Just looked that info up for Bowdoin (2016-2017 most recent). $58,000 total in non-need based aid.I’m guessing that’s made up of NMF and Faculty Scholar awards that are one-time $3000 awards given for summer research and not applied to tuition.
So, when looking at CDSs, one has to dig a little deeper to understand where those numbers come from.
Not intending to be a jerk, but of the schools mentioned in #156, the following do NOT offer non-need merit: Tufts, Georgetown (DC) and Swarthmore.
@homerdog Maybe NMF but the awards are $5K each at Mid and $10K each at Brown, so pretty hefty if NMF, and nothing on their respective websites about any non-need based aid. Bowdoin does address their non-need based aid on their website.
I wonder if the reporting of these non-need based awards is a gray area on the CDS? Cornell awards $1000 to Tanner Dean scholars and up to $3,500 to Cornell Tradition recipients. Neither of these are need-based. The Cornell Tradition award covers the cost of service-related activities, such as summer break internships, Pre-Orientation Service Trips, Alternative Breaks trips, service-learning trips, and other educational experiential activities approved by the program. There is also a fellowship component that can replace need-based student loans.
Columbia offered my son a non-need based $10K stipend toward summer research. I don’t know if any of these are reported on the CDS.
Apparently research stipends are not considered merit awards. Stanford gives them as well. Yes, Cornell does. I know that some awards and stipends are available to kids at a number of schools but are for certain services rendered.
Sometimes there are endowed schloraships for particular types for students (girl from the town the college is located who’s in the band) in memory of a past student. These would be non need if the recipient doesn’t qualify for aid.
@Mwfan1921 how can you tell that the Midd scholarships are $5k and the Brown scholarships are $10k? Where did you get that info?
@homerdog I always thought section H2A was the detail of the non-need based merit total in H1, line 3. For Brown it seems to work that way–there are 8 awards (7+1) at an average of $10K each detailed in H2A, so that ties to the $80K in H1,line 3. https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/institutional-research/sites/brown.edu.about.administration.institutional-research/files/uploads/CDS_2018_2019_FINAL_0.pdf
But Midd doesn’t seem to work…they report $25K in H1 line 3, but H2A shows 5 awards at an average of $25K…I wonder if that $25K average is a mistake and should be $5K? Or the total non-need based merit really should be $125K? http://www.middlebury.edu/system/files/media/CDS_2018-2019.pdf
Midd’s 17/18 CDS is very close to tying out between H1 line 3 and H2A…that year non-need based awards were around $70K. https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/institutional-research/sites/brown.edu.about.administration.institutional-research/files/uploads/CDS_2017-2018.pdf
Variances in CDS reporting for sure, and no oversight.
I skimmed a few pages, so I must have missed the discussion about what OP’s S wants to study? Anything about fit? Or just prestige?
JH and Duke give merit? Oh, yeah, good luck with that…especially JH. OP may as well start playing Powerball, too.
I haven’t ever looked at the CDS for schools before - new to all of this and had no idea what they were. Dang, they are fascinating. I could get lost for hours.
National Merit is identified in H1 as an outside source for non-need. Why?
Georgetown identifies $200k as non-need. Princeton has zero for non-need. Harvard has some non-need. What is it for?
Stanford is crazy fascinating – beyond the more typical, yet mysterious, non-need grants, they have a line item for $3.5 million in tuition waivers that count for non-need. But the only tuition waivers I am aware of is what they do for those making less than $125k. Wouldn’t that be need-based? Plus their athletic scholarships are off the rails – to compare the number of aid recipients from Stanford to those from the Ivies and D3’s, you would have to factor in how many Standford students get athletic scholarships.
But even with all of that, Harvard has a significantly higher percentage of students receiving aid than Stanford, even including Stanford’s athletic scholarships, etc. Stanford has a little over a half of students receiving aid (need, non-need, athletic, tuition waiver). Harvard is more like two thirds – the vast vast majority of which is categorized as need-based aid. Makes me think that where need stops and merit starts is a permeable line. For example, while I realize there are “elite” sports scholarships, the vast majority of Stanford athletic scholarships go to football, soccer and basketball players, and it is a safe bet that lots of those athletes would have gotten financial aid at Stanford if the athletic scholarships weren’t available.
