<p>Concur with Denison (more merit aid than Kenyon). Something on the west coast - Lewis and Clark.</p>
<p>OP. Since many of the school’s named so far offer merit aid of the $10K a year variety as their top scholarship, could you define what level of merit award would be sufficient? No need in suggesting schools where $10K is the max if you need $25K to even consider it.</p>
<p>BTW, my gut tells me that “great”, LAC, and strong theatre is going to be a relatively small list even before you add in significant merit aid. </p>
<p>And a further BTW, she ought to add back in Scripps. It’s single sex as in “next door to an 82% male school (HMC)”. lol. And they give several half-tuition scholarships.</p>
<p>Lawrence University, Trinity University, Oberlin.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, good points. As far as how much merit, I know most of the schools we’re talking about don’t give huge aid awards. Realistically, I was only hoping for something in the $10-15K/yr range to ease the pain a bit.</p>
<p>As far as theater, she’s not likely to major in it, and it doesn’t need to be one of the school’s flagship departments or anything. Certainly the first thing that pops into your mind when you think about schools like Carleton, Middlebury and Williams (which are probably her top three) isn’t their outstanding theater and dance departments. But they do all have nice facilities and a pretty active performing arts scene with lots of student organizations in that area. We’ve seen more variation from one LAC to the next in that regard than I initially anticipated going into the process.</p>
<p>Good point about Scripps being part of the CC consortium, as well. I still doubt I’ll get her to look past the fact that Scripps is all women and see the bigger picture, but it’s worth a shot. (HMC is actually only about 59-41, by the way, but I take your point).</p>
<p>I didn’t realize that Oberlin offered merit aid. I’ll definitely have to give that another look. Thanks again, all for your suggestions!</p>
<p>rayrick - my D was also looking for science / dance, and was also interested in the schools you mentioned. She did apply to Williams and Wesleyan, was accepted to both, but ended up at Griinnell (for merit aid reasons). So far she’s very happy there (second year). Other schools I would suggest are The College of Wooster and Washington University in St. Louis.</p>
<p>And now we know why old people like me should retire from cc. lol Here are the stats from closer in time to when I actually knew something about what I was talking about. 
</p>
<p>HMC Class Profile </p>
<p>2006-2007 Admissions Statistics
Selectivity: Most Selective
Overall acceptance rate: 30%
Early-decision acceptance rate: 38%
Early-action acceptance rate: N/A
Acceptance rate (excluding early-action and early-decision students): 30%
Total applicants: 2,119
Total acceptances: 645
Total freshman enrollment: 180 </p>
<p>Proportion of freshman enrolled from early action and early decision: 22%
Male applicants: 1,497
Male acceptances: 396
Male freshman enrollment: 135 </p>
<p>Female applicants: 622
Female acceptances: 249
Female freshman enrollment: 45
Out-of-state freshmen: 48% </p>
<p>135/45 in '07 for freshman ain’t quite 82% but it is pretty dang skewed. 3/1. I think the 82% might have been overall. Or maybe I was hallucinating. ;)</p>
<p>I wish I could quickly find the stats from '06 when my kid went to scholarship weekend at Scripps. My larger point was, of course, there were plenty of boys around that weekend. ;)</p>
<p>When you go to look at Carleton, stop by Macalester for a tour. We really loved the campus and programs, and it’s in a great area of St Paul. They offered S merit AND need- based aid, they were very generous. S was really interested right up until the end, it was probably the fact that sports were not as big as he thought they should be that swayed him. They do have theater and dance, good science and a down-to-earth friendly student body. The twin cities are great cultural centers.</p>
<p>Earlham College is another one of those below-the-radar midwestern LACs which has merit money available. They offer a degree in Theater Arts, and have a strong Biology program. They don’t have a degree in dance, so if your D wants to pursue dance professionally, Earlham isn’t the place. If she just wants to stay involved, there’s a student-run recreational dance group which is hugely popular; the end-of-semester recital sells out two nights. [Dance</a> Alloy 2011](<a href=“Dance Alloy 2011 - YouTube”>Dance Alloy 2011 - YouTube)</p>
<p>I second the idea of Muhlenberg. Would take a look at Rollins. While not a LAC, Tulane would also be worth a look as they offer some generous merit money, have strong programs and are in an awesome city (loads of interesting culture).</p>
<p>I’m a bit of brute force guy so this is my suggestion … get the USN LAC rankings and send an email to admissions of all the LACs in the #20-#50 range and I assume lots of possibilities will pop up (it actually would be better to check on their web-sites but that would take a lot more time) … seriously, this could easily be done while watching a baseball game on TV (given the pace of baseball these days you probably could cover #20-#100).</p>
