<p>I agree, 3togo.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I'm not removing Julliard because the merit aid I refer to pertains to academic merit.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>Nightingale....this is YOUR list so the rules can be yours. Re: Juilliard....Of course they do not give merit aid based on academics!! NO ONE goes there for academic reasons. They only go there for music...period. In fact, the admissions committee at Juilliard doesn't really look much at academics. They don't even require letters of recommendation. Your acceptance there is based on your audition. They give merit aid to their top candidates much as regular colleges give merit aid to students with top stats. BUT it's your decision.</p>
<p>Also...I'm not sure what your story about Amherst (and sports) had to do with my post about the Ivies and Wellesley and Tufts...NO MERIT aid...none.</p>
<p>Duke should definitely be on the "extremely small chance of merit aid" list. Despite the link provided, the reality is that the school has around 18,000 applicants per year, and only awards about 25 merit scholarships per year. In addition, some of these awards are only given to minorities and /or residents of NC, further reducing the chances for any individual applicant!</p>
<p>Did anyone mention Wellesley as a no merit aid college?</p>
<p>Excellent mardad. Wellesley will be added to the list.. they give ZERO merit aid. 1sokkermom- yes Duke will be added to the list or no list for merit aid.
Vassar does NOT give merit aid. They may give "merit within need" which basically means that in attempting to meet your EFC part of the package will be given as merit. The fact remains you could not get this "merit" aid unless you have a financial need, ergo it is ultimately "need based".. Vassar stays on the list.</p>
<p>When we went to the Northwestern info session a couple of years ago, they told the room that no merit aid was awarded.</p>
<p>Here's the latest list based on the input I've recieved. Thank you one and all.</p>
<p>COLLEGES GIVING NO MERIT AID</p>
<p>All the Ivies
Amherst
Barnard
Bennington
Colgate
MIT
New England College
Saint Johns
Smith
Stanford
Vassar
Wesleyan
Wellesley
Northwestern
Williams
Art Center of Design
Bates
Bowdoin
Bryn Mawr College
Colby College
College of the Atlantic
Connecticut College
Julliard
Pine Manor
Reed
Sarah Lawrence
Springfield College
Trinity (CT)
Wheaton</p>
<p>COLLEGES GIVING MERIT AID IN ONLY NOMINAL AMOUNTS</p>
<p>Duke
Boston College
Lafayette
Dickinson
Gettysburg
Union
Hamilton
U Chicago</p>
<p>Tufts gives no merit aid.</p>
<p>I had to check- because I know somone who I thought has one of these scholarships- but it does look like Smith has merit aid</p>
<p>
[quote]
Merit-based Scholarships
Zollman Scholarship: Based on academic merit and affords a grant to cover one-half of Smith's tuition in each of four years at the college. Normally, five Zollman Scholarships are awarded in each entering first-year class. Zollman Scholars are also offered the opportunity to work on a STRIDE Program research project.</p>
<p>STRIDE (Student Research in Departments) Scholarships: Selected on the basis of academic merit, Stride Scholars for class years 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 receive a four-year grant of $2,500 per year. For the class of 2010 and forward, Stride Scholars will receive a four year grant of $5000 per year. Each STRIDE student is also offered the opportunity to work on a research project with faculty during her first two years at Smith. These students receive a $1,700 stipend for the research position.</p>
<p>Mary Maples Dunn Scholars are selected on the basis of academic merit and potential for leadership. The award is $3,000 annually.</p>
<p>Jean Picker Fellowship: A $10,000 award that is offered to a small number of prospective engineering science majors. Students will be chosen on the basis of academic record, depth of interest in engineering, and potential for leadership in college.</p>
<p>Springfield/Smith Partnership: Provides up to three full-tuition scholarships for students from Springfield, Massachusetts, public schools. All students who apply to Smith from these schools will be automatically considered.
