'Financial Aid help Please!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>My dd has a 32 ACT 4.0/4.6 GPA, 4 years cheerleading, officer in NHS, Spanish club and Gold Award in Girl Scouts. I am looking for information for the following schools and their merit/need aid. We will probably have an efc of 20,000. The schools I would like to hear about are Duke, WUSTL, Stanford, Cornell Vanderbilt, Brown, and Dartmouth. Any information on their generosity with merit/financial aid money would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!</p>

2

<p>All of those schools have very good need based aid.</p>

<p>A few of them give merit, but any merit awards would just go towards “need”. they wouldn’t reduce your family contribution. Your D would not likely get any merit at those schools since an ACT 32 is considered average at those schools. To be considered for merit at the ones that do give merit, her stats would likely need to be perfect.</p>

<p>Are you looking to reduce your EFC? If so, then you need to include schools where the merit awards would be so huge that they cover all of need, and then cut into EFC. </p>

<p>Did you use the NPCs on their websites? Those are CSS profile schools and their calculations are different than FAFSA.</p>

3

<p>What is your *budget<a href=“the%20amount%20you%20are%20able%20and%20willing%20to%20pay”>/i</a>? </p>

<p>The gap between your budget and your EFC determines the minimum merit aid you want … in addition to any need-based aid you expect. The maximum need-based aid you can expect is the difference between your EFC (expected family contribution) and the COA (cost of attendance). However, as mom2collegekids points out, at most colleges merit aid does not “stack” on top of need-based aid. It offsets need. Only if it is greater than determined need will it begin to close any gap between your budget and your EFC.</p>

<p>The very most selective schools typically do not offer merit aid at all (because they don’t need to do so in order to attract students). The ones that do (Chicago, Duke, JHU, WUSTL) typically offer only a few awards to the most brilliant students, as a marketing ploy to entice them away from a competitor (a Harvard, MIT, or Stanford). </p>

<p>You can expect schools like Duke, WUSTL, Stanford, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Brown, and Dartmouth to meet 100% of determined need ([Need-blind</a> admission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission]Need-blind”>Need-blind admission - Wikipedia)). You cannot expect them also to close a big gap between your budget and your EFC. For that, you need to look at much less selective schools that offer guaranteed merit awards so large that they completely close the gap between your budget and the COA. Typically, these will be public universities.</p>

<p>Many private schools that are a bit less selective than Duke, WUSTL, etc., also offer merit awards. If you can afford the full COA, but not easily or willingly, such an award amounts to a nice discount to ease the pain. However, I think they are unlikely to go to students with significant determined need. More likely, they are a marketing ploy to entice students away from a more selective competitor (a Duke, WUSTL, Amherst, Williams, or Pomona), especially full-pay students (who, even after this discount, pay the college more than a very needy student does).</p>

4

<p>All the schools on your list are highly selective. Don’t forget that at that level, she is competing against thousands of kids with her GPA and higher test scores. Just because she MAY get accepted, doesn’t mean she WILL get accepted. Apply to them, but make sure you consider other schools as well.</p>

<p>I don’t know how to include links, but check this site for threads on schools with guaranteed merit aid. With her scores and grades she will qualify for very generous merit scholarships at schools that are very good, can and do get grads into good grad programs, but have less prestige than the schools you are looking at.</p>

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<p>although those accomplishments are nice, most kids at duke and haravrd and stuff have accomplished way more than that. To get more aid, you should probably do more</p>

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<p>Thanks for all of the input, it is really appreciated. The schools listed are obviously all REACH/HIGH REACH schools for my daughter. We are looking to cast a wide net to see what happens. She has already received automatic full tuition scholarships from two schools, one of which she is very interested in (Alabama). Thank you for your insight, that’s why I love CC!!</p>

7

<p>Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown & Stanford do not give merit aid. They are strictly need-based.</p>

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<p>[Best</a> Values in Private Colleges, 2011-12<a href=“universities;%20see%20columns%209%20&%2010”>/url</a>
[url=&lt;a href=“Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts”&gt;Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts]Best</a> Values in Private Colleges, 2011-12<a href=“LACs;%20see%20columns%209%20&%2010”>/url</a>
[url=&lt;a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/]Best”&gt;Best College Values, 2019 | Kiplinger]Best</a> Values in Public Colleges, 2011-12](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/privatecolleges/]Best”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts) </p>

<p>See post #77 in the link below (2+ years out of date, but might be helpful still):
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/696637-merit-aid-percentage-common-data-set-6.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/696637-merit-aid-percentage-common-data-set-6.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1151-financial-aid-scholarship-resource-threads-start-here.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1151-financial-aid-scholarship-resource-threads-start-here.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;