<p>Ohio State, Denison, Tulane, Case, UMiami, GWU all offer significant merit aid to high scorers. (OSU offers this to out of state as well as instate.)</p>
<p>My son LOVES Ohio University in Athens, Ohio; a beautiful campus and the friendliest student ever (known for the friendliness of students); about 20,000 students, so big enough to have lots and lots of opportunities, but not overwhelming like Ohio State.</p>
<p>Oh, and a guaranteed scholarship for ACT 34: Gateway Scholarship plus, for OOS, Gateway Trustee: Approx two-thirds to three-fourths of the out-of-state tuition, and 100% if you are in-state tuition. The</a> Gateway Award Program: Ohio University Admissions</p>
<p>He's in the Honors Tutorial College, which I think is beyond incredible, opportunity-wise and perks-wise: Ohio</a> University: Honors Tutorial College:Home</p>
<p>If you want more info about HTC, let me know (PM me). I think it's the best secret in higher educaiton and has provided my son an incredible experience unlike any other honors program.</p>
<p>If we are talking about big schools, Miami (OH), gives out very good Merit $, that will cover most if not all tuition and even some portion of R&B. Full ride is a Harrison Scholarship. Honors program is very good. Tons of additional Merit $ for Returning students. However, I got an impression that big schools are not considered here.</p>
<p>average_guy, does your family qualify for financial aid under the so-called "generous" policies of the elite universities? If so, you may want to consider them. Your brief summary of your son's excellent credentials seems to place him in the hunt at those universities. If you don't qualify for aid, and have decided as a family policy that you don't want to pay full freight, I fully understand.</p>
<p>Furman now has 10 more free rides per year for OOS and they have 25 full rides per year for in-state. My daughter has one of these and all we've paid for in 3 years is books.</p>
<p>Check out the Furman forum on this site for details</p>
<p>Grinnell give a lot of merit scholarships, as does Earlham.</p>
<p>good advice pbr..........</p>
<p>average_guy.........have you already run the efc calculators ? princeton used to have one. i don't know if they still do. other efc calculators are available on the internet.....see collegeboard etc.</p>
<p>if you have an efc that would qualify for financial aid, then what many students will do is to apply to multiple schools and then compare the financial aid award packages. some top students apply to 10 to 14 schools or more. </p>
<p>keep in mind that usually merit aid awards (scholarships) reduce the amount of grant $$$'s awarded in the financial aid packages. as pbr mentioned, you may find that a need based financial aid award may trump any merit aid awarded.</p>
<p>definitely look further into the honors colleges (within universities) around the country. </p>
<p>also............you might review some of the cc threads on where national merit semi-finalists and national merit finalists were awarded full tuitions or full-rides and the listing of schools .........as some of these same schools may have an interest in your son due to the 34 ACT score. that's a very good score, btw, congrats !</p>
<p>some more schools to check out..........
william and mary, univ. of texas-austin, univ. of michigan, univ. of virginia, univ. of wisconson-madison</p>
<p>it's been recommended on cc by others to subscribe to the premium online edition usnwr america's best colleges. not a bad idea and i may end up doing that myself for our next go around. sounds like a good idea. we found a lot of good college search info. in the fiske guide to colleges and online at peterson's.com</p>
<p>U of Michigan is known for NOT giving out Merit $$. There are some as at any school, but definately not much. If you are in Michigan, then it is inexpensive school, though.</p>
<p>"Grinnell give a lot of merit scholarships" hmmm?
Grinnell merit scholarships: Grinnell Sponsored National Merit Scholarship
Institutional scholarship for National Merit Scholarship finalists. Renewable for three years. $2,000 per year for all eligible students. Awarded to National Merit finalists who list Grinnell as their first-choice on the National Merit Corporation's application.
Amount $2,000
Grinnell Trustee Honor ScholarshipInstitutional scholarship based on merit. Highly competitive, based on an admission evaluation.
Amount $15,000
Howard R. Bowen Scholarship - The Bowen Scholarship was established in 1987 to honor Dr. Howard R. Bowen, president of Grinnell College from 1955 to 1964. The Bowen Scholarship competition is open to all Iowa high school seniors who are United States citizens and wish to attend Grinnell College.
Joseph F. Rosenfield Scholarship The Rosenfield Scholarship was established in 1987 by Joseph F. Rosenfield, Grinnell College Class of 1925, to provide scholarships for Des Moines students to attend Grinnell</p>
<p>Yes, Grinnell does have good merit aid. According to their latest common data set, the average merit award was $10,137 among incoming freshmen, and about 20% of incoming freshmen received merit awards. Only 10% of Grinnell's students are in-state, so even if every one of them got a merit award (unlikely), that means that half of the merit scholarships are for out-of-state students.</p>
<p>It's hard to sort out the copied and pasted text above, but it looks like the list above is not complete. Did it come from meritaid.com? Their data doesn't seem to be hand-curated; I've noticed quite a few gaps when I've browsed there.</p>
<p>How many receive it is one side, how much is another. For example, good number of Case's awards are close to or over $20,000. And if you have something else in addition... then, for example, my D's tution was reduced from $33,000 to $5,000 / year. She has chosen a different school based on other criteria. Case is known for generous Merit packages. There are a lot of places that give out Merits, the question is how many scholarships and how much $$$.</p>
<p>Grinnell is the only truly top tier liberal arts college in the country that gives substantial merit aid. Believe me, we did our homework on this one.</p>
<p>University of Utah Honors Program</p>
<p>
Believe me , you missed a few. ;) </p>
<p>As always , we are having a definitional problem. Grinnell gives out several merit awards . Their highest amount listed per annum is $15K (per their website). A sizable number but in no way what the OP is looking for in an award (full-tuition at Grinnell is about $18K higher than that). Grinnell did not make our merit-aid "cut-off" (nor did several others) as we needed a shot at substantially higher awards. </p>
<p>So....what is "truly top tier"? What is "substantial"? To parent2009 Grinnell is the "only". To me OTOH , they don't make the cut on question #2 (while clearly making it on question #1). </p>
<p>Check out Washington and Lee among top 20 LAC's. Their merit aid program is truly outstanding.</p>
<p>If you are willing to slum-on-down to "First Tier USNWR" you can fill your cart quite nicely on the first aisle. ;)</p>
<p>BTW, I loved Grinnell when we visited. My kind of place.</p>
<p>Case will be nowhere near full ride. Even a generous $20k per year falls short when the cost is $50k per year. You'll end up $100k in debt. (Rough number, I can't remember them exactly.)</p>
<p>Case does offer full-tuition awards.</p>
<p>K, waaay back in 06 Case offered a double handful of full-tuition awards. Has that changed for the better?</p>
<p>Going back to your original post:</p>
<p>Westminster (Missouri, 1,000 students). Hearing full tuition results for those stats from students currently in the scholarship process there.</p>
<p>Truman State University (Missouri, 7,000?). Very close to full tuition & R&B before the competitive scholarship process.</p>
<p>Major Case merit awards:
Creative Achievement - 15.7k for creativity
Provost's Special - 19.6k for diversity
Provost's - 16.4k
President's - 21.8k
Trustee's - 26.8k
Academic Awards: 2 20k, 11 full tuition</p>
<p>I consider any school with more than 10 full tuition awards worth trying.</p>