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</p>
<p>Nightingale, this list is going nowhere. </p>
<p>You still list Smith despite Mini's post. And, for what it is worth, I do not see why one should consider "various type" of merit aid or exclude athletic scholarships, which ARE merit aid.</p>
<p>Further, there are many scholarships that are NEVER listed publicly, because they are by invitation only. One such scholarship is the Terry Award for TExas schools. You cannot apply but have to be invited after applying to a specific school. </p>
<p>Lastly, scholarships do only tell a part of the story. A school can have a few generous scholarships and still provide rotten financial aid. On the other hand, a school might have zero merit awards but offer extremely generous financial aid. In this regard, I would MUCH prefer waiting for a financial aid award letter from Smith or Harvard or Princeton than from NYU or Santa Clara University -not to singleo out the schools, but to reflect the vast differences in packages. </p>
<p>In the end, candidates have to spend time scrutinizing and asking questions about merit and need aid DIRECTLY to each school. Lists like this one are not very helpful--if not entirely misleading--and inherently incorrect because of faulty information or excessive subjectivity.</p>
<p>Merit aid generally refer to academic merit.</p>
<p>Athletic scholarships are usually in a separate category. I believe that the OP was probably referring to academic merit aid as opposed to athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>D-I schools such as Colgate and Stanford offer athletic scholarships, but very little academic merit aid. </p>
<p>For a high achieving non-recruited athlete, I think Nightingale's list does have merit. (no pun intended.) :)</p>
<p>Thanks, Sokkermom for the usual!</p>
<p>Merit-based aid is simply aid that is NOT need based.</p>
<p>Merit scholarships are typically awarded for outstanding academic achievements, special talents in athletics or music, leadership potential and other personal characteristics. </p>
<p>If you exclude athletics and music, where would you place leadership abilities or other personal characteristics in the merit aid pecking order? Is a scholarship for being left-handed and living in a particular area deserving to be considered an academic prowess or merit aid?</p>
<p>PS One way to cut through this gordian knot is to start a new thread with a title such as "Schools that offer no ACADEMIC DIRECT AID" :)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Merit aid generally refer to academic merit.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>Would you like to see my son's performance MERIT award from his university. It is merit aid....and it is not based on need. </p>
<p>I agree with Xiggi. And I also think that merit aid is merit aid. If a school give it, it should be not be on the list. We are making judgements here regarding "how good" or "how bad" the merit aid is based on the number of students receiving merit aid or the amounts of the awards. That is a totally separate issue from "do the schools give merit aid?" Gettysburg and Lafayette both give merit aid. Gee, if you're going to put the "not enough money list" together...you may as well add schools like Siena where the top merit aid package is something like $5000. BUT it IS merit aid, nonetheless.</p>
<p>The original poster (Nightingale) stated that he / she has defined merit aid as academic merit aid for the purpose of this thread!</p>
<p>The original poster also wrote: </p>
<p>"Since there are over 4000 colleges I think it would be easier for folks to be familiar with the 50 or so schools that DO NOT not give out merit aid, (or tiny amounts thereof) rather than all those schools that do."</p>
<p>Saying -or writing- something does not make it necessarily true. Are there really only 50 schools that do not offer merit aid? If the list is about MERIT aid, it ought to be so, not about a poorly defined subset. </p>
<p>Could we simply go a step farther, and go to the bottom or hardly hidden agenda of this thread. Is this about exposing the "scandalous" behavior of about 50 schools that do not offer merit aid but pretend to do so? Is this really a well-hidden conspiracy? FWIW, there is a lot more ink spilled decrying the EXPLOSION of questionable merit aid that has has negative impact on need-based aid. Don't take my word for it ... let google do the work for you! </p>
<p>From my vantage point, the poster questioning an apparent censure of this thread is quite telling. So, why not start with a clean sheet, label the thread correctly, and spell out the agenda of the thread. Under such circumstances, the thread will be a lot more educative, less misleading, and might even get a bit more traction on CC.</p>
<p>I think the issue is that for the newbies who don't know their way around financial aid, this list suggests that Princeton, which gives no merit aid, is going to be less affordable than NYU or BU, which do.</p>
<p>Us old-timers know that that is not the case. Princeton is a better "value" financial aid wise, than many schools which shrewdly use price discounting to try and heave themselves up a few notches in the college rankings. </p>
<p>To the newbies.... this list is an interesting discussion starter for you and your kid to talk about your financial contraints, his or her academic interests, and the kind of schools you should be targeting. Nothing more, nothing less. I wouldn't rule out applying to a school based on some random list of "no merit aid" schools until I had worked through the financial aid calculators, assessed my family's likely need award, and then determined that it was unaffordable.</p>
<p>There are lots of kids who get attractive merit awards at schools who end up not graduating from those schools-- repeating a semester somewhere else, further driving up the costs. Your child's GPA could drop below the required level, school doesn't have the right major, no research opportunities in the kids field, etc. Don't assume that just because you're getting a discount on the list price that the school is therefore a great value....</p>
