his chances and maybe he gets some, maybe not.</p>

<p>I remember a fellow student from years ago that got a very nice close to full ride from Duke University, all merit. Quite impressive. Duke still gives this out, but the chances of getting it are very small because only a few awards are given, and those applying to Duke tend to have sterling resumes. Even with his great stats, you son is not a shoo-in to get accepted there, much less get the big bucks. So it depends on where he applies and how much he stands out in the crowd. There are school where his chances are zip for merit because they don’t give it out at all. Being an OOS applicant to public schools generally is not a high chance ticket, by the way, except for some schools that have committed rustling up some OOS business and are willing to put big merit money on the table. Alabama is one such school.</p>

<p>But Fordham would have likely given your son a full tuition award and the same with Northeastern, in terms of some “name” privates. Rochester, RPI also good possibilities. Tulane too. The schools are there but you have to focus on the ones where the odds are good for your son, and with his stats, the list is pretty danged long. </p>

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<p>OP, my son had your son’s states (ACT 36, NMF, Eagle Scout) and he ended up at University of Alabama. He is very happy with his choice (and we are too). Top schools have top applicants so they do not have to give out merit scholarships to attract students. If your son really needs merit to make it affordable, then he does have to look at some of the other schools that offer them. Purdue is an excellent engineering school but there are alot of schools who are also ABET accredited which offer the same classes. Oldest goes to UMN with a scholarship that covers most of tuition and he has had good experience in the engineering/honors division. Unfortunately it may be too late to apply but if interested, give the admissions office a call to see. Good luck.</p>

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<p>His main backup, Ohio State, is still feasible, but it’s also surprising us that he got only a small merit scholarship there. He also has full tuition options at Arizona State and a couple of others. We know he will get into a top 50 state engineering school for around what we had been budgeting ($15K/yr), or a free ride at schools further down the rankings. I should have been a bit more specific in the title – I’m really discussing lack of merit scholarships at the top schools, and also lack of merit funds at state schools like Ohio State.</p>

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<p>Yes as far as I know, elite or “top” schools don’t give much merit because everyone is so qualified. State schools don’t because the reason they are state schools are to mainly serve the state’s populace. Most of their money is going to actual residents of the state in terms of reduced tuition & scholarships.</p>

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<p>It’s great that your son has lots of options. I think many parents are led to believe if their kids get good grades and have great test scores along with a few ECs they will be inundated with great merit offers from many awesome colleges. </p>

<p>Thank goodness you have been pro-active and have come up with a list with reasonable alternatives. </p>

<p>Our experience has been varied. My child received a full-ride to a state-school (not flagship), the top presidential offer from Northeastern, nothing so far from our flagship and nothing from an out of state flagship. We are waiting on 4 more decisions and were told the state flagship will be mailing out offers next week. </p>

<p>This is an interesting process. Our school tends to “talk big” about scholarships and how affordable ivy leagues can be…this can be misleading. We had a girl from our school accepted into HYPS in 2011, the paper kept talking about how much merit money she was going to be awarded to go there. It wasn’t until I found CC that I discovered that you don’t get merit money from the ivies, it is need-based. </p>

<p>Good luck. No matter where your son ends up, he will be successful!</p>

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<p>@homer9 I would have to agree with others in stating that at TOP schools, it very, very hard to get merit. In fact, many clearly state that they do not give merit. For those that do, a top applicant is competing against all of the other top applicants…it becomes very random and a roll of the dice in the final call of who gets the money. The vast majority of the kids deserve it, so how do they pick? We don’t know. But we do know that it is like applying to an Ivy in that you can be qualified but might not get it because there are just too many deserving people.</p>

<p>Sound as if you have a few options that will give him merit and as others have said, there is still time to grab some good schools that give NMF solid awards. I hope those options work. I have not heard of many getting significant merit from top schools. It becomes a frustrating reality, especially for a kid with your son’s stats, to realize that you cannot go to the school you want because there is not or not enough merit. It can be their first big adult disappointment and then adult decision to take another offer and make the best of it.</p>

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<p>Looking at the common data sets, one can see the % of students getting merit awards and the average award. One can also look at the web sites and outright ask Admissions as to how many big ticket scholarships are available. You then look at the stats of the school. With OOS school, there is also the fact that many do give to their instate kids first. The exceptions are schools who have directed funds to deliberately attract high stat students. You want those big grants, you have to go where they are offered and look at where the odds are the best. </p>

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<p>The top schools do not need to give out merit scholarships to attract tippy-top applicants. The Ivies do not give merit scholarships but if you have financial need – they are great for that! </p>