How hard is it to get some merit aid at these southeast schools?

Paying for College
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<p>We are trying to get serious about deciding what we can afford before possibly visiting some colleges in the southeast during our upcoming spring break. When I do the financial calculators it looks like we'd get some help need based help, but our EFC might still be a stretch, so some merit aid would really help. Is there any way to feel confident that you will get offered any merit aid if you have a certain class rank, certain gpa,certain test scores, etc.? My daughter is in the IB program at her high school...will that help at all? </p>

<p>We are looking into Emory, Duke, Davidson, Furman, Wake Forest, Wellesley, smith, maybe Vanderbilt, and florida schools..to name a few.</p>

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<p>There’s no way to feel confident about Emory, Duke or Vandy, they’re all very competitive. I’m not familiar with the merit scholarships of the rest. Wellesley & Smith aren’t SE…</p>

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<p>Yes, guess I snuck Wellesley and smith in there…those are a couple that I think would be worth traveling further for…we may be open to that, but I am hoping she can find a school she loves closer to home.</p>

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<p>It is really a lot of luck and a lot of work for Emory, Duke, Davidson and Wake Forest. For example, for Emory and Davidson the first step is to win the nomination from your high school. I believe there is a thread in the Furman forum where they have changed their focus to not provide much(any) merit aid anymore.</p>

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<p>I did see something on One of their websites about getting nominated by your high school. Does anyone have more info on that?</p>

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<p>Not sure what Florida schools you have in mind, but significant merit aid will probably be easier to get from U Miami and New College in Florida than from the rest of your list, with the exception of Furman. All the others give merit aid to less than 10% of freshmen.</p>

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<p>You will have to check with your high school to see how nominations are done. Our high school required essays to get the nominations. IB (or 10+ AP’s) is nice to have but it pretty much baseline for these type of scholarships. As you know, all these school are very selective so just getting in is pretty much a win.</p>

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<p>It may be too late for scholarships that require HS nominations, IIRC many are in Nov/Dec. You need to go to the college websites for details and call/email the colleges if necessary.</p>

<p>Edit: sorry, I missread the OP, was thinking the student was a current sr.</p>

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<p>It sems that you are in the “JL” (just looking) stage of the college admissions stage. What you should do is get a list of schools that do have merit awards. Some don’t. Look on the web sites, do some google searches, look up the list that the NYTs has on schools with merit/financial aid awards, look up the common data info on % of students getting awards and the average size of awards, and start marking the schools for what they may have that your DD can get. The better known the school, the fatter the merit money, the harder to get any. Emory awards are not easy to get. Your DD has to be in the top of the top to get any. Not to say you should not try, but be aware that is a reach. Just getting into Emory is a highly seletive process.</p>

<p>In Floriday, there are smaller schools like Rollins, Eckert, Stetson that give merit. Tampa University gave some kids at our school some very nice merit money. The fact of the matter is that a lot of the schools that have some nice merit money that your DD is likely to get, are probably not schools with names you are even familiar with. Yes, people will say “Tulane”, for instance and Tulane does give some sizeable awards, but they are still a name school and to get a big award to offset its big price tag significantly is competitive. Getting $5K or less merit is probably easy, from those college that give a lot of merit. Getting an award to bring the price down by half is a whole other story. You need to go on the beaten path.</p>

<p>I often suggest Catholic schools because they discounted heavily. We all know Tulane, but what about Xavier and Loyola als in NOLA? This is the kind of thinking you need to have to find the possibles. Once you have a nice list of schools that are likely to give sizeable awards, you are going to find really simple to add the name schools that are in the FIske and Princeton Review guides and other lists, like U Miami, Emory, Georgia Tech to the list. Those are reaches in terms of getting their big time awards. Yes, Wake Forest has the Reynolds scholarships, but the kids who get those are the top of the top. Getting one of the big awards from name schools is akin to getting ivy or such selective school admisssions. It’ll take you very little time to get the names of those schools. It’s the little ones with big awards that are not on many lists that are tough to find.</p>

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<p>Wellesley does not offer merit aid, only need-based financial aid. A couple of nice SE schools which give decent merit include Agnes Scott and Rhodes. If your D is interested in Wellesley and Smith, she may like Agnes Scott.</p>

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<p>None of those schools can be counted on for merit…not even with very high stats. At least one doesn’t give any merit (Wellesley). I don’t think Smith gives much or any. I remember a high stats girl from my son’s HS that went to Mt Holyoke because Smith didn’t offer anything. </p>

<p>Vandy does give a $5k NMF award, but their other awards are often diversity-based as well as high stats based (if you’re a high stats kid from North Dakota, you probably would get some merit). My nephew is a high stats kid from Calif and got NOTHING from Vandy. His parents pay full freight. </p>

<p>UMiami does give merit for high stats. </p>

<p>It sounds like your child is a junior, so there is time to find schools that will work for you. </p>

<p>What is your EFC?</p>

<p>What are her stats?</p>

<p>our EFC might still be a stretch, so some merit aid would really help</p>

<p>Can you please clarify this. Your goal may not be attainable with those schools. Merit won’t reduce your EFC unless it FIRST covers all of need and THEN cuts into EFC.</p>

<p>If you have a VERY high EFC …nearly full cost, then you might get merit to reduce your cost. </p>

<p>However, if your EFC is low or medium (say $8k - $25k) then it’s very unlikely that you’d get enough merit to reduce your EFC.</p>

<p>Example:</p>

<p>$60k = COA
$25k = COA (but you can really only afford $15k)
$35k = determined need</p>

<p>So, if you’re given a $20k per year merit scholarship, that wouldn’t reduce your EFC at all. It would all go towards “need”. </p>

