@riverpack17 @Sallaw The Notre Dame scholarships website lists much more than three merit scholarships that offer $25K/year, for example, the Besio Family, Brennan Family, Latino Studies, Stinson Scholars, Trustey Family, and of course, Hesburgh-Yusko. Each scholarship has its requirements. Guess it’s up to the committee decide who gets what.
I was referring to merit scholarships that don’t require “demonstrated need” and that were not field specific
@Sallaw I realize from your response that you were referring to merit scholarships generically. I was just going by the list on the ND website under the heading of “Merit Scholarships.”
Best of luck as you proceed!
Does anyone know if ND stacks outside scholarships on top of a ND Merit Scholarship (if it is won?) I know they don’t stack outside scholarships on their Financial Aid/Need-based Awards, but I was curious if they would stack on an ND Merit-based scholarship.
@irishgal1909
I found the following on the Notre Dame financial aid FAQ section, in answer to your question re: stacking outside scholarships:
Will an outside scholarship affect my financial aid eligibility?
The receipt of any scholarship, grant, or loan not listed on the original Financial Aid Notification must be reported to the Office of Financial Aid as soon as the student is notified of the award. The receipt of funds not listed on the Financial Aid Notification may result in an adjustment to the student’s financial assistance.
As a guide, if a student receives aid beyond that which is listed on the Financial Aid Notification, their financial assistance may be adjusted by reducing or eliminating the Notre Dame Subsidized Loan, Federal Work-Study, and Federal Direct Subsidized Loan. Depending on the amount of the outside scholarship, it is possible that scholarships from Notre Dame (e.g., University Scholarship, Provost’s Scholarship, etc.) may be reduced or eliminated.
So it seems the answer is, it depends. Receiving outside scholarships may reduce your FA, but on the bright side, it seems that they deduct from loans and work study before scholarships.
I just wanted to provide some perspective on merit scholarships. ND recently released its Common Data Set for the class of 2021 (thanks to @GeronimoAlpaca for noting this on another post). If I’m reading it correctly, the university awarded merit aid to just 47 students (excluding athletes) out of 3700 admitted last year. (I think they gave merit aid to around 100 athletes). If anyone wants to see the breakdown of the # of scholarships/$$ amount awarded for merit aid, need-based aid, federal/state grants, etc. here is the link. I think the important point is that they give out very few merit scholarships, so try not to be too disappointed if you don’t get one. There are many great students at ND that don’t receive merit aid. Hope this is helpful. https://ospir.nd.edu/assets/265299/cds_2017_2018.pdf
@waitingmomla Thank you for posting the link to the CDS, and for your words of encouragement. I really appreciate it when ND parents (and students) take the time to share their experiences. (This board is not as active as others on CC.) This is our first foray in the college process, not counting my own many moons ago, and I am thankful for the information and guidance from parents on CC.
From reading the Class of 2021’s CDS, merit aid (non-need based scholarship/grant) was awarded to 47 out of 2,051 first-time full-time freshmen, excluding athletes. These were 47 students “who had no financial need.” So, this calculates to about 2% of admitted freshmen last year (but my math sucks, frankly, so please double check!).
This isn’t quite in line with what is on the ND website, that “about three percent (65 students) of enrolled first-year students receive merit aid.” https://meritscholarships.nd.edu/selection-process/
Maybe the missing one percent consist of students who have financial need and received merit scholarships with a need-based component? Notably, the statistic of 47 in the CDS doesn’t seem to account for this situation. Am I reading the CDS right? (Again, I admit to being numbers-challenged.)
At any rate, the bottom line is that there are very, very few merit scholarships awarded. But on the bright side, ND reports that about 130 participants are invited to the scholarship visit. https://admissions.nd.edu/scholars/faqs/ This narrows down the field a bit. Good luck to everyone!
@hafamama Good question. I don’t know but – just guessing – I wonder if it has to do with the difference between calculating the % based on the number of merit scholarships “offered to accepted students” (47/3700=1%) vs the number of merit scholarships “used by enrolled freshman” (47/2051=2%). On the page you linked, ND is quoting the number of enrolled freshman (65) who received merit aid in some unknown year – and I imagine this number changes every year depending on how many students who are offered these scholarships actually choose to attend ND. Maybe the more constant % is that ND offers merit aid to roughly 1% of students accepted (47/3700). And then the % of enrolled students who use those scholarships varies year to year based on different pools of people. I really don’t know but just a thought if that’s at all helpful. I think non-athlete merit scholarships for class of 2020 was 37. It’s an extremely small number. Yet ND is full of brilliant people. So there are a lot of really smart, great kids who get accepted who don’t get merit scholarships. Its one of the unfortunate realities of applying to top tier schools, they don’t offer a lot of this type of aid because they don’t need to. Good luck to all!
@waitingmomla Your “wondering” calculations do make sense to me. The fact that the percentage for merit is so low just emphasizes that at ND (like the Ivies) the focus is on need-based aid.
For us at least, the issue is that getting the merit scholarship might put ND within financial reach. We just have to wait and see what the FA package is. Sigh. More waiting.
There are currently ~ 80 academic merit scholars in the freshman class. Some of the scholarships are from outside organizations (Evans, Joyce) that your children won’t be considered for unless they specifically applied to those.
Also, regarding fin aid: Notre Dame will never deduct money from your merit scholarship. Think of it as a chunk of cash that they’re handing you indirectly. The confusion that may have been caused is that if you get need based fin aid AND a merit scholarship, outside scholarships could be deducted from the need based aid if you would be making a profit. Let’s say that a Student qualifies for a full ride based on need (i.e. 70k per year) and they get a 25k merit scholarship. This means their need based aid would equal 45k per year. Let’s say further that They also get 20k in outside scholarships. The 20 k will reduce their 45k need based aid, but in the end their cost of attendance will still be 0 and nothing will be taken from their merit scholarship.
FYI, the CDS numbers are based on enrolled students. Only a portion of the kids admitted and offered a merit schollie eventually enroll.
So the CDS is saying that 2.3% of enrolled frosh (47 kids) had merit schollies even though they had zero need. In addition to that, there would have been (according to ND’s number) 18 more merit winners, which gets you to 3% of enrolled students.
ND’s merit awards are typically $25k awards. So those 18 kids still had financial need remaining after their merit schollie was applied. Since ND meets full financial need, those kids would get fin aid as well. For those kids, the merit schollie really did not change their net cost of attendance. The merit money just reduced their financial need/aid amount.
ND does more merit money than the Ivies and Gtown (0.00% of enrolled students). Places like Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, USC do very limited merit money, but at a bit higher level than ND does. Merit money is really more of a top 25-50 school thing. In the top 1-25 schools, it ranges from non-existent to supremely hard to get.
@DryMango @northwesty Thank you for explaining how merit/FA works. I’m learning a lot from other parents on CC, and I appreciate how other people openly share their experience and knowledge.
@Sallaw @ilikesportz @sharand @sbe2934 @riverpack17 @irishgal1909
Now that the interview process is done, maybe you all got good news? If you don’t mind sharing, that is.
@hafamama I recently heard back that I got the Suzanne and Walter Scotts Scholarship
@sallaw Congratulations!!! <:-P Go Irish!
Yes… awarded a merit scholarship! So excited to join the ND family in the fall.
@irishgal1909 Woohoo! Congratulations! <:-P
@hafamama I got the Trustey Family Merit Scholarship but I will not be attending ND in the fall so I declined the award.
@sharand Thank you for posting, and best wishes on your college career! I’m sure that you’ll have a great time at the school that is lucky enough to have you attend!
Yes, thank you everyone for the help.