<p>I agree with the small LAC suggestions, like those in Colleges that Change Lives. Many of these take true B students (3.0) and once they take you, they try to find a way to make it work financially.</p>
<p>The key to merit aid is to first determine if the school gives any, to anyone. US News and World report (on-line) lists merit aid at the bottom of the "tuition and financial aid" listing for each school.</p>
<p>This is Vassar's listing under tuition and financial aid:</p>
<p>Non-need-based aid
Avg. merit award (% awarded aid) $0 (0%) $0 (0%)
Avg. athletic scholarship (% awarded aid) $0 (0%) $0 (0%) </p>
<p>So obviously no one is getting merit aid from them.</p>
<p>However, here is the listing from Goucher College:</p>
<p>Non-need-based aid
Avg. merit award (% awarded aid) $13,237 (29%) $13,682 (31%)
Avg. athletic scholarship (% awarded aid) $0 (0%) $0 (0%) </p>
<p>So, if you examine those numbers, you could say (non-scientifically) that approximately the top 25% of the class receives merit aid. That is not totally accurate and some schools will give out merit aid based on talent, leadership or ec's, but it is a generalization that we used when determining what school my daughter had a good shot of getting aid from.</p>
<p>Even if the percent receiving merit aid was listed as less than 25%, we generally assumed that if she was above the 75th percentile for GPA and SAT, that she had a shot at merit aid.</p>
<p>In many cases, the colleges that offer merit aid are not those for A students only. Just do some research. Good luck!!.</p>
<p>When you are looking at aid calculation charts, pay attention to whether they compute based on a weighted or unweighted average. One school Son really likes bases admissions on the weighted average, but merit aid on the unweighted average.</p>
<p>More and more colleges are posting scholarship calculators to give families an idea of what they'll be eligible for. A quick way to these colleges is this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Go to google, click on advanced search</li>
<li>Limit the domain search to .edu</li>
<li>Enter the term "scholarship calculator"</li>
</ol>
<p>About a dozen pages of links to college scholarship calculators will turn right up, including links to many colleges that are great options for B and C students. </p>
<p>By the way, to the original poster: on a counselor tour this summer, we were told by Eckerd College's admissions office that they begin considering students for merit money at around a 3.0 GPA, with test scores in the 1100 (math/reading SAT) range. Eckerd has wonderful programs in marine biology, biology, and environmental science. Beautiful campus, laid back student body.</p>
<p>OP, be sure your S's GC discusses his illness in relation to his grades in the rec letter. If his grades are otherwise consistent, it may not hurt his prospects as muich as you think.</p>
<p>missypie--I've never been able to find a single website that says whether the gpa (for admission or scholarship) is based on weighted or unweighted gpa (important in son's case, because it's the difference between a 3.1 and 4.4 [approx]). I even emailed an admissions dept (U of Alabama) & they said it was "the gpa on the HS transcript." Well, I believe our HS puts both weighted & unweighted on the transcript, so not sure how that will play. </p>
<p>Did you find a lot of schools that had that (W vs UW) info?</p>
<p>PS I found this site (using the google advice from above!). <a href="http://www.guaranteed-*****************/%5B/url%5D">http://www.guaranteed-*****************/</a></p>
<p>Jolynne, I think that it is often intentionally vague. Jolynne, at some schools, if you call admissions you might get a straight forward answer. Also, it is not always just about student stats for merit aid. Sometimes financial need enters into the mix. I recently visited a school and I asked their admissions counselor if financial need is factored into merit aid, and the counselor told me that it was. I then asked if fafsa and profile was looked at before merit aid was awarded, and I was told that it was. Some merit awards at some schools do require that the fafsa (and at some schools, the profile too) gets completed.</p>
<p>Interesting. That's for that added info, northeastmom! (the additional need part won't necessarily be good for us, but useful to know..!).</p>
<p>Your welcome. It is useful information to find out. Each school will give out merit aid a bit differently. Some will use financial need in part of the equation. Some will consider how a student challenged themselves with advanced classes and other others will use only unweighted gpas and a grade in AP chemistry count equally to someone else's college prep chemistry. Some schools will look at a gpa and standardized test score and plot it on a chart for a merit award. They will not consider whether a student comes out of a highly competitive hs vs. another who graduates from a less competitive hs. Others will give merit awards because they want a student for whatever reason. You can have your child call admissions, or contact them yourself so that there will might be less of a surprise (pleasant or unpleasant). I have learned the hard way, btw.</p>
<p>Thanks again. I was kind of figuring that the financial aid would all be a big 'mystery' until we found out if son were accepted or not & after we filed the FASFA (remember reading a collegeboard chart showing that a $10k state school & a $31k private could end up costing the same, based upon the vagaries of fin aid). But, it sounds like there are things you can do to get a feel for it, beforehand.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Financial Aid – how do schools define family income?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The number usually refers to the family's adjusted gross income (the bottom line on the first page of your form 1040). Of course if you had unusually high (or low) assets the income figure might be adjusted to take that into account.</p>
<p>This is fabulous information. Hopefully, it will introduce us to some schools that we hadn't heard of before.</p>
<p>As others have said, we only found out about weighted/unweighted considerations through comments made during campus visits.</p>
<p>Thanks, missypie! Good to know.</p>
<p>I did the Google advanced search and it gave us a lot of schools to look into. The good news is that it looks like there are schools that he was interested in that will give him some merit $$. Thanks for the great advice.</p>
<p>This may be a foolish question, but here goes. We have found found a few schools where my son qualifies for merit money. Should I consider those schools as "match" schools?</p>
<p>In general, schools where your child qualifies for substantial merit money are probably "match" or sometimes "safety" schools. That being said, unless there is guaranteed admission, don't assume your child will automatically be admitted. Admissions can be oddly unpredictable. </p>
<p>S's friend was admitted to ivy UPenn but not admitted to USoCal & admitted with generous merit $ to Boston U, where he attends. It's very confusing to many of us.</p>
<p>In general, we looked at gpa and sat scores among accepted students. If D's scores were above the 75th percentile of accepted students, we felt she could possibly qualify for merit aid and that the school was a safety.</p>
<p>In reality, D rec'd merit aid ffrom some schools where she was more in the mid-range. But I think her talent as a vocalist helped.</p>
<p>In the context of this thread, what is the defintion of a 'B student'? Isn't the standard scale end in 4.0 with unweghted 4.0 = straight A's?</p>