<p>Hello, I'm a senior in high school and about to apply to colleges. My #1 choice is Bard College, though it has a hefty price tag. I'm also in that sticky situation where what my parents make probably won't qualify me for any need-based aid, I don't have a bank account filled with money that we have been saving for my whole life. However, I really want to have an exceptional college experience and I do believe that to some extent smaller class sizes, teachers that really care and want to interact with students, and the environment that really makes me happy/comfortable is worth the extra money in loans. </p>
<p>Of this list of colleges which (if any) offer merit-based aid? Which offer the most? Also, PLEASE SUGGEST OTHER LAC's SIMILAR TO THESE (strong in the fine arts, history, & literature) THAT GIVE LOTS OF MERIT-BASED AID! </p>
<p>Bard College
Sarah Lawrence College
Kenyon College
Smith College
Reed College
St. John's College
Mount Holyoke</p>
<p>Thank you!! It's getting down to the wire and I'm getting really stressed that I don't have my "final" college list!</p>
<p>Reed gives little or no merit-based aid. Smith does offer it; for 2008-2009 they awarded 35 merit grants averaging $8,973. To find out the number and average amount of merit scholarships granted by other schools, Google on the school name + “Common Data Set” (CDS). Download the CDS and go to part H2A, which should contain a table with this data.</p>
<p>The more selective the school, in many cases the more generous the need-based aid; but with merit money, the opposite often is the case. The tip-top Northeastern LACs (other than some of the women’s colleges) typically don’t offer much. I would think the chances of getting a very large merit grant (half or more of costs) are very slim for the kinds of schools you are considering. </p>
<p>If you’d be interested in a selective LAC that offers merit awards to about 50-100 students, averaging about $10K each, check out Grinnell, Colorado College, Beloit, Kalamazoo, Lawrence University, or Whitman. Two small universities that seem to be generous with merit money are Rice and Wake Forest (though Wake might be a little conservative for someone who favors Bard.) </p>
<p>SUNY/Geneseo and St. Mary’s College of Maryland are public LACs worth checking out. SMCM is a very nice waterfront college that will run about $10K-$15K cheaper than private LACs for OOS students (but chances are they don’t give much merit aid to OOS students).</p>
<p>My S is attending Colorado College and loves it. His preferences, like yours, ran to LACs that are selective and slightly on the hippie-dippy side (though he shied away from Hampsire, Marlboro, and Warren Wilson). Colorado College gave him a modest merit grant and nearly a year’s worth of credit for IB courses, so he may be able to graduate in 3 years. </p>
<p>Have you talked to your parents about how much they are willing and able to spend? I recommend you think long and hard about borrowing more than about $5K/year for college.</p>
<p>^ Good recommendations. I would also recommend going to the financial aid forum. If you are NMF then Keilexandra has a post for NMF scholarships. If you are not NMF look at the post for best merit aid schools in the stickies at the top.</p>
<p>Careful interpreting the CDS financial aid numbers. The “non-need-based aid” section asks for the number of people who applied for aid and had NO demonstrated need and were awarded aid. There are many other individuals who received aid that exceeded their need that aren’t captured in the H2A table. It’s too late the evening for me to think clearly about how that impacts inter-institutional comparisons…</p>
<p>Oh, and obviously I have to add Rhodes to the list…</p>
<p>That’s a good point, though the OP said she probably would not qualify for need-based aid.</p>
<p>When a college reports, in section H2i, that it met 100% of need, I don’t know how to expose how much in excess of need it might have awarded. Anybody? I’ve seen 1 or 2 CDS reports stating a number exceeding 100% in that box, but I’m not sure how to interpret that since the instructions say, “Exclude any aid that was awarded in excess of need”. For someone in the OP’s situation, it may be best to focus on the figures in H2 and H2A to compare apples to apples, rather than assume that other money is hidden behind the numbers, absent specific information about each school.</p>
<p>The latest Rhodes CDS reports that the school awarded 179 merit scholarships averaging $13,477 and that it met 87% of need for those awarded need-based aid. Corresponding figures for Wake Forest are 78, $14,742, and 99.3% respectively.</p>
<p>Would it make any sense to look at the proportion of all institutional scholarships that are non-need-based? For Rhodes that would be $8.7M/$21.7M. That is to say that about 40% of the institutional scholarship dollars awarded by Rhodes are non-need-based. Wake Forest, by contrast, awards only about 16% of its institutional scholarship dollars on a non-need basis.</p>
<p>Here are the numbers for the OP’s list:</p>
<p>Bard: ? (couldn’t find CDS)
Sarah Lawrence: 0%
Kenyon: 11%
Smith: 2%
Reed: 0%
St. John’s: ? (couldn’t find CDS)
Mount Holyoke: 7% (based on 06-07 CDS, which appears to be latest available)</p>