<p>Reply to patty kk: You said you would not have applied to those that did not have merit aid. My question, and I am sure there is a link to it but I could not readily find it, is this: HOW DO YOU FIND OUT WHICH SCHOOLS GIVE MERIT AID TO STUDENTS WHO DO NOT HAVE NEED? HOW DO YOU FIND OUT HOW GENEROUS THESE SCHOOLS ARE? I KNOW I CAN CONTACT EACH FINANCIAL AID OIFFICE OF EACH SCHOOL TO WHICH I AM APPLYING BUT I WANTED SOMETHING THAT HAD IT ALL IN ONE PLACE AND MOST BOOKS AND ARTICLES I HAVE CONSULTED SPEAK ONLY ABOUT HOW MUCH BOTH NEED AND MERIT AID IS GIVEN TO NEEDY KIDS ONLY. THERE IS NO MENTION OF MERIT TO KIDS WITHOUT NEED. Thanks for any suggestions</p>
<p>The Fiske guide mentions any available merit aid in the description of each college. I don't know where you could find a list, though.</p>
<p>...I would have:
1. Visited earlier than the end of junior year to allow for more thought about fit and for more convenient revisits....also should have insisted on visiting more places.
2. Made the financial aid spreadsheet earlier to keep perspective on happy admissions that were just too expensive.
3. Put my foot down about finishing college apps and scholarship apps earlier to eliminate my need to chase the Fedex man.
4. Encouraged my son more strenuously to seriously look beyond his first choice college (where he was accepted but it was unaffordable).
5. Not assumed that an academically deserving kid would get enough merit aid to make attendance possible.</p>
<p>Live and learn...I'll be better prepared for the next kid!</p>
<p>ALS, in my experience you have to really dig for info on merit aid. Even some schools that have it, such as Smith, don't readily showcase the fact because it's for a relatively small number of students...but small is not none.</p>
<p>Financial aid is so quirky that I don't recommend using it as a primary search criteria. Find the schools that "fit", then push as much as you can to find out what's up with each. Is this a lot of work? Yes. As with other parts of the process, it rewards those with some combination of $$$, time, and ability to research.</p>
<p>NOT an advertisement, just a mention of what has worked for me:</p>
<p>A good resource for financial aid data is the US News Premium online edition. (You need to subscribe to this). It provides numbers on both need-based and merit aid for each school, including average awards and % of students receiving it. You can also sort through schools by percent of students receiving aid. Just the other day I got an e-mail alert with a list of the schools with the most merit aid. There are some excellent schools that award generous merit aid to a high proportion of their students. </p>
<p>This is all based on the Common Data Set numbers, which you can try to track down on your own, but I find having it readily available for all schools is well worth the U.S. News annual fee (I believe $14.95/year). Note: The subscription year runs August to August, so you may want to wait for the new edition.</p>
<p>For some families, finances are enough of an issue that getting the data up front is important. I have known of kids who had to turn down dream schools because the FA was not doable for their folks. They need to only consider schools that will come in within a certain budget. The premium edition also gives full data on average percent of need met for the many non-full-need schools. There is also a breakout of grants vs. loans in the average package.</p>
<p>Honestly, the only change I would make is that I would never have started reading this site. My son, who ultimately was admitted to MIT and a few other top schools thought I was nuts for spending time on this site. For every thoughtful post there is a misleading post. There is no good way to filter fact from conjecture. My son filled out his applications, sent them in, did not seem to give it another thought and was very happy when the replies came back. I, on the other hand, got caught up in the frenzy here and spent countless hours trying to figure it all out. In the end it seems that the most valuable info is that which is found directly on each schools admission pages.</p>
<p>56forceout, I think this site is good for kids who are not a shoo-in. You son might have been a shoo-in (although probably no one is a shoo-in at MIT). I agree there are many thoughtless posts. But this site does help in essays etc. E.g the help some parents give to kids who need it and are asking for it.</p>
<p>Thanks. Sounds like sage advice.</p>
<p>hI. Thanks so much. It sounds as if this is exactly what I was looking for. Do not worry that it sounds like a promotion. For $15.00 bucks a year, it is certainly worth it.</p>
<p>I agree with what jyber209 says. Sign up for the USNews Online edition in August. Each school has a link for tuition and financial aid. Scroll down to the section on non-need based aid and read the numbers.</p>
