<p>Hendrix did the whole increase tuition and increase the “discount rate” plan too ([Hendrix’s</a> Odyssey | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/08/05/hendrix]Hendrix’s”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/08/05/hendrix)).</p>
<p>My high school in the 80s didn’t weight GPAs, and my daughter’s doesn’t either. Now that i look at it – What a scam (kinda). Every class at her school is an honors level class, and all classes jr and sr year are college level, so with her As and Bs she would easily have a 4.5 if they weighed it. So when colleges report the GPAs of their incoming class, are they talking weighted, unweighted, or both? It becomes meaningless. As much as I’m annoyed by the SATs, I see the point.</p>
<p>The economy has tanked, causing many schools to offer deep discounts, rather than lower the sticker price. They know that with less on paper in the 401(k)s and home equity, families are going to borrow less. It is fairly basic price point analysis. They don’t want to lower the overall price because that is part of the branding strategy.</p>
<p>We found that the “better” the school (ie ranking wise) the more merit aid our son got and then the “best” school of the bunch, which was need based only, dwarfed the amount of merit by $11K/yr more than his top merit award and had no relationship to our EFC either. He had very good, but by no means great stats or EC’s, but as an Asian male applying to small LAC’s in the NE was very much a wanted commodity. So, it’s my opinion, that the schools can pretty much do whatever they want regarding how much money they give a student.</p>
<p>The economy has tanked, causing many schools to offer deep discounts, rather than lower the sticker price.</p>
<p>Yes…and they know that people are flattered by a nice merit award. Some schools have even raised prices in order to then give a “merit award”. There’s something psychological about the whole thing…many don’t want to turn down large merit.</p>
<p>When that mom was posting a few months back about the “merit awards” her son with the ACT 20 or 21 was getting, it seemed to me that it was mostly smoke and mirrors.</p>
<p>emilybee - we saw that too with f/a packages for our older d. the institutional grants surpassed the merit aid awards. we are waiting to review f/a packages for our 2012 ds. some are css profile schools and some are fafsa only and most are private. there are merit aid offers from all accepted schools so far. he is still waiting on admission decisions from some other schools. it’s likely he won’t be making a decision until April.
annasdad-congrats on the merit aid awards. one thing to ask is if they are “stackable.”</p>
<p>When you are saying there are merit awards from all the schools, are they a few thousand here and there, or are they substantial, like $20,000? My daughter would need something more than that to attend any private school.</p>
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<p>Lots of them don’t. If it does and it is a state university, it likely reports GPA recalculated by the state university’s method, not whatever the high school reports.</p>
<p>Condor - most of my son’s schools were also CSS profile schools. </p>
<p>“When you are saying there are merit awards from all the schools, are they a few thousand here and there, or are they substantial, like $20,000? My daughter would need something more than that to attend any private school.”</p>
<p>I can’t speak for Condor but my son got merit aid at every school - except our state public U. His merit awards ranged from a low of $15K/yr to a high of $30k/yr.</p>
<p>Thanks all for the congratulations.</p>
<p>geeps, my D’s situation is just the opposite of yours - high ACT (relatively speaking, not by CC standards!) and low GPA.</p>
<p>muchdog, D’s school neither ranks nor weights, so ranking is not the reason.</p>
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GPAs on the Common Data Set are unweighted. Numbers reported elsewhere could be just about anything.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure why this is such a surprise. Any of the B student threads talk about the need for financial or merit aid. My three B students (HS grads 2003, 2006 and 2011) all got substantial merit money offers from several colleges. My older two attended private schools for about the cost of Penn State in-state. The key to merit aid is applying to a school that routinely offers substantial grants to the majority of students and where the school is either a match or a safety. I used this site for first information. [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)</p>
<p>GPAs reported on the Common Data Set use whatever format the college wants to report. Check out Elon University’s CDS. The AVERAGE GPA reported is 3.94. Unweighted? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>2 Kids- 1 went to public HS & got several merit awards; 2nd went to expensive, elite private - no awards. Each of them excelled in different academic arenas SAT vs. GPA, course load, etc. </p>
<p>I always wonder if the private HS applicant was not awarded $ b/c parents demonstrated $ ability since he attended a private school. Is there biased against offering awards to that population?</p>
<p>“I always wonder if the private HS applicant was not awarded $ b/c parents demonstrated $ ability since he attended a private school.”
I think that is totally a function of which colleges you are talking about, where the student ranks in relation to the rest of the student population [ above the 75%?] ,whether the college requires FAFSA info for merit consideration , regardless of whether you are applying for FA, and , lets face it, how much they want your child.</p>
<p>We were pleased that S was able to keep his merit award for all 4 years–it required a 3.0, I believe & many/most of the kids kept theirs, I believe. Some other schools do NOT have a similar reputation & MANY of the kids lose their scholarships after the 1st year or so. S’s U even offered a 1-year probation for kids who had academic problems to boost their grades & keep their scholarships–not all schools offer that either.</p>
<p>Each U should have info about how many kids keep vs. lose their merit awards & when. That is important in considering your projected out of pocket cost. We know one kid who lost his merit award while his twin brother at a different U kept his & graduated. The one who lost his had to come home & is selling used cars; brother got his engineering degree.</p>
<p>When looking at schools that offer merit aid, be a little leery of those requiring 3.5 GPA to maintain the scholarship. That can be a tough thing to do, especially in Freshman year when adjusting to college.</p>
<p>just stumbled across this on the Stonehill site…economy?..Schools are definitely giving out more merit aid this year than last. UVM, for example was $5-7K last year for their Presidential scholarship, this year they are giving out $10-11k. </p>
<p>“Stonehill College has recently announced that additional merit scholarship funds will be available for students admitted into the Class of 2016. Merit Scholarships will now range from $10,000 - $22,000, an average increase of almost 50% over last year.”</p>
<p>Perhaps it is not surprising that schools are doing the “high list price, but big discounts” pricing strategy that is so common elsewhere (department stores, cars, etc.).</p>
<p>*When you are saying there are merit awards from all the schools, are they a few thousand here and there, or are they substantial, like $20,000? My daughter would need something more than that to attend any private school. *</p>
<p>Tuition discounting seems to be more in the $8k-15k range…not $20k. The $20k+ awards are generally awards for very high stats (very high test scores/GPA) for the school…often the top 5% or the top 2% of the college. So, if a school’s midrange is like ACT 24-28, it might award a very good award for an ACT 30 and an even larger award for an ACT 32+.</p>
<p>It seems to me, that the privates engaging in tuition discounting are trying to compete with the pricing of publics in the general region. So, if the COA of the publics in the general region is about $30k, some of these schools will try to get closer to that number with awards.</p>
<p>URedlands, Chapman, Azusa Pacific, and Whittier College often award $8k+ awards because they have to compete with the CSUs and UCs for students.</p>
<p>$20k+ merit awards will be less common simply because of those high awards’ proportion to tuition. A $20k award is usually more than a 50% tuition reduction. Most schools cannot afford to reduce tuition THAT much to a lot of students. Half-tuition or full tuition merit scholarships are often reserved for those with the highest stats for the school…those who have test scores that are well-within that top quartile. </p>
<p>If you want to find large awards, then you need to look at schools (that give merit) where your child’s stats are very high. If your child’s stats aren’t high for the better known schools, then look at some of the lesser known gems out there. There are many older, small colleges around the country that don’t have high middle quartiles who award merit for those whose stats would be in that upper quartile.</p>