Help Find A College With Reasonable Merit Aid

Paying for College
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Emory University in Atlanta also has a sizeable Jewish presence among the student body. Merit aid awards there are probably very competitive, I imagine.

A couple of things to think about regarding College of Charleston: it is about 2/3 female, so there may be some issues about social dynamics; also, the president is a recent political appointee who is a confederate Civil War re-enactor. Having mentioned that, I will add that some friends have a son who is in the Aiken Honors College at CoC, and they have a generally positive opinion of the school.

My impression of Elon University is that merit aid awards there are not great; I spent some time on their web site a while back, and from what I could tell the maximum merit award would be about $20K, and then only if you stacked three separate awards. But a telephone call with the admissions office could clarify that.

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@lexluthor5 Look at US News rankings of the top 56 as actually a group of 27 not 56. About half the schools are tied.

The quest for merit aid in the vast majority of cases is by definition an exercise in compromise.

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Wow, this is more information than I ever possibly could have hoped for. I’ve learned more in a day than I have in the past 2 months since we started the process. I a bit of an excessive researcher even when just booking a hotel or a flight, so I can see how this might consume me for a while. There’s so much that is going to go into this decision, that it’ll be worth it. There must be so many people who just have no idea how this all works.

I sincerely appreciate the help so far.

Let me try to reply to posts since my last post.

Will run NPC for Carelton shortly. That’s high on the list, didn’t expect to see merit aid there.

Small school, small class size, research opportunities are high on the list. Think that rules out Tulane and College of Charleston, Emory and probably Rice (that would probably be a big reach anyhow). I think we will have enough that meet the size criteria on the list. A larger school more than 6-7 hours drive probably misses 2 points immediately that would rule it out.

My wife saw a post about a growing Jewish life on Davidson, but I think the total number was 58. Probably too low. St. Lawrence is 4-6%, which is a bit borderline.

I don’t see how ED is really a possibility here as COA is a big factor. Don’t think she’s specifically found a school she loves yet. How binding is ED exactly? If we apply ED somewhere and they give a COA of $25K, can we still get out of that? They’ll look at the financials and know we can pay that, so would they still let us out of ED? Even if she has a #1 that came in at a number like that, I wouldn’t want to commit as perhaps #2 or #3 come up with a full ride somehow (ha, wouldn’t that be nice!).

Ohio 5 College Tour seems very interesting. Why is Kenyon not included in the list? I think Oberlin may be off the list for social type reasons (maybe a little too far left, drug issues?). If we could do Kenyon then too, might be worth the trip.

Batesparent, 2019, I don’t understand your comment about US News Rankings.

We definitely understand the need to show interest to these smaller schools and we’ll definitely play that angle for many schools.

Also, while we realize the first tier will be financially out, we still want to look at schools that are very strong academically and have a strong reputation. Getting into a good grad school could be a consideration as well.

We are in a good position though. While $60+K isn’t feasible, we wouldn’t rule out paying $40K.

Who knows what she wants to major in. Could be poly-sci, international relations, pre-med, maybe some sort of non-medical research, maybe something else.

I think she’ll interview pretty well as she’s got a wide range of interests and is very socially aware. Her ECs should be good and I think she’ll write a strong essay.

One other question, but I don’t think it will come into play. She’ll probably wind up just missing out on NMF by a point or 2. She may wind up getting NM commended. Is that worth anything? I can’t believe how much NMF is valued by some schools.

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Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL is a small LAC with about 1800 students. It has a very active Hilell with a Rabbi on campus, (he has a child attending Eckerd), and a parent association. Tuition is $51,000 per year. If your daughter’s GPA matches up with her SAT score, she would be eligible for this years Trustee Scholarship of $19,000. They are also very generous with financial aid. There is no Greek life. The Professor/Mentor program is exceptional. She would have the ability to start reasearch with her professor as early as Freshman year. A wide variety of study abroad programs, semester long, winter term, spring into summer and spring service break trips with a professor and fellow students. Tampa airport is 30 minutes away and some low cost airlines fly into St. Pete/Clearwater airport about 20 minutes away from campus. Parent weekend is in February!
You may wish to look at the books: Colleges that Change Lives and Beyond the Ivy League by Lauren Pope.

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Without trying to offend anyone, think there are a few schools posted that might be a little lower academically that we’d like to look at. Eckerd, for example, has an average SAT of 1670 from what I found quickly. That may not be a fair representation of the quality of the school, but it’s got to mean something. My D should be able to get significant Merit aid from schools with average SAT of 2000+. Not that a school with 1900 average SAT is ruled out, but 1670, probably.

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To clarify, Carleton doesn’t give much merit aid (just a token NMF type award) but the financial aid is better than most schools for higher income families.
https://apps.carleton.edu/reason_package/reason_4.0/www/images/1161135_orig.jpg

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I know you’re looking for a liberal arts vibe, but have you checked out any urban schools? Specifically, I’m thinking about Temple and BU. Temple would give her a full tuition scholarship (plus two 4k stipends) for her stats and BU would most likely give her decent merit.

Both schools have strong Jewish presences. I suspect the kids in the Temple Honors College and most of BU would feel very much like home to her. If she’s open to looking at Temple, make sure you schedule a separate tour where she can meet some Temple Honors kids. There’s a lot of opportunity there.

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@halfemptypockets doubt she’d have much interest in opening up the search to schools of that size. She’ll thrive in small classes. Perhaps Temple honors has small classes, but I just think it’sfar too large of a school for her.

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Once more…is she looking at ANY of,the SUNY schools? All would be within your price point…and you know…there are smart kids at every college. Yours won’t be the only one regardless of where she enrolls.

