I have a big list of schools. I’d like to figure out the easiest way to research who offers merit aid and who doesn’t. Is just plugging them in individually to collegedata.com my best bet? Is there any comprehensive list out there I can just eyeball?
I do a search with “college name” “merit scholarship”, and they usually have some information on their financial aid website.
Some schools ask for GPA and test scores and maybe rank and give a merit estimate in their net price calculator (also on their website).
Also there are public schools known to offer some merit scholarships, but it might depend on stats whether you get one and how much.
And there are private schools that give merit, but you might need grants from them based on need as well to make them affordable.
And some schools only give need based aid.
We have found a huge difference in the base price of schools (before scholarships). In our experience the more expensive schools will sometimes give larger scholarships, but not necessarily enough to make up for their high price.
You probably should run the NPC on each of the schools that you are considering. If your parents are not divorced nor separated, only own one residence, and do not have a small business, farm, nor rental property, then the NPCs are usually relatively accurate. We did find some that ask for academic information and then give an estimate of likely merit scholarship awards.
Sorry, I think I wasn’t entirely clear: I am just looking for a comprehensive list that might say which schools do and do not offer merit at all (for example, Ivies offer no merit). It may be that @mommdc has the right approach (google school name and merit scholarship), but if there is a list (ie: these schools offer only need based aid or these offer merit), that gives me a starting point. Thanks!
Well you could copy your list here and maybe posters might be able to tell you.
If folks want to chime in, here’s the list. Continuing to google on my own, too.
Boston University
Bucknell
Carleton
Chicago
Claremont McKenna
Colby
Colgate
Davidson
George Washington
Georgetown
Grinnell
Haverford
Johns Hopkins
Lehigh
Macalester
Middlebury
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Rhodes
Rice
St. John’s
Swarthmore
Trinity College
Tulane
U of Richmond
USC
Villanova
Wake Forest
Washington & Lee
Washington U in St. Louis
William & Mary
Wisconsin
Again, just wanting a binary: offers merit or offers no merit. Then I can choose where to go deeper in terms of research.
Actually, you want to ballpark how much merit you need and understand it as a % of COA, 20K a yer merit at one school might still be more expensive than full pay at another. And this is stats driven, good but no cigar might mean nada at good merit schools, mediocre stats might get sweetener $$ at an expensive school that offers pandering $$. Some majors are just brutally competitive in merit generous schools, say CS or popular eng programs where the competition is already tip top because that how CS and eng rolls.
None of this is binary. That is why there are so many threads here.
I liked the website Collegedata for the merit aid data. Lots of information given.
Good luck
If you go to College Data’s College Search page. Under Entrance Difficulty, select Most Difficult. On results page with colleges, scroll to right under the column heading Financial Friendliness, sort by Merit Aid. This should give you a good idea of % receiving merit. For those that do give merit, go to individual college and right click on Money Matters. The resulting page will give you more detailed information on number receiving merit and average award as well as a direct link to the Financial Aid site for the college.
If the field Merit % is blank, I would assume no merit is provided.
Thanks, @3andme - that was very useful!
From personal experience, (either my D or a friend) these do give merit because our children received it (or got dinged from being a finalist for it)
Davidson
Grinnell
Rhodes
Tulane
U of Richmond
Washington & Lee
I would add to your list if you are applying to U Richmond, Davidson, and Rhodes, I would consider adding Furman, Sewanee and Wofford. If you are looking at Carleton and Grinnell, I would add St. Olaf.
I used Collegedata and checked the box “Include Only Students without Finacial Aid” since I was mainly interested in Merit Aid. CC also always has ongoing lists of Full Ride schools and good merit schools. I found that the Catholic Universities (Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, Seattle U, U of Portland, Gonzaga) gave great merit with solid GPA and SAT/ACT test scores for my kids. I also saw that the higher the college was in the rankings, the less merit my kids got and I don’t expect any merit from reach schools. Don’t miss the Early Action deadlines because some schools give out their merit mainly to the EA students. The college websites will let you know the importance of their deadlines.
Northwestern does not, other than National Merit.
They have a few other scholarships, but those appear to be for students who have applied for financial aid. The Founders Scholarship (on the list of scholarships that the second link leads to) is for students from “middle-income families,” but no info about what that means other than the fact that eligibility is determined during the financial aid process…
Does Northwestern offer merit aid?
Northwestern scholarship funds are awarded in accordance with our need-based financial aid policy. However, Northwestern is an institutional sponsor of National Merit Scholarships. In addition, the School of Music awards a number of talent scholarships to incoming students with outstanding performance in auditions.
http://undergradaid.northwestern.edu/help/faq.html
Students who apply for aid will automatically be considered for all forms of institutional assistance listed below.
http://undergradaid.northwestern.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships-grants/northwestern-scholarships.html
@3andme: I think that’s the ticket! Thanks so much! And thanks to everyone for chiming in.
@Sybylla: agreed – in the end I want to benchmark, but for starters I just want to know where merit is even possibly on the table. It’s a place for me to start my research.
Here’s what I got from collegedata, which is what I really wanted – percentage of students getting merit at each school:
Boston University 7
Bucknell 11
Carleton 3
Chicago 0
Claremont McKenna 4
Colby 0
Colgate 0
Davidson 4
George Washington 35
Georgetown 0
Grinnell 16
Haverford 0
Johns Hopkins 1
Lehigh 4
Macalester 15
Middlebury 1
Northwestern 4
Notre Dame 11
Rhodes 34
Rice 9
St. John’s 38
Swarthmore 1
Trinity College 2
Tulane 36
U of Richmond 11
USC 24
Villanova 12
Wake Forest 2
Washington & Lee 7
Washington U in St. Louis 11
William & Mary 19
Wisconsin 10
@christinelin Here is a table I assembled on small liberal arts colleges. One of the the columns is % of students getting merit aid and another is average size of merit aid award. This data was assembled from the collegedata website. Some of your schools are in my tables.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19801988/#Comment_19801988
Similar to your data above but with average merit aid award added.
add Kenyon to the list.
The NYT and/or Kiplingers used to have a table of schools providing merit, the percentage receiving merit, and the average amount, but I can’t find it now.
CollegeData has a wealth of information for everything, including merit, admissions stats, programs, what criteria schools look at for admissions, etc.