I’m a high school senior looking for schools that would offer me merit aid. I’m interested in a liberal arts school, preferably in the northeast. I loved Smith and Williams, but neither offers substantial (if any) merit based aid. What are some schools with similar vibes and strong academic programs that also offer a decent percentage of students merit aid?
For reference, I’ve got a 4.731 GPA and 1550 SAT. My extracurriculars are good, but not amazing, due to some health issues that prevented me from taking them to the next level. I also run an Etsy shop and blog. I’m interested in medicine, French, and government/political science.
I’m looking for LACs that would potentially give me merit aid based on my stats but wouldn’t require me to apply ED to get it.
Because a lot of very good LACs in, say, the Great Lakes region offer merit aid in order to help woo students away from their peers in more popular regions like the Northeast.
So it is usually a good merit strategy to not restrict your search to the Northeast. But that is up to you–I just wanted to know if you were interested in learning about such options.
You’ll probably need to look outside the northeast. Washington and Lee, U of Richmond, Trinity U, Furman, Sewanee, Denison, Rhodes, Beloit, Oberlin. Check out Colleges that Change Lives, most if not all have merit scholarships and would love to have an applicant with your stats.
So of course another part of the question is how important it is for a LAC to, like Williams and Smith, be extremely selective and have a really high “national ranking”. I do not believe that is the same thing as being strong academically, and indeed the sweet spot for merit aid is usually strong academically but less-selective/lower-ranked.
Anyway, I’d consider colleges like Grinnell, Oberlin, and Kenyon to be obviously worth considering along with Macalester. I’d personally also suggest at least looking at Denison and St Olaf.
Our list, for my daughter who graduated from high school in 2020 and needed merit, was: Grinnell, Kenyon, Knox, Macalester, Oberlin, St Olaf. She only applied to Midwestern LACs, but as far as I know, on the East Coast, Bryn Mawr can be generous with merit aid. Maybe also Conn College and Skidmore? (Not sure).
I will not qualify for need based aid. As far as scholarships go, I’d love to go somewhere that offers me more than $10,000, but at this point, I’m just trying to figure out where to apply so I can compare options in the spring.
I’m not worried about prestige so much as I am strong academics. I’d like to go somewhere that has ample research and study abroad opportunities, along with academic/career advising.
I understand. Best to talk with your parents and define your budget first, before applying. You will get at least $10K at Oberlin (everyone does). But that leaves a net price of $74K per year (based on this year’s prices), so figure $77K or so next year. Is that affordable?
I do think you could be competitive for Washington and Lee’s Johnson scholarship (full ride) but obviously that’s not in the Northeast.
Adding Skidmore, Wheaton (MA), Clark, Lehigh, Bard, Union College, and Conn College in the Northeast. Clark and Lehigh are LAC like in a number of ways.
Yes, thank you! My idea budget is under $60,000 (otherwise I’d need a significant amount of loans and I don’t want to start my adult life saddled with debt)
I believe all the LACs I mentioned have very robust study abroad and advising. You could look into what research is being done in any areas of interest, but as a general rule these sorts of LACs will have a lot of research opportunities.
There are some LACs in Michigan, such as Hope College, which are reasonably priced and offer merit aid, here: Scholarships | Admissions. Alma College is another Michigan LAC that offers good merit aid, here: Scholarships | Alma College?
With your excellent grades and scores a lot of schools that are not super selective will offer merit that would let your bill come in under $60K a year if that is truly affordable.
We have a friend who is starting at St Lawrence in upstate NY this year. It might be worth a look. She’s a cool & smart kid so it must be a cool school.
The key is to look at schools that are not quite as selective as Smith and Williams while still offering good academics. Your great GPA and SAT are attractive to schools that need that little boost for their overall scores and they are more likely to give you some money.
If you’re willing to go to the west coast, the following LACs offer merit aid, some more than others but all of these offer merit: Occidental, Lewis and Clark, Willamette, University of Puget Sound, Whitman
Mount Holyoke, Macalester, Connecticut College, Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Dickinson, Grinnell, Cornell College (IA), and I think Oberlin and Kenyon all offer merit aid.
If you loved Smith, Mount Holyoke should definitely be on your list.