How is financial aid for those needing a significant amount? My parents are small business owners so I understand that NPCs might not be completely accurate, but the NPC was shockingly low. I did it with Bucknell which I consider is a peer school that also meets 100% aid, and Bucknell showed 2.5 times what Lehigh showed. It was even lower at Lehigh than at Penn and about the same as JHU. Is FA really that good here? I was under the impression that FA isn’t too good here and they just recently began to meet 100% of need.
The second part to my question is the scholarships. I have about a 97-98 unweighted average and a 101 weighted average, 4.0 UW if converted, 2nd in class, and projecting a 1400-1500 SAT this year. Do I have a chance at any significant scholarship? I am an Asian male planning on going into engineering so I doubt there is any diversity advantage there. There doesn’t seem to be that many scholarships and I wanted to see what are the general stats required to be in the running for a scholarship.
I attend Lehigh on a full academic scholarship, so they do offer them. I had a 35 ACT and graduated 10th in my class of 440+ and I’m also in an honors program at Lehigh.
Problem is, I had to appeal twice to the admissions office for them to offer me the full tuition scholarship. Before I appealed I did have a half-tuition scholarship offer, but $22,000 per year is a huge difference especially in my situation.
I would also assume that Lehigh’s financial aid is going to be comparable to Bucknell’s, the NPCs are not perfectly accurate. Lehigh does meet 100% of ‘need,’ but they do this through loans as well. They just recently capped loans at a certain amount ($2,000 - $5,000 per year depending on income), which you can read about here:
http://www1.lehigh.edu/news/lehigh-commits-meeting-100-percent-all-students%E2%80%99-demonstrated-financial-need
Also, if you get into both Lehigh and Bucknell then you can compare the offers you get from both (academic scholarships are easier to negotiate with than need-based) and appeal, appeal, appeal. If you show interest, the school will reward you.
If you have any other questions just PM me, I can probably answer any and all of them.
@epicdude17 … how exactly do you appeal?
From what I’ve heard, Lehigh is very stingy with merit (much like a lot of schools at its level) and, at least beginning the 2016-2017 school year, very generous with need-based aid. Of course, this depends on how they define “need”. They do require the PROFILE, IRC, so if you have a non-custodial parent with decent wages, or assets/extra pay not included in your FAFSA, they will not meet your FAFSA EFC. Consider you EFC the LEAST amount of money you’d have to pay, if that school met all your need; you could be paying higher, but it’s very unlikely you’ll pay lower. I would say that if your CSS PROFILE info is pretty much in sync with the FAFSA you shouldn’t get too many surprises, as Lehigh does promise to meet full-need. Also as epicdude17 said, they may meet that need in loans, but IMO those loans should not be much of a burden (no more than $20K all four years, and that’s only if you make above a certain income; below a certain income and you take none). I think Lehigh is worth that much in loans, 98% of students do internships during their four years and a very similar percentage land jobs in their field within 6 months.
If you come from a wealthier-than-average (say upper-middle class household) Lehigh is still not a guarantee financially, or if you don’t feel like your EFC accurately represents how much you can pay.
From a father who had one son accepted to Lehigh engineering last year, I agree with @CallmeC . It is really hard to understand why the EFC does not take younger children into account and Lehigh seems to really follow the EFC. Basically by paying the EFC for the first kid at Lehigh, there would be nothing left for my second kid to attend college. In the end, it was an easy determination to attend in-state UMD College Park when he didn’t get a merit scholarship for Lehigh. I’m really not bashing Lehigh at all, I’m bashing the EFC determination formula. My son and I were so very impressed with Lehigh on our numerous visits. We just couldn’t afford the 46K tuition when UMD tuition was around 10K per year.
@CallmeC @Engineering713 My EFC was only around 12k which seemed reasonable as we are not upper class in anyone’s definition. While merit would be great, I was counting mostly for need based aid. I think I saw an article somewhere that Lehigh’s aid would be getting better this year but IDK how much better that will be.
@Engineering713 Did you do the NPC for your son? If you did, was the amount close to what you actually got?
My household income is like 45-50k and I received 5k in loans/2k in work study per year. They have some really good FA! You should really apply 
@darkhound173 Wow this really gives me hope! Did you apply this year? Their FA was supposed to get better this year. If you don’t mind me asking, how much did they expect your parents to contribute in the package?
@Classof2017 Yes I applied this year. So they expected my parents to contribute like 3k per year and I take out 2k in loans every year. And then theres the 2k work study per year. Everything else was paid for!