Merit aid at v good LACs?

How high do SATs need to be to get merit aid at schools like Oberlin and Kenyon? What about Clark? Son’s SATs slightly below 1400 but he has a 4.0 GPA and good ecs. No hooks, no fin aid happening. (If extremely unlikely, he may do ED2.)

I think it’s hard to say and it’s not just based on SAT score for LACs. If it helps at all, S19 had a 1540, was a three season athlete and an artist with a portfolio, had leadership in local community service. He got $20K merit at Kenyon and Dickinson and $25k at Grinnell.

That is actually helpful, thanks! I think it probably isn’t worth it for him to apply RD and lose the advantage of ED 2 (if necessary after ED1) if he isn’t getting much, which seems the case based on that kind of competition.

For Oberlin, 325 students had no financial need. 207 of them got merit with an average award of 19,690. This is from the 2019 Common Data Set.

Would love to hear of any kids who got merit aid at Kenyon or Oberlin with 1400 or under SATs. Thanks.

@bklynkids --As the parent of someone who is very seriously considering Oberlin (and Kenyon, for that matter!), I got an email yesterday inviting me to click on a link and see how an Oberlin education could be affordable. There is a my inTuition calculator which will give you a result in just 5 minutes. I wonder if there would be information about merit aid at that site as well.

Has your student signed up his interest? Did your student enter your email as well and are you getting updates?

Also…Clark has been on and off my child’s list (currently off, but only because she cut the list to 8 schools), and I know they are generous with merit aid. That was REALLY emphasized by the panel we heard when we visited. All three student panelists said they got their best offer at Clark.

Thanks, that’s really good to know! I’m not sure if he’s getting emails but I do get some, so I’ll take a look at that one. It seems Oberlin gives a higher percentage than Kenyon, based on Common Data Sets.

A number of years ago now my D’s had 34 ACTs (1500 SAT equivalent) and received on the order of $20K each for Kenyon and Oberlin.

Erin’s Dad, as a super moderator here…in your experience/memory, have you come across (multiple) instances of people whose scores are mid-range for the various institutions getting merit aid, without significant other factors?

Not to my knowledge. Schools frequently reward good testers/grades because those are used in college rankings and are easier to compare. One alternative is to look at test optional colleges: https://www.fairtest.org/university/optional but then they will look at those other factors. Even on some of those (where admission is test optional) they may want to look at scores for merit.

You may want to look at the ACT. Less tricky but more time intensive.

My kid had an ACT 34 and 32 college credits/4.0 and got Oberlin’s max merit package last year. I would say he had a unique EC profile that may have been interesting to Oberlin. I think it was 30K, but may have been slightly more?

(He does not attend Oberlin)

@bklynkids if it helps, my daughter applied to Clark with a 28 ACT she had 5 APs and a few honors classes with all As except 2B+s . She got a merit award of $20K per year. That’s the highest award without having to do extra essays which she didn’t do. She applied Early Action.

Everything I’m ready above chimes with our experience / friend’s experiences at these schools- $20-30K for strong test scores / applications.

Collegemom3717, “strong” meaning top 25% or above?

@bklynkids if you say the name with the @ symbol the poster gets a notice of a message

@collegemom3717…see question above. By ‘strong’ I am assuming you mean top 25 percent and above for that school? Thanks!

@bklynkids, in general, yes- but I have seen wiggling on the scores when there is something else (recruitable athlete at schools that don’t officially do that, for example)

@bklynkids I know somebody with strong GPA but unremarkable SAT scores who applied to Oberlin ED and got accepted with some merit. Parents didn’t specify the test scores or amount of merit, so I don’t know more than that. My impression is that ACT 34+ or SAT equivalent opens up the larger awards. When my kid applied, it also seemed that prospective STEM majors got a slight bump on the merit amount.

I have no information on Kenyon.

Your child’s stat would probably yield higher merit awards at CTCL type LACs like Susquehanna, Ursinus, or Allegheny.

without a hook I don’t think merit $ at oberlin or kenyon is likely to happen. if merit aid is your priority I would take it down a notch- Clark is a good one, as are some of the other schools mentioned in replies. If the higher school prestige is the more important factor, and you would choose that over merit aid, then use the ED on Oberlin or Kenyon to help your chances of getting in.

@joecollege44 @mamaedefamilia Thanks. We don’t need to rely on merit aid (though it sure would help out), but if he had a shot at it then he would consider applying RD instead of ED2 just to see. His scores are slightly above middle range at those schools, so it’s probably not worth the risk. Nice to hear sometimes ED kids get a bit of merit. Wasn’t sure that happened.