NMSF doesn’t want to consider full-rides

Paying for College National Merit Aid
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<p>Daughter isn’t interested in the colleges that offer full-rides. Husband and Grandfather are frustrated with this. They are the breadwinners  </p>

<p>D & I have identified schools that offer free tuition for NM or will meet full need without loans. Thanks to airline/hotel miles we’ve traveled and visited all the schools and she is happy with her list.</p>

<p>I know husband & Grandfather will ultimately be supportive of whatever she decides. We’ve saved enough to cover EFC so she can graduate debt free at most of the schools on her list.</p>

<p>I still wonder if she should pursue a school that offers a full-ride. She could use the money saved to not work, go to Europe every summer, buy a car or put a down payment on a house. This would be a luxury for a kiddo that currently has a monthly allowance of $20. </p>

<p>Appreciate your thoughts especially how students mature and change their minds during their senior year.</p>

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<p>Some families have a policy that the parents get to pick a couple of schools that the student must apply to and visit (if not too costly to visit). Since usually the schools that offer huge NMF scholarships don’t require very time-consuming apps or essays, then it really isn’t much to ask your D to apply to a couple of these schools.</p>

<p>For instance, Alabama’s app takes like 3-5 minutes…seriously. No essays, no teacher recs. A parent could do the app if the student agreed. The scholarship app is no big deal either since the student is a NMSF. No essays, just type in some ECs and stuff. Since the scholarship is assured, it doesn’t matter what you write in those EC/Awards boxes.</p>

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<p>My son is NOT a NMF…however, his stats are high enough to earn him some guaranteed scholarships in a few places, and a contender for competitive scholarships. We are not currently eligible for need based aid. </p>

<p>We have done something similar to what M2CK has said…he is going to apply to the guaranteed scholarship schools, and contender schools, and then he can choose a few others others to apply to as well. If he is accepted, and is offered scholarship money that keeps cost approximately the same as at the guaranteed locations, it is not an issue. If not, then we would have to soul search and determine the benefit of the more expensive schools. </p>

<p>My son is very understanding of this. He is not applying to his “dream” school, as he knows the cost to attend is not worth it for him, or for us. So he has broadened his view of schools. </p>

<p>Our biggest concern is that we don’t know what is going to happen with the economy and our jobs over the next 6 months to 5 years. We do not want to get into a situation that we can not see through for him. He understands this, and is completely on board with it.</p>

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<p>My daughter also chose not to apply to any of the schools that offered full rides to NMF…until she didn’t get accepted into the program she wanted. Then she decided at the end of February to go to the University of Oklahoma with their NMF scholarship. Luckily they have a late deadline.</p>

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<p>My kids were all required to apply to at least one school that offered a guaranteed full-ride and/or full-tuition for their stats. These schools were considered their financial safeties. They didn’t choose them lightly – they knew all along that they may well have to attend one of them, if none of the others panned out, and they took just as much time and effort evaluating their full-ride/tuition school as they did all the other schools on their lists. That way, no matter what happened with all the other schools during the admissions process, they each knew they had a school they could attend, like, and afford.</p>

<p>To me, it seems like a waste of “resources” to bypass these full-ride schools during the application process. The kids with the stats to earn such large awards are fortunate to have those opportunities. Why throw that opportunity away?</p>

<p>Your daughter would be wise to research her full-ride school very carefully and choose one that she really can see herself attending, even if such attendance would be considered a compromise. She doesn’t have to CHOOSE a school right now – she only has to choose where to apply. After all the financial aid packages roll in, she can choose the school.</p>

<p>In the end, she may be very happy that she included that full-ride financial safety on her list. Or, she may never need it. But why throw that opportunity away this early in the game?</p>

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<p>^A personal story to consider…</p>

<p>My youngest kid, entering his freshman year this week, ultimately chose one of his financial safeties for his undergraduate degree – even though he was admitted to 8 other schools that he really liked/loved, and even though all of those schools offered him anywhere from 3/4 tuition (at the least) to grant amounts of $52K for freshman year alone.</p>

<p>He surprised me with his choice. Like his siblings, I did require him to apply to one or two financial safeties, and then, after all FA packages rolled in, he could choose between his cheapest schools in terms of Cost of Attendance (that is, what it would ultimately cost us, after scholarships and grants). Like his sibs, he could choose to attend a school with a full-tuition scholarship, even if he had a free-ride offer or two. He didn’t HAVE to take the very cheapest – just one of the cheapest. </p>

<p>Had the $52K/year grant money at schools like MIT, Vanderbilt, and Wash U been strictly merit-based scholarships, instead of grants that also included a need-based element, he probably would have chosen one of those other schools (MIT, most likely). But we called and learned that since this very generous aid had a need-based element it would likely have decreased after his siblings graduated from college and/or after I got a pay raise. This concerned my son. He didn’t want to be entering his junior year worrying about where he would get the money to pay. He wanted all the financial facts up front.</p>

<p>So, he ultimately decided to go with one of his financial safeties, which he DID like all along. But it was not at the top of his list in the beginning. In the end, he will attend college for free and receive several thousand dollars per year in stipends. (This is a huge break for me! Happy dance!)</p>

<p>Had he not chosen to apply to this safety (or his other nearly-free-ride safety which he originally chose to attend in March, only to change his mind in mid-April!), then he would not have had this very practical and rewarding option at his fingertips. He is very, very happy with his choice.</p>

