Does such a thing exist? Where should he apply? We really want to limit our family contribution to $15,000 p/year. My son is a senior. GPA 4.9. SAT 1440. Ranked 1/600 in his class. We are Hispanic, but earn too much for financial aid. Every calculator says we will receive zero. I have no idea if he will be named national merit. He did alternate entry in Texas with a 216. Not sure that’s enough. He did not qualify for national recognition because he only had one AP test prior to junior year. Never took PSAT. He’s very conservative and wants to do medicine. He would prefer a warmer climate. Thanks.
Is he a National Hispanic Honor recipient? Or whatever that is called? That would open some doors.
When you say “high ranking” what do you mean?
If you want to keep your costs to $15,000 a year, you are looking for a full tuition scholarship.
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Depends on your definition of “high ranking”. If you are talking Ivy level schools, then no, it’s need based only.
If you are talking rankings 50+, then yes, merit exists. That said, $15K is going to be hard to come by. That’s basically a full tuition scholarship. If you are in TX, look at your non flagship instate options. Those will be your best bets for coming in under budget.
As a pre-med, it doesn’t matter where he goes to school. He’ll just need to have a high GPA and MCAT scores.
Do a search on this site for “merit scholarships”. You’ll come up with a lot of threads with great information.
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He will get more merit from less competitive colleges, what is his unweighted GPA? I don’t know how TO is going to be next year, the colleges my kids applied to seemed to give more merit with scores 1500+.
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There are some large competitive scholarships that he can apply for at schools like Vanderbilt, UVA, Duke, USC, and UNC. But they are VERY hard to get, have fall deadlines, and sometimes require nomination by his high school. Don’t overly focus on “high ranking” schools. For med school admissions, the general school of thought is med schools care what your grades are and about your MCAT score, not where you went to college. At your budget, he can get to medical school from places like Alabama, Florida State, Arizona State, and Arkansas. Texas students with stats like your son’s are flooding those schools, because they often end up being cheaper that UT-Austin or A&M.
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It can be a bitter pill to swallow for the kid who is #1 in a class of 600 to look at colleges where many of the other students have much lower stats- but that’s usually what it takes to get merit aid. Merit aid is basically a trade: you bring your great stats (which make our averages better) and we will subsidize your education. And it works! That (+ some pro-level marketing) is how Vandy has vaulted up the selectivity charts.
The thing is, even at the most ordinary State U, the pre-med students are going to be smart, hard working and ambitious. Your son will have to work hard to stand out from the crowd. At the schools whose rep for merit aid & honors colleges (such as those listed above), there will be many students just as impressive as your son, whose parents can’t (or won’t) spend more on college. Indeed, many families make a deal with their pre-med student that whatever of the college fund is not spent on undergrad can be applied to med school.
Do check out the Stamps scholarships, and any of the big named ones listed above- but build a base of places where they will put a $$ value on those stats.
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What schools are you looking at? Top schools usually don’t offer merit. 1440 at a top school may not be enough - so I would suggest test optional.
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You are getting great suggestions.
We were somewhat in your position last year and I was clueless before finding CC and diving into research. My D was looking for merit to preserve her education funds to apply toward medical school. We also did not qualify for need based aid but were not comfortable spending all of the savings on undergrad and having $300k in loans for med school (assuming she stays that course).
Our approach was in line with the suggestions you are getting from others. My D automatically had free tuition at our in state public colleges based on her stats so those were her safeties/matches (affordable but admission was not guaranteed). She was admitted to both and later offered small departmental scholarships getting COA around $15500-$18500.
Then she applied to less selective privates that offer merit to kids with her stats. Furman COA was around $22k. (Furman has a competitive full tuition scholarship but she did not get it.) Rhodes COA around $30k. Case Western COA around $40k. I include the $$ just to give you a general idea.
Her reaches were more selective schools with highly competitive scholarships. UVA/Jefferson, Duke-UNC/Robertson, Vandy/Cornelius Vanderbilt, Davidson/Belk & James B Duke, Wash & Lee/Johnson. As mentioned, some of these required her school’s nomination. I believe all had earlier application deadlines.