<p>Several things....</p>
<p>The OP can and did make up any "rules" she wanted for this thread. However, the results can be misleading and so those in the "know" are also allowed to (and should) point out other informative information even if it doesn't fit "neatly" into the OP's agenda. </p>
<p>First, I don't know why Smith is still on your list. Indeed they do give Merit Aid. My oldest child applied to selective colleges and we assumed that none gave Merit Aid (which was true of most of her schools, but we were naive as to have made that assumption). Two of her schools, which were not as selective as others on her list but still pretty selective, indeed did give Merit Aid. We found out when she received it. One was Lehigh, and it was substantial. The other was Smith's....Stride Scholar. So, Smith does not belong o this list as a few others have already pointed out. </p>
<p>Secondly, Merit Aid is usually defined as scholarships that are not NEED based. I don't think you should narrowly define it as solely "academic". I understand some reluctance to add in athletic scholarships (which is a category of merit) as that is not part of the academic part of college. However, to say that merit aid based on talents for students in the arts doesn't count, baffles me. THe Arts IS their major....it is what they are attending college for, and is not the extracurricular thing like sports (not knocking sports whatsoever as one of my kids plays varsity sports in college though has no athletic scholarships...she attends an Ivy). There was talk on this thread that audition based programs don't count here as merit aid. I totally disagree. I have a child who attends NYU's Tisch School of the Performing Arts. Both my kids applied for Need Based Aid. Again, with D2, we didn't realize her schools also had Merit Aid and she received both Merit Aid Scholarships and need based aid at all of her schools. Anyway, back to Tisch....we didn't know about the Merit Aid until we opened the letter about the Scholarship and were very pleasantly surprised (I had to count the zeros, I was shocked). She received a Trustee's Scholarship for $20,000/year for all four years. I called and asked about what this was for. It is a Merit Scholarship. The amount for this scholarship differs, however, based on need, so some receive this Merit Award get more or less of a scholarship amount based on need factored in. In terms of Merit, admissions to Tisch is based on 50% academics, 50% artisitic review(in her case, by audition as she is in Musical Theater). I am sure her Merit Award is therefore, not just based on her audition but also on academics because admissions is based on both. Separately from this scholarship, she also was selected as a Tisch Scholar and I am sure academics was one piece of that selection too, as well as artistic talent, leadership and service. In any case, I don't understand how you can leave out Merit Awards to programs that involve auditions because these students are going to study that art. How is that different than studying science? It is a Merit Scholarship to study SOMETHING in college. </p>
<p>Third, I agree with Blossom that it is misleading or misguided for those new to the process to think not to apply to schools that do not offer Merit Aid. It so happens that some of the most selective schools in the country (and even the most expensive) dish out better need based aid than some less selective or cheaper schools. One should apply and then see what need they receive. My D who attends an Ivy, as well as my D who attends a very expensive school (NYU), have a smaller bill after aid is given than many I know who attend less selective and cheaper ticket price schools. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>good post soozie
also of the schools that offer need based aid only- they are generally private schools and have their own financial aid forms in addition to the PROFILE & FAFSA, so they can tweak the percieved level of need depending on how much money is available/how much they want that student to be able to attend.</p>
<p>If the school is ultra costly, it is likely that even if your income is upper middle, you will still qualify for some need.
BUt also if the school is an out of state public school, unless you win some amazing merit based scholarship to entice you to attend, even if your need is very high, money is not generally offered to OOS.
I also want to reiterate that some merit aid is dependent on GPA, which might make some students reluctant to try a more difficult course, and some aid may be given to entice students to attend, but then sophmore year pulled back, making affordability more of an issue.
Consistency, isn't one of the hallmarks of the admission process.</p>
<p>It was very confusing and frustrating for us to see that very often merit aid may be tied to need based aid. (even though that is something that the schools do not advertise, or admit to.) Most of the kids my S knew who qualified for some of the "merit" awards also qualified for some need based aid.</p>
<p>Sokkermom, perhaps that is true. However, I can only speak from experience. The Merit Scholarship my child got at NYU for example, was based on Merit. The amount was higher than others who received this scholarship because they combined need with the merit award. However, I have read people on this site who also got the Trustee Scholarship at NYU/Tisch who did not apply at all for Need based aid. At the other schools, they often sent the Merit Award letter and amount separate from the need based aid letter. They were handled separately. However, at these schools, when awarding the need based aid, obviously they took into account that the student also received a merit award scholarship. But many receive the Merit Awards who have not also applied for need based aid.</p>