hpcsa-I have to respectfully disagree with what you are saying about the ND merit scholarships! My daughter was in the 2nd class of Hesburgh Yusko scholars and the scholarship has only been around for 10 years–that scholarship was the first merit scholarship at ND and it is is mostly funded by the generosity of the Yusko family(who is also very involved in the scholar program). It wasn’t until just a few years ago that many others have also generously funded merit scholarships. We just visited the scholars office and they have a full staff and are not going anywhere anytime soon!
Good luck to all the finalists–count yourself very blessed that you have been chosen to be considered for these amazing scholarships–they are life changing!
@CAMother In all honesty, I am not sure why S19 moved on while others didn’t. I am sure everyone had similar (high) stats along with sustained community service and leadership roles. Once he returns from the finalist visit, I will ask him for any insights he learned from being there and any similarities he observed between candidates. There might not be any but I’ll let you know. They invite more finalists than there are scholarships available so there’s a decent chance S19 could go through this whole process and walk away with no merit at all. Yikes.
@3almostgrown I agree with you. I looked at the last few CDS and the number of students receiving ND merit scholarships has increased each year (at least those at full pay). This comes from line H2A:
2016-17: 39 scholars
2017-18: 47 scholars
2018-19: 129 scholars
So there is a huge cohort of freshmen merit scholars this year. And it looks like there are new additional merit scholarships now vs the older list.
@MagnoliaMom Wait so the FAQ page of the Notre Dame Scholars Visit says that a max of 135 merit finalists are invited, so if 129 scholarships are being offered this year, does basically everyone who goes end up recieiving a scholarship? Where did you get the 129 from? https://admissions.nd.edu/scholars/faqs/
I’m not sure if those numbers are quite right. I think there are 60+ merit scholars who entered in 2016-17, 90 who entered in 2017-18, and I guess it’s possible that 129 entered in 2018-19, but I would be very surprised if it was that high.
Hi, I got those numbers from the Common Data Set numbers provided by Notre Dame. If you google “Notre Dame CDS” you will find the reports. Here is the one from last year.
https://ospir.nd.edu/assets/308124/cds_2018_2019.pdf
The numbers I mentioned were for full pay students (students who had no financial need) who, according to the CDS (line H2A), received a scholarship averaging $24,269 for that year. So the actual number of merit scholars is even higher, like @DryMango mentioned, because students who have financial need also received merit scholarships.
As for 2019, the updated scholars’ webpage shows:
“The University anticipates that in 2019, approximately 100 merit scholarship recipients will join the Notre Dame family as first-year students.”
The main point I was making was to agree with @3almostgrown that ND doesn’t appear to be working towards eliminating its merit program. If anything, it looks like it is strengthening/increasing it.
Great point! Yes you’re 100% correct @MagnoliaMom
@3almostgrown – agree.
Every school (including ND) aspires to be just like HYPS in every way possible. Doing zero merit aid is one of those HYPS things.
But practically speaking, schools in the 15-25 band typically need to use some selected competitive merit money to attract certain students and keep the top end of the selectivity stats where they want them to be. It is a market.
If anything, ND is a bit behind the competition (Vandy, Emory, USC, Rice, WUSTL) in terms of the number of merit schollies and also the amount. So I would not be surprised if ND’s merit program expands rather than contracts over the coming years.
I believe Gtown still sticks to zero merit, but that seems to be a particular thing that their model and culture is set up for.
@northwesty
ND doesn’t need merit. Them and Gtown are every catholic students top choice, so no need really.
@emorynavy While your statement is mostly true about ND being Catholic students top choice, in some cases the top choice ends up being ruled out because of finances. For those not receiving financial aid, the merit scholarship could be the difference between attending ND or going with another college that was their second choice.
EN – maybe every Catholic kid would pick ND regardless of price. But the merit money is targeted at Catholic kid’s parents (who have to pay the bill) and who are highly influential on enrollment decisions.
ND (just like every other school) does it to get certain students to enroll at ND who might otherwise enroll elsewhere if they had to pay full price (like HYPS who do no merit money). And to keep kids they want from getting poached away from ND by other attractive schools offering merit money.
If that wasn’t the case, then why does ND do it? They just like giving free money to families who mostly don’t qualify for financial aid?
Our family qualified for $42,000 in need based at ND and my son was still offered a generous merit based scholarship, (3.98 un-weighed, 36 Act, 1580 SAT, 5 in all six AP tests). He was automatically accepted at UT Austin and TAMU for being in the top 1% in his high school in Texas. Was offered admittance and a full-ride to UArizona, UALabama, UKentucky, OU and ClaremontPizer among many others. Was waitlisted at UChicago and is still waiting for replies from Harvard, Yale and Princeton. He is a finalist in the National Merit and Daughters of the American Revolution, was a semi in the Elks, Cameron and NSLI-Y. According to the ND recruiter that he spoke to last August, if ND has identified an applicant as a top national scholar they will make every effort to enable them to attend. As I understand it this is the purpose of the ND Merit based scholarships. All I can say is that Praise the Lord our family might be to afford to send my son to ‘Our Lady’.
Beeruiru - when did you receive notification about financial aid from ND? Their website indicated end of February but we have not received anything yet.
FourToPutThrough - We did not receive a need-based response but instead an invitation to interview for a merit-based scholarship two weeks ago. Our local ND counselor told us that the need-based scholarship would be bundled with the the merit-based offer in April, depending on which merit-based he might win, (My son is good at taking tests but not the best public speaker so there is a chance he may not win a merit-based!). The qualification of $42,000 that I mentioned is based on the ND cost calculator projection, (So now you know our family income, savings and expenditure), we are the typical of the last of the Catholic large family, professional middle-class that spends all our money on Catholic K-12 for our kids; 100% worth it.
@FourToPutThrough We haven’t heard about financial aid yet either although S applied Early Action and website says end of February. S and I discussed him calling today but he may wait a day or two. S has similar stats to @Beeruiru 's post including NMF but he wasn’t invited to interview for merit-based scholarships at ND. Hoping the ND NPC is accurate but learned last go-round not to depend on NPCs (based on other schools, not ND). Always good to have other options !
Just a word of caution: if a student is eligible both for need-based financial aid and also has been awarded merit based institutional scholarships, as described in the case above, it is highly advisable to await and analyze the final FAN, to be issued by the Office of Financial Aid, in great detail. Full-need matching universities will not stack financial aid - merit aid will often times simply replace need-based aid, if and when institutional financial aid will meet family financial need, as assessed by the Office of Financial Aid. This issue is not at all limited to the University of Notre Dame of course.
@hpcsa is generally right.
If a kid gets a $25k merit scholarship/discount, then the COA and financial need both go down by $25k. Which means the financial aid award would also be expected to go down to reflect the lower price/need. Which is why merit money (at least at school’s like ND with ample full need meeting need-based aid) ends up being impactful for families with lower to zero “need.”
A $25k merit schollie to a kid who would otherwise get a $10k need award means a $15k improvement. A $25k merit award to a kid who’d get a $50k need award means the need award would go down due to the merit award.
So in that example, the merit scholarship is more about prestige (which is meaningful) than finances and net COA.
YMMV
From what I’ve heard, a merit scholarship could also help students with high financial need. Using @northwesty 's example: the $50k need-based award might include institutional loans and work. If this student received one of the merit scholarships, his need-based award would go down to $25k but probably without loans or work, which could make a great difference. However, take this information with a grain of salt, since I heard it from a current merit scholar and not from the University’s financial aid office itself.
Bummer!
Has anyone received flight/travel information yet?