<p>OP. Many of us feel your pain. Our research seems to indicate that the ‘best’ schools is really more of a myth. Depending on the career goals, your child can get a great education at a ‘lower’ school. The key to many of them is that the honors colleges within these schools are often outstanding. You must also understand that the vast majority of ‘rankings’ are based on factors that have little or nothing to do with your child getting a quality education. Things like ‘salaries of profs’ or ‘percentage of students with 2300 SATs’. Most of the difference is branding and image, not education or opportunity. You child getting an undergrad degree from Bama, or Okie, or UK will have the same shot at grad school as someone who goes to Purdue or OSU or even (gasp) the Ivies! The difference is that someone who goes to one of those schools on an NMF comes out with little or no debt at all. The job market is not appreciably better for those grads at ‘great’ schools either. (Certainly not worth the extra cost)</p>
<p>As many have mentioned…the prestigious schools have thousands of qualified students to choose from. They are much more interested in the demographics at their school than simply getting the ‘most’ qualified students.</p>
<p>Colleges are just like any product in the market. Some brand may give you incentives while others don’t. Some brand would offer discount or lucky draw to customers but not everyone can get something. The main purpose of the promotion is to attract customer. Also, many brands give extra love to their loyal customer (legacy). ;)</p>
<p>Merit scholarships exist, but it is a matter of parent, student, & guidance counselor working together to identify schools with merit where the student is a strong candidate. It is also a matter of luck. Finally, the student must not fall in love with a school until all the offers are in & the decision is made.</p>
<p>Here’s D’s experience: of the six schools applied to, she received merit offers from 3 (all LAC’s ranked in the top 50 by that magazine that’s all about ranking schools, for what it’s worth). Two of those schools were considered her safeties, but she made sure they knew she was a serious candidate through repeated points of contact. Safety #1 offered merit money that would amount to two years of tuition, room, and board, while Safety #2 offered about a year’s worth. What surprised us was Reach #1’s (one of CC’s Top Liberal Arts Colleges) offer of four years of tuition, room, & board. (Reach #2 wait listed her, while neither match offered any money.) You just never know!</p>
<p>@yaupon
Congrats to your D. That is nice to have a full ride at a reach school. My D’s experience is similar, but without the full ride to a reach school.
Three of the five admitted schools offered merit aid. One safety covers 75% of oos CoA. Another one (low match) covers 50% oos CoA. The in state flagship which is also a low match only covers 1/3 of CoA. There is still a reach school pending.</p>
<p>homer9, the answer from here is “yes they do”. our experience is that public schools offer less and it might not be enough, but there is merit money there. i am convinced a Gold Award (girl scouts highest award) makes a difference, so I guess Eagle would as well, but only in some situations and probably more at private colleges. </p>
<p>homer9 sounds like you might have had some different search and application strategies for your son, and learned a lot with this first child. </p>
<p>If Purdue is still of high interest, I would try the strategy the other poster mentioned about having another chance at offering more scholarship $$ to your student. Maybe you can find out if they reconsider when others choose another school and leave $$. Check of any other awards, etc.</p>
<p>Everyone’s input has truth based on their experiences and what they have learned.</p>
<p>Let us know in the end where you son decides to go.</p>
<p>Great discussion here; I am glad to see our experience was not unique! I do have some insight to add that I’ve not read on here that might explain the Purdue situation. My d applied (3.97/4.2w), ACT 33, great ecu with leadership roles, varsity sports 4 years, volunteering, high class rank in competitive school, TONS of science/math course work. Purdue gave her ZIP (we are in-state), Case Western offered a very generous scholarship ($25K), but would still cost over $30K. IU offered almost full tuition and direct admit to CAS (top 5% of their applicants), so that is what she is going to do.</p>
<p>I was wondering the same thing though, until the CWRU and IU scholarship offers came in - then I realized that some schools really do still reward academic merit and accomplishments. But Purdue’s system doesn’t award scholarships strictly based on merit or numbers anymore. They use a “holistic approach” that they can’t or won’t explain. I learned that the awards are now decided upon by the individual colleges and not the university admissions. So they end up giving $8-10K to mediocre students with 1-2 total AP classes and 3.6 GPAs and no extracurriculars who happen to choose a non-competitive major, while giving really good students who challenged themselves in high school and did extremely well nothing. Personally I think that approach is awful, but I guess these schools get to do with our tax dollars whatever they wish to do with them! </p>
<p>But I do think this created bad will when these kids see the totally disparate treatment amongst classmates at a small Indiana high school (lesser deserving students rewarded, several of the most deserving got nothing). Maybe they think these kids will just go there anyway, I don’t know. It was also stupid to give her sister $13K on very similar admission stats 3 years ago and offer her nothing this year! If that doesn’t show that their new method is drastically different, nothing does. But that is what shocks me about this new system more than anything; one would think a “holistic” approach might pay attention to something that simple, and not tell this sibling she is “without merit” after telling her sister with extremely similar stats something altogether different 3 short years ago. It’s nuts.</p>
<p>Frankly I think this is a blessing in disguise that PU offered her nothing and she’s not going there. The rigidity (they lose their scholarships entirely if they change majors), and the total lack of flexibility in scheduling courses in some majors is really bad there. And if you want to get a double major or minor in something non-traditional, forget about it (there is NO cooperation between the different colleges at Purdue). I attended a small private college with very limited scheduling that offered far more flexibility. And I’m sorry, but think it’s insane to expect a 17-year old kid to know for certain what they want to study in college and penalize them when they decide to take a different path. </p>
<p>The take home message is, Merit scholarships do exist but they are very competitive. Having just a good score/GPA may not be sufficient to get one. It may depend on other factors as well. Also, it is getting more and more competitive as the education cost is going up while the fund is limited.</p>
<p>As someone who did not submit a FASFA, I can tell you that very few scholarships are based purely on merit. Most are a combination of merit and need or demographics and need…</p>
<p>I’d have to disagree with you @sparksflying. That may be true at competitive schools where merit and need are both considered but the majority of scholarships are based on only merit. That would be state schools, directional Us, CCs.</p>
<p>Private schools give a lots of “merit”, but it’s really just a discount on an overinflated sticker price. State schools give very little, a few thousand dollars. If your EFC is high, it’s not worth the time and effort to disclose all assets and submit tax forms. Better to look for outside scholarships. </p>
<p>@sparksflying, I don’t really care if they call it ‘merit’, or ‘discount’ or whatever. My D got several large ‘discounts’ that I’m sure other applicants with lesser credentials did not get. And I’m sure other more qualified students got even larger ‘discounts’. Our EFC is high, so there was no FA component.</p>
<p>Top privates give need based but not merit based aids although it may be called scholarships sometimes. Public schools also offer large scholarships. UMich offers dozens $20k/year for oos and a few full rides. Purdue has over 1000 scholarships each year to incoming students that each oos received $10k/yr or more. My D got one of the $10k/yr presidential scholarships there and another $10k/yr scholarships from them with a need component. Many students also receive large scholarships from UMN-TC well before FAFSA is open for application this year.
It is good to look for outside scholarship but it is really not better. Most external scholarship would not have that amount as the top internal ones. Also, they are usually not renewable and are highly competitive.
It seems someone is giving all the wrong information.</p>