<p>For example, here is the information for Boston University #56 on the USNews list with 3 Nobel Prize winners on their faculty:</p>
<p>Non-need-based aid
Avg. merit award
(% awarded aid) $11,902 (16%) $14,324 (13%)
Avg. athletic scholarship
(% awarded aid) $27,699 (1%) $28,275 (1%)</p>
<p>The 2 number for each line are for incoming freshman and upper classmen. I think the fee to USNews is well worth the price, in fact, it should actually save you a bunch of time.</p>
<p>alechtersiegel: I agree with jyber209 that the US News premium edition is the best source. If you want a quick list, search the OLD archives by clicking the College Discussions Archive at the bottom of the page in the grey bar. Search in the Parents Forum for the subject "Best Merit Awards from Where." It lists many schools that have given merit aid to CC students in the past. There was also a discussion of merit awards this year, but I cannot remember the title. Maybe one of the other parents can provide a link.</p>
<p>I should have mentioned that you need to click the Message Search in the left margin after you reach the old archives. Use the drop down bars to find the Parents Forum and subject line. Can someone help provide a link to that page?</p>
<p>Thanks pattykk for your careful instructions. I'll check it ou.</p>
<p>Would have started planning earlier.....</p>
<p>I DISAGREE.
My advice is that if you are reading this thread, uh, you shouldn't. Senior year is so packed w/ college mania, don't let it consume your (or your child's) life early on. In my personal opinion, "now" is way too soon to be seriously starting the college search. So if you are a parent, log out of CC now and go bond w/ your kids before they leave you forever. If you're a kid, log out of CC now and get a life and pursue things you are passionate about before you sell your soul to the application process.</p>
<p>bottom line: stop reading this.</p>
<p>I felt like that, too, but during a busy senior year packed with a heavy academic load and lots of extracurricular obligations, we ran out of time to comfortably and thoroughly make our way through the process.</p>
<p>To respond to the merit issue, some of it is not in a book. Sometimes you need to just see what happens. My S applied to Emory, because according to all the guidebooks it was great for finaid. He got in but recieved no money. He got his best finaid at Claremont McKenna,Tulane(actually merit), Pomona, and Trinity(combination merit and finaid). All are noted to be good but Emory used a different formala and because we have equity in our home we did not qualify for anything. So yes the research is very important but sometimes it is trial and error anyways.</p>
<p>Agree that there is no great shortcut to merit aid info. We stumbled on it. the USN&WR appears to be the best currently available one-stop shop for info. Also, this thread which I started expressly because we "stumbled onto" good merit aid for S. </p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=52133&highlight=Good+Merit%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=52133&highlight=Good+Merit</a>
I wanted other folks to have a better way to research the possibilities. The thread shares many experiences, links, sometimes useful specifics on what stats kids had to get various awards, and several insightful ideas about the whole merit aid process - chief among which, I think, is to realize that often the "early bird gets the worm." EG, my S got an excellent award from Tulane. He had applied EA. Others with better stats did not get the award. Did he get it because of a "holistic" review of his app? Did they not get it because they didn't apply early? Who knows? Why take the chance?</p>
<p>take chances!
Don't be scared if your GPA/SAT/ACT etc. are lower than a school's norm.</p>
<p>I would have begun my applications much sooner than I did, which was at the last minute. Next time, for grad school, I want to insure I have time to spare, and so spare myself the enomous stress I was under last December. Also, I would have begun my SAT testing sooner. I did SATIIs for the first time in December, one of which I blew. I took it again and did better, but I was stressed much longer than I needed to be. Also, although I did well in the other two SATIIs, I would've retaken them, had I not been afraid that the new scores might be lower, and the admissions people would see ALL my January scores - they are sent specially IIRC. </p>
<p>This all leads to my next point: I would've applied ED/EA (whichever's applicable) to Yale. It's my dream school, and I wish I could've given myself a slightly greater edge there. I'm very happy with where I'm going (Penn), but I can't help but wonder, "what if?" I also wonder what might've happened had I not left my essays etc. until the last minute.</p>
<p>So in the tradition of the Boy Scouts (though I never was one, being a member of the female species), I would advise applicants to Be Prepared - EARLY.</p>