<p>Thanks for all the feedback. This is my first kid going to college and I’ve learned a lot, although mostly not what I expected. It’s been a disappointing experience, but experience nonetheless (experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want - Randy Pausch!). What I’ve learned: a) set lower expectations, there’s very little chance that a middle class kid can go to a top 20 school; b) apply to more state / mid-tier schools. I have two more behind him and hopefully we will do better next time.</p>
<p>Homer, what “top schools” are you talking about? If its HYPSM, and the rest of the Ivies, no…there is NO merit aid at those schools. There IS merit aid at any other number of excellent colleges. I’m not going to search past threads, but I believe your kid would have gotten good merit money at Case Western, for example. Or Pitt, if he applied early enough. There is a whole thread for guaranteed merit awards, and your kid would have been eligible for many.</p>
<p>For other highly selective schools that give merit, and YES, they do exist…there are many top kids vying for those awards. Duke, University of Chicago, Vanderbilt…all top and all give merit awards that are very competitive to get.</p>
<p>I don’t recall if you are instate for Purdue or OSU. If not, it would be NO surprise if your kid didn’t get significant money from those two public universities. </p>
<p>It sounds like your son DOES have options, and that is good. </p>
<p>Not true that “middle class kids can’t go to top 20 schools.” Plenty of them do and not all are taking out unreasonable loans to do so. It also depends on how you define middle class. Remember that most people are not paying tuition out of current income only. </p>
<p>A classmate of my daughter’s got the Morehead-Cain full ride to UNC. She was a rather remarkable candidate, valedictorian at a very competitive private school, Wendy’s High School Heisman, NMF, very high SATs, AP Scholar, etc.</p>
<p>The saying that refers to “a small fish in a big pond” and “a big fish in a small pond” doesn’t quite cover all of the bases does it. The situation with the schools you refer to is that your student is “one big fish of many big fish in a lake where there aren’t any small fish”. As others have pointed out here, such schools are looking at a myriad of other criteria apart from scholarship to determine some infinitesimally thin differentiating factor that makes a difference to them. All of their serious applicants possess scholarship in spades. </p>
<p>I’m an Ohio resident and my NMF son who got lesser test scores than yours received an offer of $3K from OSU. But that school and most of the others you mention are very upfront about their regard for a student’s academic stats as it pertains to money. We all have opinions of course and I understand what you are trying to say. My son applied to Alabama, Baylor, Kentucky, and U Cinci due to an obvious regard at those schools for NMF merit scholarships (there are many others as I’m certain you’ve discovered reading the posts of some well informed folks here). He also applied to OSU, Miami U (and again UC) as in-state schools. Lastly Pitt (family in Pgh), Case and Duke as OOS or private that had his academic interests and were increasingly “reach” in nature. Case offered a very considerate scholarship package, but still one that requires ~$32K from us per year. Hasn’t heard from Duke yet but will likely be rejected from a school that we would be even less likely to afford.</p>
<p>In any case, the “NMF schools” are the ones seeking my son and remain in the running. I see the energy of the perceived academic underdog at some of them as they compel us with their conviction to achieve great gains as they build on recent successes. And they seem to be putting their money where their mouth is, investing in faculty and facility as well. They may not be in the tier you are seeking but I would just counsel that from my experience you still consider such schools. I am an aero engineer with 27 years experience. I’ve worked with folks from MIT and Stanford as well as University of Dayton and Wright State and everything in-between. I’m convinced that what makes the engineer comes much more from their proactively seeking knowledge, experience and solutions than the pedigree of their degree. The top executive in my organization started at the local community college 35 years ago. I’m not discounting your view to be concerned with a school’s resume but do suggest you consider it in context of what they offer now regarding merit and what difference the diploma will really make in the future. If one can get the knowledge and skills at a given school, the rest is up to the individual. </p>
<p>BTW … OSU’s “merit only” scholarships are in decreasing order:</p>
<p>EMINENCE - full cost of attendance; min ACT 34, top 3% class, competitive application process; top 75 invited to interview for not more than 25 awards annually
MAXIMUS - $6K annually; min ACT 32, top 3%
PROVOST - $3K annually; min ACT 29, top 10%
TRUSTEES - $2K annually; min ACT 28, top 10%
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT - $1K annually; min ACT 26, top 20%</p>
<p>Any other merit scholarship apart from the above requires diversity in race, geograpghy, or residency.</p>
<p>University of Denver gives good merit aid to a large percentage of its applicants. It’s not a cheap school, but my son got a $19,000 (x 4 years) scholarship and his stats aren’t nearly as good as your son’s (31 ACT, 3.93 UW GPA, decent ECs, LORs, and essay; we’re OOS but it’s a private school so it doesn’t really matter). </p>
<p>USC (So. Cal.) also gives good merit aid (it, too, is on the expensive side, OK, very expensive). My son didn’t get a merit scholarship there (still waiting for admission decision) but yours would definitely have been in the running.</p>
<p>Look at the private schools, they tend to give more than the publics to OOS students.</p>
<p>There are some nice, private LACs that give a good education and decent merit aid. It takes some research to find them.</p>
<p>Purdue is actually rather generous considering the number of Trustees and Presidential Scholarships. They also offered my D a need based scholarship that is at the same amount as the Presidential Scholarship plus a small grant even we are from OOS. Nevertheless, top scholarships are very competitive and each school may have different criteria or considerations when they disburse the awards. We are totally disappointed with UIUC though (also OOS), but I guess it is a fair game as we win some and loose some. UIUC is well known for its lack of financial support to oos students. As financial aid is very critical for us, we picked half of the schools that my D is likely to receive merit aid (although not full ride). We will have to make decision based on the financial aid package from each school. We have to drop a couple admitted schools already disregarding how good they are.
