<p>Thanks, ctl987 & celesteroberts for the info.</p>
<p>Most LAC’s / universities outside of the top 15 or so offer merit aid. Often, it is most clear-cut if an individual obtains a status such as that of a National Merit Finalist. Many schools offer such students ranging from $1,000 to full. However, a good GPA / good scores / interesting EC’s combination is often enough to get an “unadvertised” scholarship. Good luck!</p>
<p>For some serious scholarship money, your best bet is to apply to at least a few second tier LACs. I know selectivity is a priority for you (as it was for us), but the most selective schools often do not give merit money (they don’t need to because nearly everyone who applies is in the same category as your daughter), only need-based financial aid. My D was a merit finalist, salutatorian, etc. and was offered four year scholarships (for which she did not need to apply) to Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr. Had she chosen those schools, I know she would have received an excellent education–many, many students of your daughter’s caliber go to those schools, so she would certainly be challenged in the classroom discussions as well as in her independent work.</p>
<p>If you don’t think you’ll get much need-based aid, don’t rule out a good school just because it seems less prestigious. It really is splitting hairs. One of my daughter’s friends agonized over turning down Williams to go to Bowdoin, because Williams was slightly higher in the rankings. But wait a few years, and the order could be reversed for no discernible reason.</p>
<p>One of my daughter’s friends agonized over turning down Williams to go to Bowdoin, because Williams was slightly higher in the rankings. But wait a few years, and the order could be reversed for no discernible reason.</p>
<p>lol…exactly.</p>
<p>Imagine someone choosing School A because it’s a few ranking steps above School B…and pays a lot more for the privilege. School C wasn’t considered, even tho it was much cheaper because it was much further down in ranking.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few years when new grad is out job-hunting and realizes that the extra dough was a total waste because School B gone up in ranking and now is tied with School A. Then to further rub salt in the wounds of a sore bank account, the person starts his new “real” job and finds out the fellow new-hire from School C is being paid the same as he is.</p>
<p>4beardolls: DS received the OOS tuition waiver which brings the cost to in-state tuition plus he also received a $10,000 scholarship from the engineering dept. Don’t know if he will continue with the Honors College beyond the first year or so but they provide advising in addition to the regular adviser in your school/major. So far he loves it (though he wishes the weather would get colder!).</p>
<p>MTNest, My husband came from Finland to attend UMN for grad school. Among the reasons for the choice was expecting it would be as much like home as possible in USA. But the summers were NOTHING like he had experienced before, quite a shock that so far north the weather can be so hot and steamy, lol.</p>
<p>Also, can you tell, did your son get the NMF scholarship and a renewable $10K engineering scholarship and the OOS waiver? Curious because next year I’ll have another kid to try to sell on UMN. It was music this past year and dept scholarships are so much different than for a lot of other majors. Wondering what the stacking possibilities are. That would be close to a full ride.</p>
<p>DS missed NMF by one point 
He did receive another outside scholarship which covered all of his tuition and mandatory fees so it is pretty much a full ride for him 
As long as the scholarships don’t specify what it covers, then they should stack. His engineering scholarship was use for the room & board. </p>
<p>Love the city and it is so easy to get around! Once the light rail station opens on campus, you can take it all the way to the Mall of America or Target Field without having to take a bus. Easy access to the airport via the light rail – can’t beat it for convenience and cost!</p>
<p>Right now the top public university in the country is UC Berkeley. It is “top” across the board. Many people still think that Berkeley is still full of hippie sorts and is generally politically motivated toward a liberal education. Not true on both accounts. Cal is the place to be if you are interested in any of the STEM fields and even more so if you are female. In other wards, if you want a job when your graduate, don’t major in history, English, Art etc etc. Sorry but reality check. Anyway, Berkeley is the top research facility in the country and also has a great business school as well. Right now the tuition for a year is $27,000 for residents. </p>
<p>My daughter is now a senior at UC Berkeley. She came from a very small town 2 hours north of LA. Although she was one of her high school valedictorians she did not do exceptionally well on her SATs. She always wanted to be a scientist and go to Cal but pretty much knew she wouldn’t get it. The year she was accepted there were 50,000 students that applied, 5,000 got in.</p>
<p>Ok so she got in for a number of reasons and they all contributed to her getting a complete scholarship from Cal. She wrote a great entrance essay, she over came incredible personal obstacles, was very low income, (I am a single parent) her school was an ELC, she had great recommendations from her teachers, she did tons of volunteer work and did very well in her AP classes. Now because we live in California we have the Cal Grant which paid for her tuition. She also qualified for a Pell Grant and Berkeley picked up most of the rest. We still have some student loans, but not much.</p>
<p>Her first semester was horrible, because as she soon found out, most of the students at Cal were valedictorians or incredibly brilliant transfer students from other countries.That meant the grading curve was extremely high. But she persevered, took summer classes and also spent a semester studying abroad (all paid for by Berkeley scholarships BTW.) Her major is molecular plant genetics/biology with a minor in forestry and she already has internships being offered to her. </p>