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Yes, she is looking at SUNY. Probably Geneseo the most. Not really interested in Binghampton. SUNY would most likely be a last resort. Seems to me that we can find a private school with a net COA close to what SUNY would be. Unless SUNY is going to give merit money on top of the low state tuition?

Carelton net COA was over $59K.

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“If we apply ED somewhere and they give a COA of $25K, can we still get out of that?”

“We are in a good position though. While $60+K isn’t feasible, we wouldn’t rule out paying $40K.”

I’m a bit confused. If you are willing to pay $40K/yr why would you even want to get out of a COA at ED school which would be $25k?

If you are looking for least expensive as the most important criteria then don’t apply ED.

As for the Jewish population at SLU or any other small LAC 4-6% is pretty good, imo. Remember - these schools only have approx 1500 total. It might not even be that much at my son’s school but there is a Hillel, there is a Seder, and he knew plenty of other Jewish students.

Have you considered Brandeis? It’s a bit bigger then your ideal but, imo, you should look at it.

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I would put Richmond high on your list…We were in the exact same position you are and my son got a fantastic merit package from Richmond. I also think Richmond ticks off all her boxes. Get down there and visit if you can, its lovely and the people at the school are incredibly nice and supportive. You are right to cast a wide net…we applied to 14 schools and it was a huge hassle, but it did pay off. (Try to keep your number under 15 though, I’d advise, because there is a lot of supplementary stuff you have to keep up with, especially when you are going for merit aid, and it does get overwhelming.) Also, though it’s far for her, I would encourage you to visit and consider Tulane. It is a great school and their merit aid is excellent. She might reconsider the distance and size if she fell in love with the school. Just a thought, since it doesn’t hurt to have multiple good offers to choose from, even if you aren’t 100% sure about each school. In fact, that is exactly what you should be going for! My son ended up with a total of five “affordable” offers, two of which were full-ride or nearly full-ride offers, so he actually got to make a choice, instead of going to the only school we could afford. Feel free to look back through my threads if you want to see how we navigated this process with lots of help and great advice from people on this board.

Good luck!

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Re: post #34, my D received a $13k merit award from Oberlin, and she wasn’t a tippy-top applicant, so from my perspective, Oberlin is not stingy with merit money. My D received $22k from Denison, liked it much better, and is a very happy rising sophomore there. In regards to the Ohio Six (now five?) tour, Kenyon was a part of that when we visited in August of 2013. We visited Kenyon and Denison on the same day…don’t know why Kenyon opted out.

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@chris17mom thanks for the encouragement. Richmond is certainly on the list. Large % in sorority though is what I think had us a little scared.

@emilybee Brandeis could make the list yet. To answer your financial question, I might be willing to pay $40K, but if #1 comes in at $40K, #2 comes in at $30K and #3 comes in at $20K net COA, there’s certainly a decision to be made there. Just because we could pay $40K, doesn’t mean we’d just do that if #1 school came in at that number. So then, I still have the same question about getting out of ED. I think it’s pretty unlikely that would could ED.

Still don’t see a school the size of Tulane making the list.

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If you will want to compare offers, then you can’t do ED. You can decline if you feel the cost is too high but that’s it.

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@lexluthor5: “Ohio 5 College Tour seems very interesting. Why is Kenyon not included in the list? I think Oberlin may be off the list for social type reasons (maybe a little too far left, drug issues?). If we could do Kenyon then too, might be worth the trip.”

I clicked on the registration form for the Ohio 5 College Tour, and you’re right – Kenyon is not on the list. I don’t know why; as I understand it, there are 6 Ohio LACs, including Kenyon, but you choose 5 to visit. Maybe you should call Kenyon’s admissions office and inquire. But that is curious.

If you haven’t done so already, you might wish to visit some of the individual college discussion boards here on CC, using this link: http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/. There may be useful information for you there.

Good luck.

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@gandalf78 clicked register at the link you provided and no Kenyon option
http://www.ohiosixcollegetours.com/ohio-five-registration
I suppose I can call. Little ways away from deciding if we want to visit yet.

Denison net COA came out to $32K ($23K grant/$5500 loan).

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“I still have the same question about getting out of ED. I think it’s pretty unlikely that would could ED.”

No, you can’t do ED. You make an agreement with the college to go if you apply ED and frankly your EFC and/or their NPC figure is affordable for you (which is different then the amount you are willing to pay.) Imo, it would be dishonest to tell them the COA is unaffordable. JMO, obviously.

I don’t see why you can’t visit Kenyon, even if not on the 5 college tour. Just plan on staying an extra day in Ohio and go visit.

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Some of the public LACs that are usually ignored by posters here discussing LACs have relatively low list prices, even for out-of-state students. Examples include:

SUNY - Geneseo
Truman State
University of Minnesota - Morris
UNC - Asheville
New College of Florida

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You would be foolish not to apply ED if the prospect for merit aid exists.

If you accept, the only downside is you can’t compare offers. However, comparing offers is not all unicorns and rainbows either. This is not like buying a TV, where there is no emotional attachment. You have emotions, geography, religious considerations, weather and housing to think about, and more. Pulling the trigger on the cheapest option is not so easy. It is very easy to buy the cheapest TV, not this.

The ethics of withdrawing from an ED acceptance are debatable. Technically you are in the clear. There is no requirement that you must show financial burden.

Enough due diligence is usually done before you apply to ensure you avoid the issue.

I personally think if you approach it correctly with transparency of what the offer needs to be, you can make it work. If it doesn’t so be it and move on.