I did the net price calculator for USC and it returned a merit scholarship of just under 39,000 and a net cost of just under 5,000. My stats are solid (1360 SAT, 4.0 GPA and top 5% of my class) but not fantastic. Surprised by the amount of merit aid. Could this be right? Thanks
This does seem high. Presuming you are OOS, what you might expect with your stats is in-state tuition (which is $11,200, about $18,000/yr reduction from OOS) plus an additional $2,000 per year (McKissick Scholarship). If you are NMF, you would get an add’l $6,000 on top of that, for a total tuition cost of $3,200, plus fees (estimate $1,800 per year if you are in the Honors College). That would approximate the $5,000 you saw.
But then you need to add room and board at about $10,000 per year, plus books and other expenses. So $16,000 (if NMF) or $22,000 (if not NMF) seems like a more likely number. There are also Departmental scholarships that might knock a bit more off but I don’t think they’d show on the NPC.
Do you have financial need? Maybe some of what you saw on the NPC was merit, and some was pure need-based aid?
We don’t qualify for aid, family income over $200,000. He is not a NMF. We are OOS which makes the merit aid even higher. Have others used the Net Price Calculator for USC? The link connects you with the college board site. I rechecked the number we entered 3 times and still get the same answer. Confused.
Hmm, putting in similar data gave me similar results. But on side it noted that expected parent contribution for this scenario is $55,000 which is a good bit more than COA. So the only thing USC would give is merit aid and as Lucky said,I don’t think you can get there without NMF unless you are top scholar, but that calculator probably wouldn’t take that into account since that is a competition scholarship. I would call financial aid, I think something is off.
Look at Money Matters download for current info on merit aid and estimated stats for each. See https://www.sc.edu/admissions/admissionspdfs/moneymatters2014.pdf If you don’t qualify for need based aid, this will probably be as accurate as NPC is estimating merit.
I spoke with someone from admissions at USC yesterday as they oversee merit scholarships. He suggested that it sounds like the NPC overestimated the amount of expected merit aid my son would qualify for. He did confirm that with his stats, my son should qualify for Honors (getting him in-state tuition) and some additional merit money. But the net cost would most likely be closer to $20,000 per year, not $5,000 as the calculator suggests. Just a word of caution to others using the NPC.
@midwestblues, just want to note that merit awards and Honors College admission are two separate areas. Merit is reviewed automatically for all applications. Your S’s likely merit award (Flinn or McKissick) would come with in-state tuition and an additional $500 or $2,000, respectively. As I understand it, all Honors College students receive one of those awards (or one of the higher $$ merit awards). However, there are also a number of non-HC students who receive a Flinn or McKissick-- many in the Capstone program.
You and your S may already be aware of this, but it sounds like the person you spoke to didn’t make it abundantly clear: If your S interested in the Honors College, he has to complete the HC application. If he’s not interested in applying to the Honors College, he is still eligible for just as much merit $ as he’d get if he were in Honors.