Help Find A College With Reasonable Merit Aid

Paying for College
1

My D is a Junior in HS now and she’s looking at some of the small liberal arts colleges. We are located on Long Island, NY. Target radius is about 8 hours drive, though that’s not set in stone.

She has a 1500 SAT, approx top 10% of class, solid GPA, strong curriculum (mostly APs/Honors) and good ECs, no sports.

When she first started researching, she loved schools like Bowdoin, Colby and Wesleyan.

We are going to qualify for very little need based financial aid, if any, but $60K+ a year is not affordable to us either.

Once I got into the process a bit, I realized that many of the schools she’s looking at offer absolutely no merit based financial aid. I’ve now started to try to target schools that she’ll have a good chance of receiving merit-based financial aid.

Small class size, research opportunities and study abroad are some of the things that are important to her.

We’ve already visited Franklin & Marshall (she didn’t like and it was before realizing no financial aid), Dickinson (she liked), Muhlenberg (liked, but we only just walked the campus) and Lafayette (somewhat liked).

So as not to get stuck getting no reasonable merit aid offers, we are really trying to expand the list of schools that offer attainable merit aid and are to her liking as well.

In addition to Dickinson, Muhlenberg and Lafayette, we’ve added Gettysburg, Kenyon, University of Rochester (probably larger than she might want, but might be worth looking at), Union, Denison, William and Mary (again, maybe too large), Clark, Ursinus and University of Richmond.

Some of them our my additions that she hasn’t yet warmed up to. So still not that large a list. Seeing the schools we are looking at, can anyone recommend any others that might fit our criteria? Any schools on the list that don’t offer attainable merit aid?

I still need to look a bit further into Skidmore. Seems they have some limited merit aid for science/math aptitude, but probably highly unlikely she’d get that.

Thanks in advance for all replies.

2

My S got $27K/yr at Hobart William Smith and and $30K/yr at St. Lawrence. IIRC at HWS if you meet certain GPA & ACT/SAT score you receive $X in merit. He also got $22K/yr at Allegheny.

3

Look at this website: http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts. The columns with headings about “non-need-based aid” mean “merit aid” and/or “grant aid”. You can list the schools from high to low for percentage of students receiving “non-need-based aid” and the average amount awarded; then identify which ones are in states that your daughter might be interested in attending a school.

Also, look at some of the links here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest, especially the one styled “Competitive Full Tuition/Full Ride Scholarships”; you may have to scroll through it a bit, but you can find LACs that give merit aid.

Finally, here is a website that our school’s guidance counselors identified as listing merit scholarships offered by state and school; if you use it, be sure to go the the school’s website for updated information, as the scholarships listed may have changed in terms of amounts and/or criteria from what is listed: https://www.meritaid.com/ .

Good luck.

4

Also, if you are willing to go a little further south and/or west, there are some good LACs that are strong academically and which offer decent merit aid: Denison U (which you mentioned) and College of Wooster in Ohio; Sewanee and Rhodes in Tennessee; Centre College in Kentucky; Hendrix College in Arkansas. (When I toured Sewanee with my high schooler, our student guide was from New York.)

Here are some links to CC threads that might be helpful: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1753915-help-with-ohio-visit-decision-denison-vs-ohio-wesleyan-vs-college-of-wooster-or-something-else-p4.html and http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1671635-southern-lacs-p1.html

One last thought: William and Mary, while an excellent school, is a public university; and the opportunities for OOS students to receive meaningful merit aid are very limited.

5

Check out the midwestern LACs: Grinnell and Macalester both offer merit aid. (I assume that 1500 is M+V, right?)

Here’s more on Grinnell: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/grinnell-college/438138-why-grinnell-p1.html

6

Just checking…the 1500 is M+CR?

7

Great posts so far, no time to comment back right now, but, yes, 1500 on M+CR, actually got an 800 on writing, but no one seems to consider that.

Keep the ideas coming.

Thanks!

8

Unfortunately the writing section as it exists on the current SAT never gained general acceptance by colleges. When the new SAT rolls out next year this will be one of the areas of significant change (scores are going back to a 1600 point scale, with the optional essay reported separately). D achieved her best score on writing, but most schools don’t really look at that when considering SAT, especially for merit money.

9

While you’re visiting Kenyon stop at Denison U. Newer campus and better merit aid available.

10

Bryn Mawr and Mt Holyoke give good merit aid if she’ll consider a women’s college.

