Our college counselor who formerly worked for the admission’s office for a small LAC, said if you do try to bargain or negotiate, be careful how you ask and be prepared to walk away if not given what you want. He said that they were more willing to work with families when they felt that the student was actually commited to attending and not just "shopping deals "
@carolinamom2boys Definitely. I think if you’re going to ask for more merit, you have to be ready to say “yes” if they give you more money. And, at many LACs, it seems that showing interest during the process and really trying to find the best fit is the way to go. They each have their own “flavor” and it only makes sense that both the student and the school would want the student to fit right in.
Showing interest really helped my DS16 at his chosen school even though it is a public school.
Wesleyan just announced a new, 4-year full tuition merit scholarship for creativity: http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2016/06/15/hamiltonprize/
Schools that don’t offer merit aid…offer need based aid only…are not going to care one bit that another college offered merit aid. The need based aid school is not going to increase their need based offer to match the merit aid someplace else.
Schools that offer merit aid each have their own criteria for offering that aid. you can certainly ask a college to review your merit aid offer…but if the policy is to award a certain amount to students with certain stats, you likely won’t see an increase.
In addition, you would need to be comparing merit offers at peer schools. For,example,mifmyour state public university offers a certain amount in merit, it’s unlikely that places like Duke or Vandy will match those amounts. Not peer schools to your flagship.
No harm in asking. But pretty unlikely.
As a general matter, the top 25 national universities really don’t play the merit aid game. They give out very little of it to begin with (unless you are a pre-Rhodes Scholar type). Since they really don’t do merit in the first place, they are also unlikely to negotiate up any merit for many reasons. Including the fact that their peer schools in the top 25 schools would also be quite unlikely to have made your kid a significant merit offer.
If you are interested in merit money and your kid is a mere mortal (but with a 35 ACT, 4.0 u/w, and 4.75 w), you have to shop in the 25+ band, not the 1-25 band. Realistically, the merit money starts with USC (tied for #23 in USNWR).
The top LACs are a little bit more varied. There is some tough but not impossible meaningful merit money available at places like Davidson, W&L, Grinnell, Oberlin.
The OH LACs are use to people shopping for merit these days and may raise (a surfeit of LACs there and declining demographics in that state).
UChicago and WashU use to have a war chest after acceptances went out to compete for admits (as of a decade ago), but in general, both those schools have been cutting back on merit money as they can get plenty of high-quality admits without them these days.
Schools may raise fin aid if you tell them that you can’t attend without it being adjusted but you really want to.
But yes, with schools ranked above USC, your chances at large merit money in general are very slim.
If your student tests well, I advise having him prep thoroughly for the upcoming PSAT. NMF won’t get you merit at “Top 50” schools, for the most part, but can put him in the position of having some financial safeties in his pocket.
Our experience with the merit (and admissions) game this past year reinforced the lesson that while grades and test scores can get one’s foot in the door, it tends to be the unique aspects of an individual student that brings in the money. In my daughters’ case (both of them, one a few years older), geography was almost certainly a factor. Most colleges seem to want “leadership” in some form for their scholarship recipients. Planned major can play a role; for my D16, female in engineering was helpful. A male going into a major where males are underrepresented might find himself with additional offers.
I also think showing strong interest in schools, and not giving the impression that they are the backup plan, is pretty important. I corresponded with the gentleman who manages the Stamps program at Ga Tech; he brought up the issue of yield to me. It was clearly important to them.
@VeryLuckyParent if you are looking for merit then you may find it at top notch universities like SMU or Tulane only if you have tippy top stats. Those two come to mind but realize only a handful of students receive full tuition scholarships (which is in the 40k range) from any top Universities.
You may not understand the differences between UT Austin vs SMU but it’s simple …you pay for what you get. SMU offers Smaller classes, availability of classes, can graduate on time with ease, professor accessibility, you aren’t a number, research, co-ops, the list goes on and on. UT has 50,000 students! It’s a rat race and it is not for everyone. My son graduated from SMU and was offered the world. He had internships, TA, research, job offers etc. He is very successful and it’s 100% due to SMU.
In my case, I knew both of my kids had to attend private universities. It was where they fit. They love their universities with a passion and they have thrived. Fit is paramount in college success. My H attended UT so we know the vast differences. My H said every class at UT was a weed out class which is ridiculous.
$40k merit is practically free tuition. Usually private universities cost 45k-50k tuition and $15k room and board whereas UT tuition is less. It’s being subsidized by the state government. All state schools are but they are creeping up fast due to state budget crisis/issues.
So in short the top 20 universities don’t usually give out merit or it’s a very low percentage because they don’t have to. They have way to many applicants for only a few spots. For example WashU has 29,000 applications for only 1700 spots. Notre Dame has 17,000 applications for 2,000 spots. However out of 17,000, 6,000 of them had over 1540+ m/cr and were the top 1% of their class!
So if you want merit you should go after universities that are generous with merit. You can still try getting merit from top 20 universities like WashU or ND but realize it’s even harder than getting accepted. It’s still worth a shot. For my D WashU offered a full tuition merit for 1 student in her major. She definitely applied for it. Other majors had more so it varies by school. She did get generous merit offers from SMU and Tulane.
Hope this helps.
I always recommend looking at UT Dallas’ McDermott Scholars for top students. It’s an amazingly sweet deal. Good school, too. Kids turn down places like MIT and Stanford to be a McDermott Scholar because it’s free college.
Yes that’s another good one too. Nice merit offers. A great option.
Interesting re NEU discontinuing the scholars program. A kid at our HS was offered that, but he is going to Brown. He is an exceptional student and truly gifted.
Rochester gives very generous merit. My D, an “average” excellent kid, was offered 17k there. I would think that if the OPs kid showed interest, he would be offered more.
I know some top LACs offer merit aid. D was offered nothing at Kenyon, because her stats didn’t warrant it. D was offered merit aid at Oberlin, and while it was not super generous, it was enough to make her consider it. And this was after she was called off the waitlist. Some LACs are more generous than others, for sure.
My personal fundamental law of college applications #36 is:
The best merit scholarship will come from the college your child is the least interested in attending.
This is based only on personal experience. YMMV.
Totally agree with you eastcoascrazy.
Moderator’s Note: I just deleted about a half dozen posts which split onto a tangent totally unrelated to the OP. Let’s try to keep things on point. If someone wants to start a new thread on the other topic go ahead.
Thanks