<p>I got a little more than full tuition in grants/scholarships at both Northwestern and University of Rochester (about the same cash amount at both schools). The catch is, at Northwestern, all of that except 2K for NMF is need based, and at Rochester it's all merit. On the surface, the offer look the same, and I'd rather go to Northwestern (in fact, I've already pretty much decided), but I'm wondering if the merit based aid is a better option in these financial aid. The merit based will be consistent, while the need-based changes every year and could shrink, especially in these financial times. Also, my EFC according to Northwestern was SIGNIFICANTLY lower than my EFC according to FAFSA. Then again, Northwestern has a huge endowment and a new "no student graduates with more than 20K debt" policy; but they could always just change my EFC and use the FAFSA to justify it. Thoughts?</p>
<p>What are the requirements to keep the merit scholarship? There are stories on CC of students who were unable to meet the stringent requirements to keep their merit scholarships (remember, almost every student at these schools was at the top of his/her class in high school - not all can get A’s in college). </p>
<p>Do you foresee any significant changes to your family situation in the next 4 years (sibling starting/leaving college, parent getting promoted, etc)? If not, your aid should stay relatively the same — I don’t recall hearing that NU does a bait & switch (bringing you in with good aid & then lowering it in subsequent years). It might be a good idea to post on the RU and NU threads & ask about merit and need based experiences at these schools.</p>
<p>At University of Rochester, the only requirement for keeping most of the merit scholarships, including the Renaissance full tuition scholarship, is “satisfactory progress” - a 2.0 - the same as it is to stay off academic probation.</p>
<p>“no student graduates with more than 20K debt” policy"</p>
<p>Parents & students really need to check into these policies. Seems for many schools these policies simply mean they won’t let a ‘student’ borrow more than xxK in school based federal loans. Parents on the other hand are not exempt and they can be saddled with huge gap loans that are unsubsidized and at much higher rates of interest. I don’t know NW’s actual policy, but it is best to ask informed questions before making such a huge decision.</p>
<p>It’s certainly possible that “not graduating with more than $20k debt” means that the need based loans will not total more than that in 4 years. But the school assumes that EFC can be paid without loans … so students may be taking out unsubsidized loans & parents PLUS loans in order to meet the EFC.</p>
<p>Re: URochester’s merit aid retention gpa … that is awesome … no worries about keeping that gpa. If you can’t, you should probably take a break until you are ready to get back to work! :)</p>
<p>I would go w/ Full Merit aid as it will be there no matter what happens!</p>
<p>Northwestern has pretty good needs-based aid. If you want to go to Northwestern I think you can feel confident it will remain stable for you. It could go up or down a bit depending on your family’s income, but there’s no need to cynically think they’ll pull the rug out from under you. It’s just too reputable a school to do something like that.</p>
<p>If it’s pretty much the same as URochester, I wouldn’t base a decision about where to go just on the basis of need vs. merit based aid.</p>