Last but not least, there are additional scholarship opportunities for sophomores and up. </p>
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I think this is not an uncommon problem. You have a whiz kid and all his life people are telling you that he’s surely bound for Harvard, Yale, Stanford. That schools are going to throw money at him to grace their campus with his exulted presence. There’s a huge buildup. Even schools themselves say “don’t let the price tag scare you, we make things happen”. You think - surely if they make things happen they will make it happen for our superstar. You are reassuring him that he is great and surely great schools are going to come through with plenty of money.</p>
<p>Then comes the cold hard reality. Those schools don’t give merit scholarships. And if you are middle class enough to have a high EFC but not so rich that it is actually affordable to you, then you are faced with a daunting cost and a painful decision.</p>
<p>Your S is fortunate to have some great options. There are plenty of VERY smart students at those schools. </p>
<p>MANY people told my daughter she wasn’t aiming high enough. She was looking at Catholic colleges, and fortunately didn’t like BC after visiting, as they only give 15 merit scholarships/year and all other aid is need-based. She was accepted at Villanova, but only offered a grant of $7K - we were prepared to pay $25K/year, not $50K/year - but Nova had made it clear they do not normally meet EFC. All of the “lesser” schools she applied to offered significant merit aid, enough to make the schools well within our range. You have to be in the top 10-15% of a schools applicants typically to get merit aid, which is harder to do the higher you aim.</p>
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<p>I suspect this may be why he didn’t get merit aid. I may be wrong in this particular case, but if you want merit aid, in general it’s better to convey the message that you could be enticed to go to the school by a good aid package, but you’re going to need some convincing.</p>
<p>When merit $ isn’t automatic and based on readily discernible criteria, it usually varies by amount of interest shown Too little, and colleges won’t thrown $ your way. Too much and they won’t either. If a college thinks you will enroll even if you have to pay sticker price, why would they offer you $? </p>
<p>If I were you and Ohio is cheaper, I’d write Purdue and say that your S loves Purdue, but may be forced to go to Ohio for $ reasons unless Purdue increases its offer. It may do so. </p>
<p>Or you can wait to see if he gets better offers–but the one you “comp” to has to be one the school is going to view as real competition. </p>
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<p>And if the college also considers “level of applicant’s interest” in admissions, the applicant has to play the game of showing enough interest to avoid that being a problem for admissions, but also convey the idea that the price has to be right in order for him/her to attend.</p>
<p>Case Western gives great merit based aid if you get accepted. It’s not a tippy top school but it’s #37 so it’s up there. My daughter just recently accepted and got merit aid and now Case is cheaper for us (by a few thousands) than UC full pay.</p>
<p>Rice University (ranked 18th by US News) gives substantial merit awards. The Rice scholarships made a huge difference, and brought the net price down to somewhere around full pay at a major public Texas college. 
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<p>We are a middle class family & our oldest attended a school that doesn’t give any merit aid.
However they are quite generous with need based aid.
If you qualify for admission to a need aid only school, you likely will also qualify for merit from a less competitive school.
Or you might consider what my youngest chose. Our EFC was a bit out of reach by the time she applied to colleges and she opted to attend an instate directional to save money for grad school. She will be graduating this year and we can highly recommend her school.
WWU.
:)</p>
<p>Echoing the responses about Case. Our ds received a very large scholarship offer from Case (which according to USNWR is ranked 37 and Purdue 68). His scholarship from Case would have covered over 1/2 the COA.</p>
<p>He also received pure merit scholarship offers from multiple other schools. (Mostly covering full tuition)</p>
<p>So, to answer your question, yes, they are out there.</p>
<p>Full-ride offers are very few and very competitive. In addition to high stats, most full-ride scholarships are going to require major impact via community involvement. Not things like Eagle or volunteering, but things like starting a “reading books to critically ill children in the hospital” out reach program and coordinating the volunteers and being one as well (one example we know about IRL)</p>
<p>^ FYI. Purdue Engineering is ranked #10 while Case Western Engineering is #35 also by USNWR. </p>
<p>In my area, OSU loses a lot of high stats kids to Miami. Most families say it’s because Miami, though it has a higher sticker price, is far more generous with merit for stats than OSU is. </p>
<p>I’d be interested to know how OSU is with need…I’m guessing not great.</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t <a href=“Net Price Calculator - Incoming Freshmen - The Ohio State University”>http://sfa.osu.edu/npc/</a> give you the answer?</p>
<p>OP should reword his question to : do large merit scholarships exist to Purdue and OSU?
Kiplinger’s publishes a list of schools based on affordability based on both financial aid and by merit aid.</p>
<p>I frequently see posts about people who want to get a merit scholarship to UNC or Duke. However, there are schools that give merit scholarships to 25-75% of applicants.</p>
<p>The schools that guarantee merit aid are also published on this forum.</p>