<p>Surprised by “early write” notification for our son. what does this mean ? How hard to get? Is is more likely that he gets merit scholarship money? More likely that he will be admitted to Ivies? He is neither legacy or an athlete.</p>
<p>I don’t think Amherst offers merit aid. They are hard to get and your should be proud of him. It is not predictive of what other colleges will think, only of what Amherst thinks.</p>
<p>Many early writes Amherst offers are for minority or low income students. Is you son one of those? If not, he probably has outstanding academic credentials and has good chances for Ivy League schools. </p>
<p>Caliboyparents, as an aside, if you want to know if a school offers merit aid, there are a couple of ways to find out. First check the financial aid page of the school website. If they do say they offer some merit aid, you can get a clearer picture of how many students get it and the average amount by looking at the school’s common data set. Just Google “Common Data Set <school name=”">", and for most colleges it will take you to the common data set links. There is a financial aid section in the CDS (I think it is section H) that has some line items about non-need based aid.</school></p>
<p>You asked about Ivy admissions, so you may want to be aware that most of the Ivies offer little or no merit aid also.</p>
<p>If you haven’t done so yet, you probably should run the net price calculator for each college (also on the financial aid webpage for each college) to see what you can expect in need based aid, assuming your son applied for it.</p>
<p>Maybe you have all this covered, just thought I would post about it just in case.</p>
<p>Congrats!</p>