I work in Salem and trust me when I say we all dread October, especially since I have to travel throughout Salem during my work day for meetings 
BUT on the flip side, I live one town over and it is always fun to see the energy and excitement that October brings- and I am glad I do not have to deal with parking there as a resident, haha!
3 Likes
I would say so but it is best not to confuse merit with discount offered to attract students.
Real merit at most schools is pretty transparent â use a published matrix or apply for named scholarships. I do not think my kid is competitive for named scholarships like Park, Robertson, Stamps etc. I suppose one could get some scholarship money from less competitive public schools but most privates will lure students with discounts. Maybe they have real merit too hidden in there but I am very suspicious. Most will make the number close to your NPC ECA. To me that is not merit.
I see what youâre saying but âmeritâ IS used to describe schools that discount tuition around here. And saying those kids who are looking for discounted tuition rates donât deserve to even be called âmeritâ seems pretty privileged.
1 Like
The point of the post was that you get the discounted rate anyway. So, going above and beyond to send in a SAT/ACT score will not move the needle too much.
You can call it whatever you want.
The real privilege is being able to pay the ECA, which many cannot.
Iâm not sure merit/âdiscountâ offers are targeted to get people to basically their EFCs. I know that is a somewhat popular perception on CC but I donât think it is accurate. I do think merit offers benefit those who are deemed to be able to pay full freight more than othersâŠbut full pay families being more advantaged isnât a new phenomenon.
We beat our EFC by tens of thousands of dollars with the merit offers D20 received. We even beat the personal âtop budgetâ we had given D20 as her maximum amount available (by several thousand dollars). Our college budget had absolutely no connection to our EFC; much like when we purchased our home, that budget had no connection to what the bank said they were willing to lend us in our pre-approval (we budgeted way, way less in both cases lol).
I think the biggest thing to remember is that many schools that offer significant merit awards arenât able to meet full need/donât promise to meet full need. Some of them come close (great to check CDS to see where schools your child is interested in fall on what percentage of need is usually met). Others donât even try. The number of Pell eligible student who get aid offers leaving 10s of thousands of dollars left for them to find on their own can tell you that getting to EFC is not how these decisions are made.
The schools donât have the money to give. And while the merit offered to you personally might bring the school into your EFC range, that coincidence doesnât mean that it is by design. Some schools that offer significant merit allow you to stack merit and need - often those are the schools that you can see savings well over your EFC if you arenât a full pay family. Other schools donât allow stacking - at those schools you might well end up paying more than your EFC, even with a strong merit offer.
Our familyâs college searches have been led (both times) by the money/budget first and foremost. I think my childrenâs college lists differ dramatically from many others in large part because we are very clear (to our children and, more importantly, ourselves) that our budget is firm. Dozens of great colleges didnât even make the initial lists - no matter how good they looked in every respect other than budget because for us budget is king.
So we looked at schools that many (especially on CC) might think âbelowâ their child. To be clear, they are excellent institutions where a student can get a very good/great education. But we wonât be getting the oohs and aahs from other parents when our children tell them the name of the school they are attending. And our children didnât get everything they wanted from their initial lists of what a college should have. We looked for the underrated, hidden gems that many other families overlook because they want name recognition. Or a pricier location. Or a very specific location with very narrow parameters.
College searches, I think, can be very revealing as to what a family values and what they are willing to pay for. I just wish there was more time spent by families figuring that out before fall of their childâs senior year. It is an emotional process, and one of (if not the) biggest purchases many of us will make. It is harder when you are figuring out the money piece at the same time you and your child are also trying to figure out the academic piece. And that each school having their own rules, regulations and (constrained) resources makes it crucial that we as families/students do our own due diligence as to what the process entails and what our actual constraints are.
14 Likes
Itâs really going to depend, but my D23 has applied test optional to ten schools, been admitted to seven of them so far, and her merit awards have all come in higher than expected. Even to Michigan State, which publishes a chart, she received the higher merit award, which I was surprised by. I was afraid test optional would affect her merit offers, but so far, for her, that has not been the case.
10 Likes
This is amazing! Congrats to her.
1 Like
Congrats! That is fantastic! Similar boat here with D23 and applying TO, admitted to 7 of the schools she applied to as well with decent merit we werenât expecting. Itâs nice to have those so early in senior year.
Curious if you are willing to share stats of D23, if you are in state for MSU, and when she was accepted?