When all was said and done, she was fortunate to get a full ride scholarship. She also was an alternate for full tuition at another college but didn’t wait to see if she came off the alternate list. She was a semifinalist for the Stamps but did not progress. Ultimately all the extra essays and interviews paid off at one college… and one is all it takes. 
But she would have been happy attending one of our state schools had it not worked out that way.
She knew all of this from the beginning of the process so did not fall in love with a dream school. Her dream school was one that wanted her and allowed her to pay for grad/med school without loans.
Once your son has his safety/match list, I agree with @collegemom3717 about checking out the competitive scholarships. The Stamps, in particular, is an amazing opportunity and while it considers stats it puts particular emphasis on leadership. Here is a link to the participating schools. If your son can get his SAT over 1500 that will open up more merit opportunities as @Mjkacmom mentioned. Being Hispanic will help at schools wanting to improve diversity (e.g. Vandy, W&L, etc.)
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Thank you for the advice. As far as the SAT, my son says he’s done. Realize last year he started with an 1130. The kid studied harder than I’ve ever seen anyone work and got it up to 1440. That was even with a private tutor. He’s had it! His high ranking and GPA is a direct result of his discipline. As far as your daughter is concerned, which three universities would you say were the most merit generous that you would recommend? Also, I keep seeing stamps, but I keep thinking it’s also completely random if your kid gets considered. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of nomination anywhere.
Got it and I don’t blame him! And good for him! Don’t get me wrong, he is a very impressive and competitive student. Looking for significant merit is just so much more competitive than admission.
You should research the Stamps application process at individual colleges, as the requirements differ. Some automatically consider all applicants and others require an additional application form. Here are a few links but your son can look up any others he may be interested in.
https://stampsps.gatech.edu/application
https://leadersandbest.umich.edu/stamps/the-scholarship#sthash.9L6kuOBu.dpbs
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Wake Forest is one to look at.
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With strong leadership (and those academic stats), SMU offers full tuition Hunt Scholarship and the full ride Presidents Endowed scholarship. Competitive process.
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Two schools that offered me generous merit were -U of Rochester and Case Western. (although not enough for cost to be 15k)
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Hopefully some more experienced posters will chime in about schools that are generous with full tuition merit. In our experience, the non-competitive merit got us to on average about $30-35k/year (which is why I included the $ for Furman, Rhodes and Case for your reference). So I think your best bet is to research the competitive merit mentioned (maybe add Tulane as they award a good many scholarships) and also the schools @vistajay mentioned that offer auto-merit based on stats. You can look that up on each website as they spell it out. I linked Univ of AL as an example.
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good advice. the private schools offering merit will have a much higher sticker price to begin with.
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Exactly. I find it more helpful to talk about the COA after merit vs the merit award.
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Friend’s kid was looking at some top schools. Her stats were similar although she wasn’t #1 in her class. She’s majoring in Biochem or something like that with an eye toward medical school.
University Of Utah offered her a free ride. Her parents told me that the pride she felt knowing that the school really wanted her and how much they appreciated her made up for not going to a more prestigious school. Being able to save all that money with medical school on the horizon helped, too. She’s a big fish in a smaller pond (school-ranking-wise).
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You need to become very familiar with lines H2A(n) and H2A(o) of the common data sets for schools of interest. The first one tells you how many awards they gave out that year to people that had no financial need. The second tells you the average award.
For example, Duke gave 14 awards to students with no need in 19-20. The average award was $76k. There was 943 students that had no need (H2(a)-H2(b)). So, 1.4% of the students in your “pool” get merit at Duke.
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Good suggestion.
Of the schools I am familiar with, W&L offers merit (full ride and full tuition) to the most students… about 10% of the freshman class. W&L is one of those schools that is not the right fit for every student, but it is worth researching since merit is your goal. W&L is also trying to improve diversity.
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He likes SMU and Texas A&M. Glad to hear SMU has options.
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