<p>The net price for U Chicago for coming out to $33K/year - too high. If our S got a $10K merit scholarship, would merit and need aid "stack" to bring it lower? His self help amount (job+loan) is $5700, if that were replaced it would bring our net price to $27.3K. If he gets to be a NMF then it's down to $25.3K - better!</p>
<p>teddad, my son got one of the merits and it was stacked on top of need based aid and the National Merit award. Also, son got a special one year award from my company, I reported it to FA and they did not reduce the need based or merit award. Don’t know if this experience guarantees anything, but it is one example.</p>
<p>Also, as far as those net price calculators go, I told my son not to let it deter him. He had a pool of schools he wanted to apply to, and I could afford the applications, so I told him to apply and we would work with whatever school accepted him and pick the best option. </p>
<p>Wow, really? I was sure someone would tell me otherwise. Isn’t it really unusual for a college to stack merit and need aid? I know some schools have grant-in-place-of-loan scholarships but I thought that was about it.</p>
<p>That’s why I don’t want to say this is a common practice at UChicago, but it was my experience. I was particularly impressed when I reported the additional scholarship and they did not reduce the awards already given.</p>
<p>We do stack need and merit-based awards, so, yes! We have always stacked our own institutional merit scholarships with need-based aid, and going forward (this has not always been the case, but has been in place for the past year and continuing to the future) outside scholarships will also decrease student and parent contributions before affecting need-based aid eligibility. </p>