<p>PS - I’m surprised about the earlier comment about Skidmore only giving 3 merit scholarships to kids without financial need … when applying the applications for merit scholarships (and there are multiple ones) are made quiet visible … I believe there are math/science … arts … minority student … and pure scholastic merit scholarships … so seeing only 3 in the common data set looks very odd.</p>
<p>Franklin and Marshall in PA offers merit scholarships up to $25k.</p>
<p>Nice suggestion, 3togo. You’re in the right ballpark in terms of the sorts of schools I’m thinking about. I hope this doesn’t sound elitist, but I think D would be happiest at schools where she isn’t right near the top of the academic distribution, but rather is surrounded by peers. So I’m more interested in places that are not too far down the selectivity ladder from her top choices.</p>
<p>Macalester is a just the sort of place I had in mind, Bopambo. I was under the impression that their merit awards were a little less compelling–topping out at around $5K (which would still be nice, don’t get me wrong). Does that sound right to you? I’m actually feeling wracked by guilt over Mac, in that we’re visiting Carleton in two weeks, but it’s such a whirlwind trip in order to minimize missed school that I can’t see how we’ll fit in a look at Macalester, too. Poor planning on my part, probably.</p>
<p>Are you going to look at St. Olaf while you’re in Northfield looking at Carleton? It would be a shame if you didn’t. St. Olaf is top 50 USNWR, very selective, top music school, friendly student body, VERY strong in the sciences, beautiful campus, and rated one of the best food services in the country. St. Olaf is also at the tippy top for students who go on to receive their Ph.D. I also believe their theater and dance departments are strong.</p>
<p>Definitely have good merit aid too.</p>
<p>Take a look at Beloit, Colorado College, and Willamette.</p>
<p>Rayrick, maybe it depends on how things click with the admissions office, but S received $15k merit and $17K need-based grants + work-study. I wanted to weep when he decided against it. I know many of the LACs consider demonstrated interest, so if you can’t visit at least try to get your daughter to interview with the admissions rep in your area, then visit after acceptance if its still appealing.</p>
<p>
I hope you open your aperture a little more than the #20-50 range. Your D will find her peer group in college. DD1 was an NMF and went to Denison (ranked #49 in the latest USNWR toss up) and graduated Cum Laude, last out of her roommates. She found her peers. DD2 had better stats and is attending a lower ranked LAC and loves it.</p>
<p>Rayrick</p>
<p>Do you qualify for any financial need? Is the cost of attendance higher than your efc in any of your schools? If so, you qualify for some financial aid, and it will give you more options than if you have no financial need. Regardless of whether a school calls it merit aid or financial aid, it is still needs based. As long as you are in the need-based category, the school will have more room to be generous with aid if they really want a student.</p>
<p>If your efc is higher than the cost of attendance, then you can only qualify for merit aid packages from schools that offer merit aid without any need. Those schools are becoming fewer and fewer, and the amounts they are giving have been going down. Remember, don’t compare a merit scholarship amount from someone who has need to a merit aid scholarship from someone who does not have need. The scholarships are coming from 2 different sources of money. Lots of times a school may offer very little merit aid, except for special and unique scholarships. Skidmore falls into that category. They offer a talent based (no need required) scholarship in music to about 3 or 4 incoming freshmen. (Essays and auditions are required.) There is also a science scholarship that is given out with set requirements.</p>
<p>
Nope. Not anymore. The HS class of 2010 was the last to receive any merit scholarships. Now they only do need-based. I’ve checked with the school twice since F&M is my D’s #1 choice. We are very 
about this change.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I thought it looked odd too so I went to the website [Skidmore</a> College: Merit Awards](<a href=“http://cms.skidmore.edu/financialaid/merit.cfm]Skidmore”>http://cms.skidmore.edu/financialaid/merit.cfm) The music scholarship goes to 4 kids and is highly competitive with a multi-round audition component. The science/math scholarship is listed under merit but if you click through, the very first paragraph says applicants must show financial need! </p>
<p>Its important to look at websites, but I agree with the poster who said that its best to contact the financial aid departments directly.</p>
<p>Edited to add: posted at the same time as uskoolfish. One of the “set requirements” for science award is financial need!</p>