11

Thanks for all of the comments so far. Not quite sure how the Hobart William Smith 2 college thing works. Will have to look at that dynamic closer. St. Lawrence probably deserves a look.

Galdalf, thanks for those websites. Will review those when I have a chance.

Will take a look at College of Wooster, but I think those southern schools are just going to be too far.

Good note on William and Mary, I didn’t realize that. Guess that’s coming off the list. Wasn’t really high on her list anyhow.

Grinnell is probably too far as well, though it’s a great school. She’s had her eye on Macalester for some reason. They have some merit aid here
http://www.macalester.edu/financialaid/about/merit/
but, from reading that page, it seems like the chance of merit aid is rather slim. Not sure if I should remove that from the list yet.

Need to give some more serious thought to the distance requirement. If a school further away is providing significant merit aid, that sure pays for a lot of plane tickets. Maybe just as much of a concern is that she winds up staying half way across the country after college.

Denison looks very good from what I’ve seen so far. One thing I that I thought I saw somewhere is that they may not allow you to use merit aid for a semester abroad. Is that the case? She definitely wants to do a semester abroad, so that could be an issue with them.

Anything else we’ve missed?

12

For significant merit aid, I second galdalf78’s recommendation of LACs in the midwest and south. Other LACs in the south to consider are Trinity (TX), Davidson (NC), Elon (NC), Furman (SC), and Rollins (FL). Run the net price calculator for each college to estimate your child’s cost of attendance.

13

Will give some further thought to the southern schools. Davidson, Elon, Centre, Sewanee, Rhodes, Trinity (TX), Furman and Rollins all have generous merit aid?

It would take quite a bit of serious thought to really consider a school that would require a flight. Personally, I went to a school that was a flight away, so I understand that, but a little tougher for my wife to warm to that. It’d be tough to send my D somewhere far away to never have her come back home after.

When looking at colleges further away, does being from NY start to be an advantage for admissions/merit aid? Do they try to lure us north-easterners away from the better known LACs here in the NE?

14

The cost of attendance at Southern LACs for my D (30 ACT; 3.6 UW; 4.0 W) ranged from a low of 18K/year to a high of about 30K/year. Much of her financial aid was merit aid. She applied and was accepted to about ten different LACs in the south. All of this information (and more information from many different posters…) is contained within the Southern LACs thread that galdalf linked to above.

LACs desire a diverse student body, and this can include geographic diversity. It can make a difference, but it may only be a small component.

To obtain a good estimate of the cost of attendance for your D’s situation, run the net price calculator on each college’s website. Unless your family has a farm or a business, these calculators are fairly accurate.

15

I’ll have to devote some time to that thread at some point. Lot to consider.

No to the women only colleges.

As far as the net cost calculator. Not sure that will help much as I’m not expecting to get anything meaningful as far as need based aid. I’ve done it for a few schools and it generally comes up between $0 and $5K of aid.

Considering the need for merit aid, she’ll probably wind up applying to quite a few schools. No way to know what she might get offered without applying.

Don’t know what her current GPA is. Will help to have a number once junior year is over that we can use to compare. She’s got excellent grades and tough classes, but her SAT did overshoot her GPA somewhat.

16

What do you want your net costs to be?

what about any of the Catholic schools? many of them offer merit.

17

For most colleges my D applied to, the net price calculators gave a fairly accurate estimate of merit aid as well.

18

No Catholic/religious schools. I’d love to pay as little as possible for the best education she can get at a school she’s happy with. That being said, I think $20K off list is something we could probably live with.

How do the net cost calculators take merit aid into account? The SAT/GPA isn’t getting entered, are they? I don’t think I’ve seen that in the ones I’ve done. Edit: I just looked at Centre College net price calulator and it does indeed ask for SAT/GPA.

Not sure what her GPA is at the moment though.

19

Centre said about $20K in aid. Adjusting the GPA some seems to move it only slightly. Also, I didn’t realize that Centre was only $50K total cost to start with. Starting point is over $10K less than some of the northeast ones I’ve looked at.

Once I find out the post junior year GPA, I’ll probably run more of these.

20

Don’t rule out Macalester based on merit aid chances as described by them. I thought our odds were slim too in part because that web page makes it sound like it’s for NMF. My D got $17.5K a year from them much to our surprise and she was not NMF. She chose Grinnell, however, where she also got aid, but her decision had to do with fit. We know other people who also got merit aid from Mac.