As each school keeps their financial aid calculations behind the curtain, nothing stops them from raising a financial aid award if they want to, and they don’t have to explain it to anyone. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with that.
Getting sizeable merit money from schools with s lot of name recognition is truly difficult. Just getting into Duke or JHU not easy; getting a scholarship even more so.
I wonder which of the most selective schools have the most selective scholarship chances.
At least there is a chance with Hopkins and Duke. The chances of getting sizeable merit money at the Ivys, MIT, CIT, Stanford, is zero
@CateCAParent when it comes to National Merit scholarships, there are outside scholarships not given by the college but given by companies and the National Merit Foundation itself, so those would be considered outside scholarships. Some schools actually give the scholarships themselves so those would be in the non-need based aid category on CDSs. It is fascinating to look at the CDSs but, really, for the purposes of the OPs search, most of these schools truly give no merit aid. He shouldn’t be thinking there’s merit at places like Midd or Brown. Whatever those are, it’s possible that money also went to students who had need even though the merit is categorized as non-need based aid.
@homerdog - totally agree. Whatever that money is, it isn’t merit in the normal sense for normal people. If a school isn’t telling people on their website that they give merit aid, then no one should think they will make an exception for them.
I wonder how Stanford is able to offer Athletic Scholarships and only need-based aid for the general student body. It would seem to me that this would break NCAA Div 1 rules of Impermissible Benefits. Basically Athletes can’t be given benefits that are not available to the general student body. Maybe they are doing some kind of cooking the books to get around this and that’s why the CDS has those numbers.
My theory is they do this because of the NCAA Div 1 rule about Impermissible Benefits. In order to be competitive in recruiting with their conference peers they will match another Ivies offer if it’s better. That way Brown can recruit the same player as Princeton if they want. So if they do this for Athletes they need to do this for the general student body. I have no info to back this up - just a hunch and would welcome someone more informed on these matters to enlighten us.
And to the OP - also take in mind that a number of these merit possibilities are restricted by State/Region or other specifics. Many of Duke’s merit scholarships are reserved for North Carolina residents. Emory has restrictions to State/Region. I believe JHU has merit restricted just for Veterans ( I may be remembering wrong so check).
I don’t think there is any rule about having to give out academic awards if you give out athletic scholarships.
@cptofthehouse But the NCAA Div 1 does have a rule of Impermissible Benefits that an athlete can’t be given a benefit that isn’t available to the general student body.
Ever since I can remember, there have been many DIv 1 schools that give full athletic scholarships but do not do the same for academic awards. There are all kinds of exceptions in those rules. All sorts of legitimate ways around some of the provisions. Also schools cheat. But I do not think Stanford is cheating here.
I do not know the NCAA rules and am not interested in digging out how Stanford can do this.
I think I thought of an answer to my own question. COA at a school is a permissible benefit and is most likely stated in the rules.
At many colleges “merit” scholarships are need friendly, like semester abroad, payment for summer internship, stipend type awards usually go to lower income students.
Stanford has to follow the NCAA rules. Once the athlete receives an athletic grant in aid, any need based aid counts against the teams total, so very few athletes get other need based aid from the school, but can accept federal or state need based aid and any outside merit aid that isn’t award due to athletic performance (Elks club award okay, athlete of the year from the Elks is not). It isn’t a problem with the head count sports like football, but for others who are splitting scholarships they just don’t get need based aid. That’s true at all D1/D2 schools.
A student who is able to take an athletic scholarship and merit at another school cannot do that at Stanford since they don’t offer merit. It’s a disadvantage to those athletes who need to get merit aid to afford a school. It may be that the coach doesn’t give an athletic scholarship to a student who would get 100% need based aid but I suspect that doesn’t happen as much as you’d think.
An athlete can accept merit aid or other awards offered to other students at the school, but there are a few NCAA requirements, like that the student has to be in the top 10% of high school class OR have a 3.5 gpa OR have a certain test score.