<p>Does anybody have any idea how many merit scholarships (Trustee Distiguished and Trustee Diversity, Barbara Jordan, and Engineering) are offered at Rice? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Mainly ECs. Trustee Distinguished can go to anyone who has outstanding academic record (not GPA but like out of school academic activities such as STS, Siemens, MUN, Multiple Scholastic Gold Key, etc) or non academic record (like starting a successful company, being a young inventor who got recognized/patented, being nationally recognized for a service, starting/leading of a influential community program). These are like to top examples, what they are looking for may not be this high but if you have these, it make you really stand out.
Barbara Jordan is more based on community outreach. How you redefined your culture position in your community. It can also be applied to you advocating for your ethical belief (such as maybe equal rights, anti-discrimination against race/sexual orientation). This may possibly be expressed in your essay or additional rec.
Engineering–applicant must show serious attraction to engineering and has ECs that have shown their desires. This can be robotics, engineering camp, science fair, etc.
Trustee Diversity is pretty much what it’s name says. your ecs will help the admissions see if you have fully embraced diversity and your culture.</p>
<p>Note the true guidelines, no one but the admissions people know. These are some the suggested ideas from the past.</p>
<p>When my son was applying to Rice last year, I sent an e-mail to Financial Aid asking how many merit scholarships are awarded. They politely responded that Rice does not release that information to the public.</p>
<p>The 2011 edition of “The Best 373 Colleges” (Princeton Review) states that 11% of Rice freshmen receive non-need-based scholarship or grant aid. Not sure if that figure is correct. [Side note - the same source says 41% receive need-based aid, 37% recieve “self-help” aid (probably work-study) and 7% receive athletic scholarships.]</p>
<p>Very few of the top-ranked schools offer merit aid. Of the USNWR top 30 schools, only these schools have a signifcant % of students receiving merit aid:</p>
<p>Rice (11%, if that is accurate)
Vanderbilt (26%)
Emory (7%)
Georgetown (8%)
Carnegie Mellon (21%)
USC (25%)
Wake Forest (19%)</p>
<p>A few others are in the 1-5% range (WUSTL, JHU, Caltech). All of these numbers are from the source cited above. What these numbers don’t tell you is the size of the merit aid awards. After all “merit aid” could mean as little as a $1000 National Merit Semi-Finalist award. I do know that Rice, Vandy, Emory, and USC all offer pretty substantial amounts (> $20K). Not sure about the others. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Rice offers $500/semester for National Merit Finalists.</p>
<p>1/3 of accepted students get Merit Aid.
National Merit award is 1,000 dollars per year (which is 500/semester)</p>
<p>Thanks for all the information above. I’m hoping my son gets some merit aid from Rice as this will be a major factor whether he is an Owl next Fall.</p>
<p>I have researched this issue, a task that is made more difficult by the fact that Rice apparently does not publish a Common Data Set or other relevant information on this question. One way to get an idea of the possibility of merit aid is by looking at Average Non-need Based Aid ($17,340 in the case of Rice), but that information is incomplete without information as to the number of students who receive merit aid.</p>
<p>Here is what is available on the College Board’s website concerning Rice’s financial aid statistics:
</p>
<p>@Schokolade…I actually have found the common data set:
<a href=“Rice University”>Rice University;
Looking at the 2010-2011 financial aid section…there is a category for the “number of degree-seeking first-time full-time undergraduate students (949) who had no financial need and who were awarded institutional non-need-based scholarship or grant aid (excluding those who were awarded athletic awards and tuition benefits)” which is 144. This comes out to roughly 15%.
Also, the overall number (all full-time undergraduates) is even higher…701 of 3,447, which comes out to be about 20.33%
^that’s pretty good!</p>
<p>The CDS sheet has some pretty interesting data about merit scholarships. For last year’s freshman class, 144 students were awarded a non-need-based scholarship. Theaverage size was $ 16,083. Of those, 50 were athletes with (on average) a $ 32,342 award.</p>
<p>So quick calculations (after removing the 50 athletes) reveal:
10% of the freshmen got (non-athletes) merit awards (94 of 949-50 = 899)
The average (non-athlete) award was $7435.</p>
<p>@MSmom&dad: I think they are separate, but I could be wrong. I believe there were 144 non-athletes freshmen who avg $16,083 merit scholarhips/grants and there were 50 athletes averaging $32,342 non-need-based athletic scholarships/grants.</p>
<p>Probably there are many who received small scholarships of $1000 because the trustee is $18k.</p>
<p>RedYellowBlue is right, the CDS states clearly that the merit scholarships exclude athletic awards/tuition benefits; those are in a separate category</p>
<p>*my numbers are correct</p>