<p>If the above scenario is similar to your situation, then I doubt any of those schools will work for you because the merit wouldn’t be big enough to reduce your EFC.</p>

<p>However, if your EFC is the same or higher than COA, then any merit you get will reduce what you have to pay. :)</p>

<p>If you have a high EFC, but can only afford - say - about $15k, then that’s about the cost of room, board, and books. That would mean that your child would need a full tuition scholarship. Not likely at those schools.</p>

<p>Once we know what your EFC is, what the stats are, and what you can afford to pay, then we can recommend the right mix of schools. :)</p>

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<p>As Mom2 says, most of the time merit money will reduce financial aid awards, since financial aid addresses need and the scholarship does reduce that need figure. Most of the schools that do give good aid packages as a rule, will use PROFILE, so you might want to run some NPCs. Remember that for those schools that are do not meet 100% of need and/or have merit money, averages are used. To get some idea of what a school that meets 100% of need and has no merit money will give your kid, find such a school, like maybe Wellesley and see what the NPC says you will likely be asked to pay there. Then compare that with Smith and Mt Holyoke, bearing in mind that the number W gives is pretty firm unless there are some home business or unusual finances not addressed in the picture, whereas the other two schools are giving you averages since neither guarantees to meet full need and both have merit money in the mix. </p>

<p>So once you get some idea as to what a school that gives 100% of need with no merit money will expect you to pay, you can see what kind of merit amount your DD is going to need, in order to make these pricey schools a go. It’s tough getting sizeable awards. As I mentioned, Catholic colleges may be a good bet. Fordham, for instance, though it does not meet 100% of need for all, has some nice merit awards if your student quaifies, </p>

<p>What is your estimated EFC and is there a non custodial parent in the picture? What is the maximum cost that you feel you can cover? That would help others give you some options.</p>

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<p>Most of the schools you listed will meet 100% of the student’s financial need, which means that you always have to pay your EFC. The merit scholarship will reduce the grant, not your EFC. However, Vanerbilt and Wake Forest do offer full ride schoalrships, which are highly competitive.</p>

<p>If money is an important issue, you should consider some less competitive and less well-known colleges to get scholarships.</p>

<p>Florida state universities often offer merit money for students with high SAT/ACT scores.</p>

<p>Furman is a good choice but the application dealine fofr merit scholarships is Jan. 15.</p>

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<p>In a previous post, you ask about how a college pre-paid or similar counts and you were told that it counts as a parent asset. You had been hoping that it wasn’t counted and that the funds would just go towards EFC.</p>

<p>Is this the problem? is the problem that this fund is now raising your EFC, instead of just paying for your EFC as you had hoped? </p>

<p>If so, then again, simply getting a nice merit scholarship somewhere won’t help you if that merit would just go towards your need.</p>

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<p>To directly answer your question, it is very hard to merit aid at those SE schools you listed. More difficult than to get into the most selective colleges. Getting some merit aid, like under $5K at any number of schools, not the ones you listed, is not so dificult, but getting a lot of money, like full tuition amounts is extremely, extremely difficult Those awards go to the very top of the applicant pool. Look and see where your DD would fall in the applicant pool and see how many big time awards are given. If she is up there , like if you think she might be one of the top 25 applicants, and 25 full tuition awards are given, she is in the running. If 50 half tuition awards are also given out, she would then have a decent shot, though not by any means guaranteed at the half tuition,because all sorts of special factors come into the picture other than just test scores and grades in awarding those scholarships, most of the time unless they are so stated to be guaranteed for students getting certain threshholds (very few of those awards).</p>

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<p>Getting some merit aid, like under $5K at any number of schools, not the ones you listed, is not so dificult</p>

<p>And that’s the problem. If you have some need, then that $5k just goes towards that.</p>

<p>I think that’s why many of these “full need” schools don’t bother with various merit awards. They end up being a wash for most students.</p>

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<p>Ooh, ok, so the merit scholarship would just reduce the need based grant that the school would be giving us anyway! Thank you for that input, and for the great patience of those of you who have sorted all of this out and are willing to explain it over and over! I feel that I have learned things, then gotten it all confused, then relearned…</p>

<p>D is currently a sophomore.</p>

<p>Scores:
(without studying, so we imagine they will go up if/when she takes tests in her junior yr.)
PLAN 29
PSAT 200</p>

<p>Yes, we do have Florida prepaid, so Florida tuition is covered.</p>

<p>My current best calculations for our EFC, according to the financial calculators I have plugged numbers into have us with EFC’s of about 21-26K (Emory, Wellesley, Duke, Vandy, Rhodes, Davidson, etc) They all seem to land in that range. We’d love to see a lower range!</p>

<p>I want to let her see what is out there, hopefully find some places she is enthusiatic about, and help her stay motivated in school. I think she is getting just a little of the ‘what’s the point if I’m just going to go to a Florida school anyway’ feeling, especially when it’s yet another long night of homework. But I don’t want to get her hopes up for a school we wouldn’t be able to afford.</p>

<p>I do, however, think we might be able to swing the EFC without going into debt. We will need to do some number crunching to see if we really can (We have to consider retirement plans too), and then there is deciding if it is really worth paying all that money for an undergrad degree.</p>

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<p>The ones that have no merit money will be the most accurate in their NPCs. Also, if have your own business that can be an issue, and if there is non custodial parent (divorce situation) that can change the numbers too. But, basically, those schools you list meet full need, so you have some idea of what your award at any o fthem might be. Some witll have more self help (loans/work study) than others in their packages, so you will want to be able to compare. When Stafford loans and workstudy are in an aid package, you don’t have that money and work hours that the student can put towards the EFC.</p>