Getting Accepted does NOT mean that a Merit Scholarship will be forthcoming....

I was misled by the information on the schools’ sites themselves. Every cost calculator incorporated thousands of dollars of aid that I assumed would bring the cost down to a more affordable level. I’m now getting ready to hear back from the last of my schools, mostly Universities of California, and have already made the decision to attend a local university to avoid student loans. SDSU and UCSC didn’t offer me any aid, and I have a feeling that’s indicative of the rest of the schools. I’m okay with staying at home for my bachelor’s now that I’m in that mindset, but I do wish universities weren’t so falsely advertised as “affordable”, and I wish I’d done my research much much earlier.

@mom2collegekids thx again for awesome info…may I quote you on my Facebook group for our high school?

Wow. There’s so much great info in this thread. I wonder if i’ll be able to get a scholarship with my grades and football experience. I’m just dreading the ACT ahhhhh!

@footballorbust …don’t just wonder…PREPARE!

When is your ACT and what are you doing daily to prepare?

Thought it might be time to revive this thread since we’re seeing posts from students and parents who are expecting merit even though the stats are average or average for the school.

Merit is given as a “reward” for high stats for the school. It’s given to entice the high stats student to enroll.

Simply getting accepted to a school does not warrant merit.

Some schools may have inflated prices and will play games and offer a token merit to flatter, but the resulting cost will still likely be high.

@mom2collegekids - was wondering when this would be revived- one of my favorite threads!

“Some schools may have inflated prices and will play games and offer a token merit to flatter, but the resulting cost will still likely be high.”

My school does this. It’s shocking how many parents are delighted that Jimmy got a 5k merit scholarship, so he must be best suited for this school… despite the remaining 47k price tag. Bewildering really

One of the funniest postcards ever received from a school was worded something like this:

Presidential Award 4.0 gpa or 32 ACT 20k per year
Excellence Award 3.5 gpa or 28 ACT 15k per year
Deans Award 3.0 gpa or 22ACT 10k per year
College Award EVERYONE ELSE 5k per year

So there is still hope for EVERYONE, lol

So instead of lowering tuition they give everyone else a “feel good” merit award.

@TomSrOfBoston
Some schools have figured out that some people are so flattered by “any” sort of award that they will enroll simply because they think they would actually be leaving money on the table if they didn’t.

I was offered a $40,000 ($10,000 per year) scholarship to a college in my hometown. I was considered applying out of courtesy until I realized that 1) I would get a higher award of $45,000 based only my test scores and GPA and 2) scholarships from the college can not be added to each other. So it really wasn’t that generous at all.

This thread seems to be pushing the idea that merit is not real and if you receive it everyone else has too. I want to make the point (more relevant in April than now) that if you have been accepted at several schools and $2000 or $10,000 would make a difference to you in your decision. Then, I say, ASK. Be willing to walk away (politely and with a nice thank you note). But ask. Being willing to ask (eloquently) has saved our family about $40,000. Well worth those two emails. (But, you need to have another option and be willing to walk away.)

I think the point is more to compare the bottom line for each school to see what it will cost you. It really doesn’t matter if the school gives you $100k in scholarships over 4 years if you can’t afford the additional $40k per year. Another school may give nothing, but the net price is $15k per year for you. Better deal if all you can afford it $15k per year.

If the school gives everyone $5000, that may not be guaranteed for future years. Sophomores who didn’t make the gpa may be wishing they were still in the ‘everyone else’ category. But I agree that for most schools, it is just a participation trophy so they can say they got a $20k scholarship.

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This thread seems to be pushing the idea that merit is not real and if you receive it everyone else has too


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We’re not pushing the idea that all merit isn’t real. At many schools, merit is quite real and heavily targeted at the top quartile, or those well-within the top quartile.

The merit that “isn’t real,” is often from regional over-priced privates that have enrollment concerns. They often put their tuition rates around the same as the more popular privates, but then give nearly everyone a merit scholarship that really just puts the tuition rate to about what it should have been to begin with.

I know we are not supposed to link to private blogs so I hope I am not breaking the rules by quoting one about NMS:

Competitive scholarships are not automatic. Not everyone who meets the required criteria will receive one.

And also to add for those Class of 2018 planners-- “what is available and how it is distributed one year, can and will drastically change for the next admissions season. Keep it on the list, but be prepared for changes.”

The GPA aspect seems to be what confuses many folks. Right now, the college-bound high school seniors tend to have very strong GPAs. Grade inflation is rampant. Colleges frequently boast that a huge percentage of their incoming Frosh classes have GPAs that are 3.75 UW or higher.

Because of that, simply having a high GPA is usually meaningless when it comes to awarding merit. At the bottom of the OP, there is an explanation of how the recipients of merit are usually determined. Those with HIGH tests scores for the school AND who have a strong GPA will often get the merit awards. IF merit is highly competitive, then and often only then, other factors come into play…ECs, regional diversity, ethnic diversity, and essays.

The purpose of this thread is to give folks a “heads up” so that they can adjust their app list before it’s too late. I sadly remember the mom who had frequently posted in a school’s forum, but she had never mentioned her son’s very modest ACT 22. She had repeatedly mentioned that he was a top student at his high school and was looking forward to attending his favorite school (where he had received an early rolling admissions acceptance). In the spring, she was confounded that he hadn’t been awarded any merit and that they were expected to be full pay (which was unaffordable). That’s when we learned his ACT score. She was stunned that he would receive no merit for his perfect GPA. I still remember her comment that they had been solely focused on getting top grades and it never dawned on them to pay attention to test scores. The family was heartbroken when they had to tell their son that he couldn’t attend the school that he had believed was destination since the previous Sept.

The popular and TV-supported myth that top high school grades means free rides or big scholarships is just that, a myth.

Furthermore…merit is rarely awarded simply because of very good essays or very good ECs unless the award is specifically directed at those factors, such as an award for community service.

I wrote this on a different thread in response to a post about not qualifying for a scholarship. It works for this discussion, so I’m copying part of it here.

Fwiw, the context of that post is that my current sr has multiple regional (multi-state) level awards, a first place small international award, and was part of the US team for a different large international competition and won a 3rd place in an event there. She is NM and has solid test scores. Our expectations? Still remain the same. I don’t want her getting her hopes up at all. We are dependent on scholarships. They are not just a nice bonus. So she has her automatic ones that are currently her only options for attending. In the spring, we will see where everything settles out. Maybe she will have options beyond the automatic and maybe she won’t. We have no idea, but she certainly cannot expect any other offers (even if deep down she is hoping.) She needs to be prepared for a realistic scenario.

I agree that merit is all about test scores (or 90%). However, every year there are more and more schools going test optional. For those schools, why not just put on the website “if you want to be considered for merit, you must submit test scores”. I haven’t seen that in too many places.

Let’s not pretend that the merit or financial aid process is completely transparent. Many NPC calculators are out of date, clunky (use only top line info), or use old tuition rates. NPCs require GPA input. Why not remove this? If GPAs are meaningless, lets remove this from the NPC.