Not all NPCs will show any merit aid, even if your student is a candidate for merit. Colleges can be cagey when it comes to merit aid. They want to be free to use it to sweeten the offer for the students they want the most, and that is not always something that can be estimated from the info entered into the NPC. So… some colleges will show a possible merit scholarship, and others that offer merit don’t show it at all in the NPC. But you do still want to run each school’s NPC. And some schools have automatic merit for certain statistics.
Regarding merit aid, some ways to figure out if he may get some are:
Read the scholarship web pages for the college (usually linked to from the financial aid or tuition pages) to figure out if they offer merit at all.
Look at the college’s Common Data Set. You can Google “ Common Data Set”, and nearly all colleges have them online. Try to pick the most recent. There is a ton of great info in the CDS. There is one section that shows how much merit aid they give out and average merit awards. A rough thing you can do is see where your kid’s stats fall in the percentiles for the college admissions, and what % get merit aid. If your kid is in that % of the top of the class, then his chances for merit are better.
Look back through last year’s accepted student thread for a given school. Students often give their stats and their merit award amounts.
Now… colleges award merit for other reasons besides stats, and they aren’t usually going to tell you why. A regionally attractive LAC might give higher merit to a kid from an underrepresented geographic area, for example. One of my kids got higher merit at the college she attended than the web site indicated she likely would (they showed SAT and GPA ranges) – but she is an AMAZING interviewer, and knocked her interview out of the park. I am convinced it doubled her merit money. Second kid got unexpected merit from a very highly ranked school – I think they wanted her high test scores – but another school where I thought she would get more gave her just okay merit, not as high as I thought she would get.
One thing to watch for is if there are application deadlines to be eligible for merit. Some schools have an earlier deadline for students who want to be considered for merit. Some also have extra application materials, especially for their top awards. So start a spreadsheet to track all those dates and possibilities.
^Very true. The process of determining the CoA for many private colleges is one similar to buying a car. Put yourself in the position of power (make the college want you to attend), and you’re going to get a better deal.
We are seriously considering UMD. DS thinks he can get into UMCP, not sure whether he can into the honors program though.
@intparent, your write up on the NPC and merit money hunt is extremely informational for me, thank you. I need to do more research and inform DS and DH. Is there anyway to know whether a great college is looking to increase there test stat? I am reviewing the DS’ school Naviance data. I noticed that for some colleges, DS’ ACT score might be better to submit than SAT score.
How is Colby college - I had heard that it is a good college for premed. But his school Naviance graph puts him way up at the left hand corner much farther from the average rectangle. Should I be concerned?
Most colleges that aren’t test optional would like to improve their score averages. Of course, the trade off is that you kid will be on the high end of the pool for anyplace that offers good merit. Some kids do well with this, and will absorb all the school had to offer. My D1 was like that. But my D2 needs peers as smart or smarter to be motivated – not ideal, but it is the reality. So although D2 had some good merit offers, she ended up not taking any of them. And I am okay with that, it was the right decision for her. But only you and your kid can judge how the larger merit schools would work out.
Colby is a very nice school-- supportive, good community and strong academics. But they are not very multicultural, give basically need-based aid and I think admissions is a reach, although being male should help your son.
You have to decide a bit of a strategy. First, you have to determine if you qualify for need based aid at the schools. If you don’t, if your ceiling is in the $30k range, you will need to target schools that are low cost (such as public, instate options) or schools that are likely to give good merit aid. It would make sense to apply completely to schools that are either low cost or likely to give merit so their kids have a choice. It can be hard to predict. Sometimes schools that have a history of being generous with merit, don’t come through for your kid or have an off year.
Another vote for UMCP. It’s plenty challenging. If you are thinking your son may go to med school for grad, it might n
Be better to pick a school that’s not quite as tough, because GPA is so important. But I don’t know if that’s the case.
I had suggested a few schools to consider up-thread. Another one to add to the list would be Trinity U in San Antonio. I suggest this because of the strong desire for multicultural experience. They have strong enrollment from Hispanic populations, and also a strong international component as well that they are really pursuing. They offer very strong merit aid with a whopping endowment per student (25th in the Nation) which should drive net costs well below $30K per year for your son and his stats.
Johns Hopkin’s ED acceptance rate was 29% vs. regular 12%, don’t know how many students were hooked or athletes, but if you can afford it, it might be more doable early, if it truly is a first choice. It depends on how well colleges know your magnet program - that’s where tools like Naviance can be enormously helpful. From our large suburban NY high school a 3.4 would not have a chance, (though you might get cut some slack for poor grades in languages), but from other schools they will dig deeper into the applicant pool. I think for a possible future pre-med the local state universities are likely to be the most affordable options in the long run. For good buys you might check out the SUNY’s. U of Buffalo, Binghamton (the sorta flagship), and Stonybrook (the most science oriented, less school spirit, reputedly dead on the weekends) get mentioned most often. Sometimes Geneseo is also added, it’s the honors college/almost an LAC in the system.
Well John Hopkins NPC shows almost full price for us based on need calculation. Do they give any merit aid? I did not see it asked anything related to DS’ GPA or test score. So was wondering. ED means we should be ready for paying full sticker price, right?
Google is your friend. The answer is yes, but not many. http://finaid.johnshopkins.edu/prosp_stud_scholar.html Generally speaking merit scholarships are awarded to students at the top of the college applicant pool to entice them to come, not those for whom it would be a reach.
There currently seems to be a school of thought that you can turn down ED if the financial package is unworkable - especially if you then go to a public college. Many private colleges share lists and it is a big, big no-no.
If the financial aid package is something that your family considers to be unaffordable, your child can be released from the ED commitment.
ED is not a legal contract. It is a moral one. No institution will require that your kid attend. Every year students back out when they determine that the institution is unaffordable, or they get a better offer from an institution that doesn’t care about other places’ ED offers, or they decide to take a gap year, or whatever. However there is some evidence that ED institutions will treat future ED applicants from the same high school badly if they don’t like the reason for the student not accepting the ED admissions offer. So the standard advice is to only apply ED to the true first choice institution, and even then only when it looks like the probable aid package will be workable.
We toured Stevens and loved it. Beautiful campus with a billion dollar view of NYC (and a 10-minute ride to NYC on public transportation, which offers amazing internship opportunities). The waterfront campus is located on the Hudson River in New Jersey, in a pretty upscale town called Hoboken.
I think Stevens would give good merit for those stats, and for a girl to boot. Regarding ROI, I suspect Stevens is high on the list because it is a school that offers engineering.
" Regarding ROI, I suspect Stevens is high on the list because it is a school that offers engineering.".
Here is a great example of how the general lists can derail somebody. The idea that the listed ROI is high for Stevens due to the fact it has engineering may be true. But that high ROI probably only applies to engineers. Unfortunately it appears that the most popular listing of college ROI don’t equate for major. Since they don’t equate for major, the schools with engineering end up at the top of the list. But, English majors at that same school can have a very low ROI compared to English majors at another school. Unless the list of ROI’s equates for major, it is useless. What does it mean if a school with an engineering dept is listed with an ROI that is higher than one that isn’t. It means that engineers make more money then other professions that require only a BA/S. And, I bet that among those schools that do offer engineering, the ROI is correlated with the % of graduates that are engineer majors. That is simply meaningless.
The answer is yes, but not many.