<p>I only recently heard that some colleges that claim they don't give merit aid may have merit scholarships for upperclass students. So if we can get over the freshman year, and the student does well academically, there is the possibility (even if slight) that they may qualify for good merit based grants. </p>
<p>I know that this is true for Caltech (which has very few merit scholarships for freshman), which has some significant awards starting from the sophomore year. </p>
<p>Is this true for MIT and Princeton etc? They declare that they do not provide any financial incentive that is merit based, for freshman applicants who don't qualify for need based aid. Do all middle class parents who don't qualify for need based aid end up taking a large loan each year, for 4 years ?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Someone from the Ivies would have to really reply here....but my understanding is that the Ivy League schools provide no solely merit based aid. All their aid has a need component....for all undergrads.</p>
<p>Thumper, what if my question was 'do ivies give 'awards' to upperclassemen'? It would strictly not be aid, but rather a scholarship based on seen academic performance?</p>
<p>No they don't... The Ivies do give special titles and some awards based on certain characteristics you have. Like at UPENN, they have the Ben Frank Scholars. At Cornell, they have the Cornell Commitment programs, which are in essence merit programs because they tend to be (don't quote me on this) other Ivy HYP admits. These special awards and titles make it an incentive to go to the lower Ivies. However, like at Cornell, the Presidential Research Scholars Program has given students many opportunities to perform research w/ faculty. This program tends to have a lot of prestigous fellowship winners. It's a very prestigous program at Cornell.</p>
<p>Many of the top schools, including all of the ivies and MIT do not offer merit or athletic scholarships. There are merit within need scholarships, but you have to qualify for financial aid to get any of these awards. This goes back to the old days when such schools were where the wealthy sent their kids, but occaisionally a very promising student would come forth, usually brought by a trustee or alum or parent of a student, whose family was not thinking of this path. Scholarships were used for such kids to be able to go to the college. Also scholarships were awarded to those who were in the "ivy crowd" but lost their money and could not pay for their children's education. So need/merit based aid is a strong tradition in these schools. Awarding merit money to those who do not need it did not have much of a following with these schools. And so it is today. </p>
<p>There are schools, however, right up there in the rankings and selectivity that do offer merit awards. Uof Chicago, Duke, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins fall into that catergory. Other schools such as Wake Forest, Emory, Tulane, UMiami, BC, Case Western, Rochester, Wash U, UnC, Rice, Vanderbilt also have some pretty complete packages for the very top applicants on a merit basis. BU and NYU seem to give merit within need awards, though they often add merit sweetners to the package and to their top students even without need,but those sweetners do not seem to be a whole lot of money. </p>
<p>If your stats are high relative to a college, merit awards are a distinct possibility. And merit within need can really make for an attractive package for those with some need.</p>
<p>The Pyne Honor Prize, founded in 1921 in recognition of Moses Taylor Pyne, a member of the Class of 1877, is awarded annually to the senior who best demonstrates scholastic excellence, strength of character and support for the interests of the University. The award comes with a monetary stipend that is used usually to do some sort of non rofit work.</p>
<p>I definately would not go to an ivy league school or some other that did not offer merit aid on the assumption that in later years merit aid would be availible. The pyne prize winners, and the equivalent junior prize, are crazy. i dont think that there is all that much money in any of them either, it is mostly for recognition</p>