<p>So moral of my story is - major in a STEM field and try and get into a university that looks at all your capabilities/goals and not just your SAT scores. They are out there.</p>
<p>Massmom- curious to know if the full scholarship at Bryn Mawr was based on merit or financial need or both?</p>
<p>Texas Wesleyan university offers up to 11,000USD / Year for students with a GPA of 3.8 -4.0 / 4.0. they do offer computer Science. Give Texas Wesleyan University a try!</p>
<p>pinecone1, it’s great that your daughter is able to realize her dreams. Nobody where we lives thinks Berkeley is just a hippie hang-out. It is considered a highly desirable top school, lucky CA kids to have it. However, most of the students from around here who manage to get admitted there do not actually attend. For OOS, unless you win a big outside scholarship, Berkeley will be full pay at OOS rates. That’s over $50K/yr not counting books/transportation/mandatory $2K health ins. for those whose policies aren’t effective OOS/personal. They don’t give FA or many scholarships to OOS, which is reasonable as a state school.</p>
<p>I recommend my students use the 59 Scholarship Search Engines that will search for FREE - see handout I give to students here - <a href=“https://wiki.rockwallisd.org/groups/jbjones/wiki/20c4b/Scholarships_Looking_for_Applicants.html[/url]”>https://wiki.rockwallisd.org/groups/jbjones/wiki/20c4b/Scholarships_Looking_for_Applicants.html</a>
The four most robust searches we found are: AIR.org; Collegedata.com; Fastweb.com; & *****.com.
All of the search engines will give you good information to follow-up on [FOR FREE by the way] but these four have returend the best selection of offerings according to my students.</p>
<p>mathymom, I’ve not read all of the responses so apologies if this repeats some earlier advice: some schools that offer significant merit aid have earlier deadlines for applying for those scholarships. My info isn’t the most current (D1 went through admissions 3 years ago, D2 isn’t chasing merit), but 3 years ago some examples were University of Maryland-College Park, University of Pittsburgh (rolling admissions, honors college, ), and USC (though NMFs don’t have to worry about the deadline for the automatic half tuition scholarship, there is also the big kahuna full tuition scholarship). Maybe someone knows of a list of schools that fit this description so you can quickly scan through and see if anything is of the slightest interest to your D. That way you won’t be caught out by the early deadline.</p>
<p>How much can your family afford to pay per year, and how does that compare with your EFC? If you have a hard and fast budget, is your D aware of that? Or, are you going to be willing to stretch if she gets in somewhere wonderful but without much aid?</p>
<p>Mathyone, you sure are getting a lot of information thrown at you. I wish that I knew, as my child was applying last year, how extremely, extremely competitive and limited scholarships are at selective schools (even for those with top stats/grades/national merit status/awards/APs, etc.). My child was accepted into schools like Emory, USC, UNC-Chapel Hill, Rice, and Vanderbilt, but did not receive the top scholarships at these schools despite being a national merit finalist, #2 ranked, 35 ACT, etc. (although he did receive a full-tuition scholarship at a great school). Without need-based aid, those awesome acceptances became nothing more. I think university-based scholarships are your best bet (unless your child qualifies for need-based aid and/or scholarships from various foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation etc.). I would say to just keep an open mind as far as what colleges you/your child would consider. I sincerely wish you and your child the best of luck in this process.</p>
<p>Two excellent search-able data bases on merit aid. Way more efficient than wading through pages of one-off posts on these boards. </p>
<p>Kiplinger’s Best College Values public and private</p>
<p>[Kiplinger’s</a> Best Values in Private Colleges-Kiplinger](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php]Kiplinger’s”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php)</p>
<p>[Kiplinger’s</a> Best Values in Public Colleges-Kiplinger](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-public-colleges/index.php]Kiplinger’s”>Best College Values, 2019 | Kiplinger)</p>
<p>NY Times </p>
<p><a href=“Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com”>Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com;
<p>I don’t think I’d call posts on the CC boards one-off considering there are summary threads on merit scholarships stickied at the top of this forum.</p>
<p>The NY Times list: the merit aid column doesn’t specify whether there is a “need” component to getting the merit aid.</p>
<p>CC was instrumental in our search for scholarships. It was pretty easy to find schools that awarded “merit” scholarships (no need component). Also, we could see how our child stacked up against previous award winners.</p>
<p>Yes, cc is full of great scholarship information. Is there a thread with students awarded merit scholarships listing their stats - similar to the college accepted/rejected threads? This information would be really useful to gauge whether DC has good chance for certain schools’ merit money.</p>
<p>From what I have seen, 4beardolls, that type of listing is not centralized. IMO, they may not be particularly useful because they change from year to year, and the kids who compete for the big scholarships all have very similar stats. It is the other things, essays, ECs, recommendations, that make the difference.</p>
<p>There are occasional posts that list stats. For many years, I did not post my DD stats at all, but more recently I have posted them once or twice.</p>