comfortably $20k/year
uncomfortably $30k
difficult to fund other needs >$40k
@markham According to the CDS and other sources, Colgate does not award any non-need based merit scholarships. Maybe the Alumni Memorial Scholars have financial need or it is awarded by an organization, not the college? I don’t know but Colgate’s CDS indicates 0 students receiving non-need based (non-athletic) scholarships.
@zinhead I’m not sure why the discrepancy. Perhaps, and I am only guessing, only 17 of the 53 scholars did not apply for financial aid and so are the only ones counted. The wording on the CDS is “Number of students in line a who has no financial need…” so maybe the 36 others also applied for financial aid and demonstrated need before receiving the scholarship. I don’t know…seems kind of fuzzy numbers to me.
@Mom22039 I stand corrected. Yep, $40,000 per year for Marquis Fellows at Lafayette. For Davidson, there are actually more than 12 students receiving $25,000+/year scholarships: Belk (8), Kuykendall (2), Terry (2) plus all the Belk finalists who didn’t receive the Belk are awarded the Chambers Scholarship valued at $25,000/yr (approx. 20 - not all enroll, though). The remaining merit scholarship winners out of the 49 listed on the CDS are winners of up to $15,000/year (Presidential, etc.).
@markham I just found this on Colgate’s website:
“Colgate financial aid is awarded based on financial need; the university does not offer academic merit aid.”
So, it is confusing when they also have information that seems to contradict this (Alumni Memorial Scholars for high achieving applicants). But looking more closely at the program info, I noticed that it doesn’t say “scholarship” and no money is mentioned except for the chance to apply for up to $6,000 in grants for research funding. So I don’t think any of the scholar programs listed on that page actually come with scholarship money.
@krnBoston wow. I had no idea Northeastern was discontinuing that. My oldest was offered that this year but chose a full ride at Pitt instead. My youngest was planning on applying to Northeastern this fall in hopes of being offered the full tuition University Scholars.
Scholardad,
I expect that these Colgate programs change their emphasis over time and so I apologize for any misunderstanding underway on the basis that I confused matters and/or misled you.
The website describes the AMS program and 2 others that deliver financial support to students admitted to them. Please see the following link and contact the Office of Admission for clarifications, as necessary:
http://www.colgate.edu/admission-financial-aid/apply/scholars-programs
Good luck with your college search!
OP – instead of collecting a lot of one-off anectdotal that you can’t put into context, just use the Kiplinger Best College Values data base. You can also dig out the data from the CDS of each school (which is where Kiplinger gets its data).
The database will tell you the two critical pieces of info that you are really asking for.
- How many students get merit awards. 2. How big are those awards. From that data, you can judge your kid's chance of getting money from a school and how much. At many of the top 50 schools mentioned above, your kid's chance of getting meaningful merit aid are remote or less. Since the schools are extremely selective to begin with. So you have to be a superstar among superstars. Heck -- I hear Oxford has some really nice generous full ride merit scholarships too (i.e. Rhodes). For example:
BC. 3% get merit; average merit is $19k.
JHU. 3%, $30k
Wake. 10%, $16k
WUSTL. 18%, $9k
Vandy. 20%, $22k
Duke. 21%, $21k.
Emory. 5%, $22k
Rice. 21%, $14k
Colgate. 0%, $0
NYU. 9%, $7k
Your chances of scoring meaningful merit money at those schools are only slightly better than lottery ticket odds. Good luck with that!
Now let’s look at top 50-ish schools where mere mortal outstanding kids have a shot at getting merit money. Without having to be a future Rhodes Scholar candidate. Which comes from the combination of (i) slightly less rigorous school selectivity, (ii) higher % of kids getting merit, (iii) larger average award size:
USC. 27%, $19k
Tulane. 37%, $21k
Miami. 35%, $19k
GWU. 36%, $19k
CWU. 61%. $22k
Denison. 92%, $19k
W&L. 14%, $36k
Davidson. 15%, $24k
Richmond. 28%, $24k
Lafayette. 13%, $24k
Here is the Kiplinger list. It is not comprehensive.
“On another thread, it was reported that the take rate for Duke’s full scholarships was less than 50 percent.”
I bet the take rate for Fulbright scholarships is pretty low among kids who also get awarded Rhodes scholarships…
Duke has the Robertson Scholars program, which is a full ride plus stipend, plus summer programs, plus etc. etc. etc. An unbelievable deal and unbelievably difficult to get. You’d certainly turn down a generic acceptance to HYPS in favor of a Duke/Robertson.
