@Portercat I have seen several Test Optional schools state on their scholarship pages that test scores must be submitted for merit consideration.
That said, I’ve heard of one or two TO schools that don’t require scores.
You are right that the merit and FA processes aren’t often transparent. Yes, NPCs are often out of date, using obsolete Costs of Attendance (old Tuition rates, etc), and sometimes even include MERIT awards without asking any stats!!!
I was very disgusted that one NPC routinely showed full FSEOG grants to Pell recipients, which is very misleading.
Another mom showed me that several well-known schools’ NPCs didn’t ask for about assets!
“I have seen several Test Optional schools state on their scholarship pages that test scores must be submitted for merit consideration.”
This is definitely the standard: test optional for admission, NOT test optional for money. This is true at my school and other top schools, including Pitzer et al. I worked with a bright kid with great stats apart from his low ACT. He got into Pitzer but struggled to win institutional scholarships. We spent a lot of time and effort crafting his essay around some amazing things he’d done, and he still got waitlisted for a number of institutional scholarships. Even at test optional schools, even when everything else is perfect, you’re unlikely to win merit money without top test scores, too. [He ended up winning Gates so all was well.]
It makes sense that TO schools will require scores for merit because virtually all of their students have high GPAs. TO schools still want to report a high test score range for the upper quartile. Some would argue that by being Test Optional, it allows them to exclude “lesser scores” that might drag down their reported middle quartiles.
We’d give (the directional where I teach, that is) a couple thousand merit in this case - and we don’t charge anyone OOS tuition (I’m always asking the admissions people why we don’t advertise that much, I suppose, being a branch campus we don’t expect a lot of OOS applicants other than sports recruits). This is why I keep pestering my own son (ACT 34, better than 2.8 grades, though) to at least get an application in in time for merit aid (much as living at home seems about two notches above suicide to 1 year olds, I suppose).
In this past admission cycle colleges seem to be falling into two groups: under enrolled and overenrolled. In the Boston area Northeastern was overenrolled 308 freshmen, BU overenrolled 90 and BC overenrolled 112, all without going to the waitlist. Some top Midwestern LAC’s including Oberlin and Kenyon were also under enrolled. Not to mention many lower tiered colleges that are struggling for students and even survival in some cases.
Colleges that are overenrolled and in high demand are likely less willing to up the merit ante to get a student to enroll unless the student is one of the topmost applicants. Colleges that are under enrolled may be willing to give a large “merit” award to many if not most accepted students.
@TomSrOfBoston May I ask where the overenrollment figures can be found for the class of 2021? I’d be interested in seeing it for a broader list of colleges.
Our school’s undergraduate size is getting larger and larger every year, and I started to wonder if the school will be able to offer great merit scholarhsips to OOS students in future like they do now. It will be quite a lot of fortune!
That’s not what “over enrollment” means, @paul2752. Over enrollment is when you have, for example, spots for 1,000 students, so you make offers of admission (based on historic yield) to 2,000 students, and unexpectedly 1,200 accept. You’re now over enrolled by 200 for that class.
UA has already modified the freshman merit scholarships for future classes - requiring higher stats and making the amounts fixed. Regardless, if they want to keep the class sizes from increasing further, they just need to accept fewer students.
@LucieTheLakie Thanks for the info. I just looked up the scholarship page and they added a new one for perfect GPA and SAT! Called Presidential Elite scholarship, and gives you 1 year of dorm, 4 year full tuition, book stipend 500$ per year, 1000yr allowance for 1 year, and 2000$ one time stipend for research!
@paul2752,I could be wrong, but I think that scholarship (or something similar) already existed but wasn’t advertised for some reason. It was called the Presidential Elite. @mom2collegekids would know better.
However, this is not a “perfect” HS GPA, since Alabama takes HS GPA at face value from the highest one on the HS transcript according to https://scholarships.ua.edu/faq/ , so students attending HSs with exaggerated weighting schemes (like the ones that can give 5.something or 6.something weighted HS GPA) can easily meet the 4.0 HS GPA requirement.
Every parent needs the information on this thread! It amazes me how many times I get asked why my son is not applying to GTown if he wants to go to school in DC. It’s over 70k a year and he would be an average student there so no merit. I believe they only give financial based need, but I didn’t look that closely after running the NPC. He was in the top 25% of every school he considered so as to be competitive for merit. We have an early acceptance in hand with a hefty merit award. He is actually quite proud of the award even though it is not at a prestigious U. We were clear that he could not apply to any private oos colleges where merit was not available for kids with his stats. Hopefully, he will get merit at his top choice, but we have an affordable and good option in hand.
This is a good thread, @mom2collegekids. I’m glad to see it cycle through again. I think it surprises a lot of families that acceptances don’t necessarily come with aid. People think about academic safeties, but I don’t think they realize they need to consider financial ones too.
There are so many parents who will be in shock once their kids reach the college admissions age. I have talked with some friends who truly think an average student will get significant aid at our local flagship. They have no clue that without that near-perfect SAT/GPA they will be paying $25k a year. The problem is that too many people look back at their own college experiences and use that as a benchmark when they were part of an era where you could work your way through college with no debt.
My friend’s son just graduated high school. He had high enough scores to get accepted at some good places but no merit aid. They just did a total remodel on their house which means he will be attending community college next year. I feel sorry for that kid as he really wants an opportunity to go away to school but his parents never saved a dime.