Merit Scholarships

Hi, I’m a prospective Oberlin student and a rising senior in high school. Oberlin is my first pick for college, but I’m worried about affordability. I will most likely receive little to no financial aid, and my parents aren’t looking to pay full tuition. However, I do know that the school grants merit scholarships. Would you please share how much you or your child received in merit grants from Oberlin and what qualified them for this amount (SAT/ACT, GPA, etc.)? Thank you so much!

Oberlin’s admission/finaid strategy is to admit mostly kids like you (too rich for any school to give you aid) and give them small (5-10k) merit scholarships in hopes that once you are making your final decision this discount will push you towards going there. Then you will still give them tons of money but slightly less money than you would have given a different school. This means that for higher income students Oberlin’s finaid package often turns out to be the best between it and its “peer” schools.

But to actually answer your question, I received 25k in merit aid per year (and they gave me an additional 4k/yr in grants after just emailing them and asking for more money) with a 3.9 uw gpa and a 34 ACT. I had assisted a professor in research during the summer before my senior year but had no real hooks or other EC involvement.

Also, if you don’t get many replies, you can probably find more recent stats littered around the “Oberlin College Class of 2020 - Regular Decision” thread.

@megame18 Thanks so much, that’s really helpful.