But any kid getting a Duke/Robertson is also going to be getting mind boggling scholarships from other schools too. And there’s only so many uber-mega-ultra-super-duper-star high school kids to go around.
Many accepting AB Duke or Robertson from Duke (both are a full ride including room/board) have acceptances from other schools they are turning down. I know at least one student personally this year and one from 4 years ago who turned down an HYPS.
However, there are only about 10-15 scholarships for AB Duke.
@northwesty - friend of mine’s son turned down the Robertson Scholars program at Duke a few years ago for full-pay at Harvard – so, there are some who do turn those down. He was also a finalist for the Jefferson at UVA.
@carlson2 - the problem with the scholarships is that these students are very accomplished and they do have to make such choices. If someone wants to spend 250k at H instead of almost 0 at Duke, it is a choice they are making. 4 years ago Duke said many chose other schools because they received equivalent financial aid, not necessarily full pay.
@markham Thanks for the link. It says specifically, “Financial aid for students admitted to any of our scholars programs is consistent with Colgate’s financial aid philosophy: it is provided solely on the basis of demonstrated need.”
The OP is looking for significant merit (e.g. $15,000+/year). Colgate does not provide any merit-only scholarships so it is not a good choice since the OP does not qualify for financial aid.
So the 50% take rate for Duke full rides has just been proven in the two posts above!
One kid turned down HYPS for a Duke full ride. And another picked full pay at Harvard.
Assume that any kid getting a full ride at Duke is also going to get accepted at Harvard. And also would be in the running for other outstanding programs (like being a Jefferson Scholar at UVA or a Morehead Scholar at UNC).
Harvard has an 81% yield rate. So Duke getting 50% of kids also admitted to Harvard and also getting other awesome scholar awards is actually a very strong number.
Percentages would be misleading since the scholarship lists are quite small compared to the admit list. I am under the impression they give it a certain number and if not everyone accepts, then there are lower numbers for that year. There is no waitlist to fill the roster. It sounds like 2013 yield was very low.
http://today.duke.edu/2015/05/abdukerelease2015
http://patch.com/connecticut/avon/nineteen-selected-for-ab-duke-scholarships
http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2013/05/scholarship-yields-reflect-competition
It feels as though Duke is making an effort to identify future national scholarship winners when they award these.
@scholardad thanks to the update. I missed the full view on Davidson when reading their pages. Oh well. We’ve had our last senior year!
@texaspg - Thanks for finding that. I got a chuckle out of the following comment from the Duke spokesman.
What he is implying is that students who participate in the accepted student days at Harvard are less likely to attend Harvard. If that were true, Harvard could increase their yield rate by canceling the event!
@zinhead - From what I have heard, H didn’t make a great effort at these events, at least as of 2009, 2011 and 2012. Most of them had the attitude of you will attend H because it is H and there is no need to impress. I know at least one kid this year who attended H and S and he really wanted to go to H but chose otherwise. Not to say that they don’t have impressive yield though since name still wins out.
OTOH, Duke was really trying to get these scholarship winners onboard and so they must have put on a big show.
Based on the Kiplinger lists, the USNWR “top 50 colleges” (T25 national university or T25 national LAC) with the best merit aid include:
Duke
Vanderbilt
USC
Notre Dame
Rice
WUSTL
Washington & Lee
Davidson
Grinnell
Smith (women only)
Claremont McKenna
Kenyon
Macalester
Colorado College
Bryn Mawr (women only)
Harvey Mudd
(That’s not to say your odds of getting adequate merit aid are necessarily very high at any of them. Depends on your qualifications and need.)
If a student is accepted at many top schools and some are offering merit scholarships then is it possible that others may offer some incentive to sway him if approached with a proof?
@WorryHurry411 Only if the school you approach for more money really wants your student and they feel that the other schools giving you merit money are direct competitors. If you go to Vandy and tell them you’re getting full tuition at Alabama, you won’t see any more money from Vanderbilt. It is a strategy, though, to apply to schools that give merit and then maybe use those packages to show to other schools. For instance, if you can get merit from Grinnell but don’t love the middle of Iowa, you just might be able to show that merit package to Oberlin or maybe Kenyon and see if they will match. That being said, I personally love the idea of Grinnell and think it may be a match for our son!