<p>Moral of the story: Your daughter may as well keep all doors open. There’s no harm in applying and then passing on the free-ride later. But if she elects NOT to apply to a sure-thing, then she will not have that sure-thing to fall back on come decision time.</p>

<p>Good luck to you and your daughter! :)</p>

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<p>SimpleLife,</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing your story. Do you think if your situation was different (siblings not graduating college, you not getting a raise), your son would have gone to MIT? For those of us whose household incomes will conceivably be the same all 4 years of college and who will actually have another child going into college during that time, might it be a different situation from yours? I never thought of the difficult situation that might occur in trying to choose between no cost to attend college at a financial safety and some cost to attend a first choice “great fit” school. </p>

<p>You’ve certainly given me much to think about as my oldest applies to colleges this fall.</p>

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<p>Hi sbjdorlo.</p>

<p>Yes, I’m pretty sure that my son would have made a different decision if he were the oldest with siblings close behind. It makes me kind of sad when I think about it that way. It doesn’t seem fair. In fact, the kids still tease me about it because for about 4 weeks I guess I kept repeatedly bringing it up: “Are you sure you want to do this?” “I can make it work if you want to go to MIT.” “We can take it one step at a time. I can commit to making any of those options work.” He got sick of it – to the point that they still laugh at me and mock me.</p>

<p>He is solidly happy with his choice, though. And he’s already experienced several special perks, due to his status as one of their top “recruits.” He did a great job choosing his safeties, so this school really is a great fit for him. It’s got a great reputation in his intended major. The more we learn about it, the more it seems to really fit! He’s at their orientation camp now, and he’s having the time of his life.</p>

<p>If your kids are likely to get lots of scholarships, they may well find themselves with the choice between several little-to-no-cost and some-cost schools. Each of my kids was faced with this same sort of choice. Each could have attended their financial safety for free or very close to free. Before this son, none of them chose to do that. None of them has attended their true “first choice dream school” either, because the dream school was always one of the highest Cost of Attendance schools after scholarships. </p>

<p>The thing that made this kid’s choice different was that he was the first to get huge GRANT-aid packages, as opposed to pure merit scholarship money. He was the highest achieving, best all-around kid of the bunch. I don’t know if it was the economy that drove down merit scholarships in the past several years, or if the grant aid was more of a sure thing than the schools could let on, or if they didn’t find this highest achieving kid worth the pure-scholarship money, or if the competition was stiffer this year, or what. But no granting school we spoke to would guarantee that kind of money for each successive year. With merit scholarships, as long as your kid meets a certain gpa (or other concrete objectives), that money is theirs and can be relied upon. With grants, it can change from year to year. And my son didn’t want to deal with that lack of certainty.</p>

<p>Anyway, I hope that answers your question! Good luck to you! It’s a wild ride! :)</p>

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<p>It seems so complicated. “Wild ride” is a perfect description! I don’t really understand the difference between grant and merit. Is grant based on income and merit on achievement?</p>

<p>My son doesn’t have a “dream” school or even a first choice. He has 4 schools that are sort of first choices but nothing that he <em>has</em> to get into or else he’ll be disappointed. He sees positives in all the schools on his list. Maybe that’s a good thing??</p>

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<p>I don’t really understand the difference between grant and merit. Is grant based on income and merit on achievement?</p>

<p>Grants are “need based”…based on income/assets.</p>

<p>Merit scholarships are based on achievement, but a few schools will also consider need when awarding merit. </p>

<p>The word “scholarship” should mean “merit”, but sometimes the word get used for grants. </p>

<p>It’s a good thing that your son doesn’t have a dream school. The whole “dream school” scenario can just “muck things up,” causing people not to consider more realistic choices and even causing people to ignore issues with the “dream school” that will become a nightmare.</p>

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<p>Thank you for the information and examples.</p>

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<p>Yeah, grants always have a need-based element. But I learned this year that merit is also considered in some grant awards – both in whether or not to award grant-aid in the first place, and in deciding how much to award. The colleges I spoke to about my son’s awards said that he received his grant awards based on merit and need. This concept was news to me. Bottom line: grants CAN exceed a college’s calculated “need.” Other than sharing that there was a merit-based element, the colleges I spoke to were hesitant to share specifics about how the awarded amounts were calculated. Intriguing.</p>

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<p>I totally agree. I actually used the term “dream school” loosely. My kids also did not really have a “dream school.” They had their first, second, and third choices that tended to rotate around and trade places a lot as their senior years progressed. Sometimes a particular school took a steady first place towards the end of the process. (Oberlin for one; USC for another, etc.) But they were never really locked in to any idealized “dream school.” I strongly agree that a dream school can just muck things up. In my opinion, you can more effectively minimize college costs, and maximize scholarships, if your student is not totally locked on to one idealized college.</p>

<p>Sounds like you and your son are right on track, sbjdorlo!</p>

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<p>But I learned this year that merit is also considered in some grant awards – both in whether or not to award grant-aid in the first place, and in deciding how much to award.</p>

<p>Yes…a little known secret is that schools that don’t meet need often practice “preferential packaging” which means that if you have high stats or some hook and the school really wants you, then the school may put together a more generous need based FA pkg.</p>

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<p>^Yep. That’s the part that was news to me. I find that very intriguing.</p>