7 Likes
@Poochie21 We went thru the admissions process with our 2 kids (HS Class of â21 & â22) and are in the same demographic/financial position as you and your spouse. We did NOT complete nor submit FASFA. We contemplated briefly when going thru the process with our oldest, mainly because our oldest son came home from school freaking out that everyone else completed theirs. And we had zero issues from not submitting. Friends who are also in the same demographic/$ did complete FASFA for their oldest and said it was a lot of work for nothing. They did NOT complete FASFA for their 2nd child without issue. We never looked back and both children are thriving at their schools.
1 Like
Oh sure, she has a 3.8UW/4.2W GPA, will graduate with 7 APs (all English/social science, only reg classes in math/science).
We are OOS (Illinois) and she was accepted 10/3 (her application was complete about 9/19).
Congrats to your daughter as well! I hope sheâs excited about her options! UIUC is actually my daughterâs top pick and she wonât hear until the end of Jan (she is applying to college of education). I consider it a moderate reach for her, so she is focused on choosing a second choice that she is going to love. MSU is def a contender.
2 Likes
Just an FYI, several colleges did give COVID money to anyone who had filled out a FAFSA. It wasnât a requirement that theyâd qualified for any grants or taken the loans, just that the FAFSA was on file. The schools werenât allowed to distribute the money to non-citizens so used the FAFSA to determine eligibility.
3 Likes
Our oldest goes to Pitt (class of â25; we are in state). We did NOT fill out/submit FASFA and we received a Covid refund check for approx. $300.
A refund is different than a âcovid check.â People received refunds for housing, food, and even tuition in some cases for time not in dorms, for food not eaten, for labs not attended. The âcovid checksâ most of us were talking about were funds the feds gave to colleges for things like wipes and hand sanitizer, endless plexiglass, but some schools just gave the money directly to students. My daughter received about $450 last spring and sheâs a grad student in a fully funded situation (they pay her to TA) so it wasnât a refund.
The Pitt distribution came from stimulus money, though the whole story is a bit more complicated than âCOVIDâ funds. I wonât go into that, as it involves some controversy, though the funds went to in-state students at Pitt, as well as other state-related schools.
Though getting back on track with the discussion, Iâll add that I followed this thread last year, when my youngest was applying to colleges. Her GPA was 3.5uw, though if you just counted core courses, it was more like 3.3. She is now at Pitt. Suspect that a healthy number of honors and AP courses helped, along with 1480 SAT. Need to weigh all of the factors when applying, and have a couple of true safety schools.
2 Likes
Thanks for this thread.
Has anyone figured out how some schools recalculate GPA? Surely pandemic C in Car Care and Health, C in Gym for forgetting sneakers are not as serious as a C in Biology, right?
I will let you know in a couple of monthsâŠlatest by Jan 23. Lol.
My son has 2 Cs in important courses but AP scores are 5. If colleges do not look past those two Cs then we are screwed!
It is getting real for all of us. Good luck everyone.
Son and I toured NCSU on Sat for their open house. He has realized that he will fall short on class rank and unweighted GPA as these were openly shown to all visitors. He loved the tour and NCSU is his top choice by some margin now.
On the upside, he has now opened up and applied to a couple more schools that were not under consideration. Sunday was spent filling out various supplementary forms and such including the very confusing SSAR.
I am holding off from doing the FAFSA for a week or two. Depending on where he ends up, we might be full pay and do not see the point. He will apply to two private schools in Jan as regular admit. Both also require CSS.
How is everyone else doing?
3 Likes
Good luck to your son. My S24 LOVED NCSU when we visited and it is at the top of his list, but we are OOS so it is definitely a reach for him based on what I am hearing. He has the rest of this year to find other schools he likes as much (or almost as much) that are more realistic for him.
2 Likes
D23 and I have a standing appt every day after school for the next two weeks to wrap things up. Plus we blocked out this coming Saturday. Last week was Homecoming week and we/I had to get through that first. 
Hubby and I will fill out the FAFSA and CSS over these coming two weeks. He works in a financial field and is very organized with our own finances so it should be pretty easy I hope.
2 Likes
My D is just refining her essay so she can apply to her first early action schools: Santa Clara, Oregon St, Western WA and Portland St. Like most of you it is tough to find the balance between being pushy and not doing enough.
2 Likes