Hi folks,
Do you guys know where the bar for merit aid is at WashU? Whether I apply depends on whether there’s a decent (say greater than 20%) chance at me getting merit aid (I’m not rich, ok). What chance would you give these stats:
36 ACT, 4.0 UW, as many APs as possible
Rural public school of 180
Award-wise:
-multi-year state medalist in XC and track
-Provisional patent holder (for self-started biz)
-Nat’l leadership award
-two-event speech nationals qualifier (but corona cancelled it)
Plenty of community service and leadership there
Summer jobs all the time but just foodservice
Thanks for all your wisdom!
What is your budget? Have you run WashU’s net price calculator? https://financialaid.wustl.edu/how-aid-works/cost-calculators/net-price/
WashU gives out far more need-based aid then merit aid. The 2019/20 common data set shows that 170 freshman received an average of $11,345 (section H2A). That average suggests merit awards don’t go very high, at all.
https://wustl.edu/about/compliance-policies/registrar/student-consumer-information/
@Mwfan1921 WashU does offer a few full-tuition and half-tuition merit scholarships, but only to the top-most applicants. WashU is also need-aware, last I checked.
Yes, true, there are 1/2 and full tuition merit awards…but if those larger merit awards were given to applicants who also had demonstrated need, they would be in a different section of the CDS.
There can’t be too many full tuition awards in the $11K average that the 170 frosh without demonstrated financial need received…unless the overwhelming majority of those 170 received relatively small awards.
I would be very interested to see what proportion of the large merit award recipients had demonstrated financial need and/or what proportion were hooked (e.g., Pell grant qualifier, URM).