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Congrats…would your son be considered on the upper end of the average for those schools where he’s getting a lot of merit aid? I’m thinking that we just happened to pick a few schools that are stingy with merit aid unless you are a top candidate…</p>
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<p>hammer, that’s pretty much always true. In the hunt for merit aid, you look for schools where your child’s stats will be at the top of the heap. Or, you find schools where there is a program with guaranteed scholarships for high stats or for being a National Merit Finalist. The nice thing is that pretty much no matter your child’s stats, there’s some school out there that wants them and will give them money. There’s an old but great thread on this by (I think) momfromtexas who did a masterful job of finding massive merit aid for her sons. </p>
<p>Clark has a warm place in my heart because our tour guide almost never used the word “like”. 
Like, even D1 like noticed. We also loved how it was the only school to offer study abroad on all seven continents; yes, there IS an Antarctica option, very (snicker) cool indeed. The free masters is a good deal if you maintain the required GPA in the major, so check the details to make sure your son can take advantage. I seem to remember someone having issues if they hadn’t started early enough in the major, but don’t take my word for it.</p>
<p>LadyDianeski, it’s indeed hard to find a full merit ride a la Alabama’s guaranteed NMF offer, especially for a private. But there are plenty of good merit awards at privates that can cover a good chunk or all of tuition. Northeastern and GWU for instance are both on the OP’s son’s list and offer some big merit money that can bring COA down to public school levels. NEU guarantees full tuition for NMFs, and GWU doesn’t guarantee but generally awards $20k/year for NMFs (AND has that very nice feature of locked-in tuition). The OP’s son didn’t receive merit money from NEU, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not available.</p>
<p>“Congrats…would your son be considered on the upper end of the average for those schools where he’s getting a lot of merit aid? I’m thinking that we just happened to pick a few schools that are stingy with merit aid unless you are a top candidate…”</p>
<p>I think he was a strong candidate but not necessarily at the top, especially at the school which gave him the most money. That school also has the biggest endowment of all schools he applied to.</p>
<p>As another poster said, if he got into Brandeis, he should be getting a merit aid offer from Clark soon. My D applied EA there and got the Presidential Scholarship, which brings the net cost down to $30K a year. PLUS Clark has a free fifth-year master’s program for students who maintain a 3.5 GPA. </p>
<p>Clark is one of her top two finalists. It seems to have a lot in its favor for the money.</p>
<p>Good luck-- I hope he gets aid there.</p>
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I do not agree with this at all. My SecondToGo is worthy of the 3.0-3.3 GPA student thread … typical late blooming male who has done OK in HS but not great by any means … and so far he has 6 admits; 4 with merit money. As previously mentioned if your child is in the top 1/4 to 1/3 of the accepted students merit aid is a definate possibility at many-many privates … and for many privates merit aid is more likely to make the school affortable than financial aid … (in general the very top privates to not give merit aid and have the best financial aid … and then as you drop down the financial aid is not as strong but merit aid kicks in).</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t realize there were two more pages of posts when I posted! Congrats on the Clark aid. Perhaps our kids will be there together next year. My D has been fortunate enough to get merit aid at 4 of her 5 schools, and she’s struggling with the decision, but Clark is a very strong contender.</p>
<p>I’m a parent of a B student. Actually all three of my kids have been B students. All three were offered substantial merit aid from small privates and zip from publics. We’ve had offers from $6,000 to $20,000. The top four lowest cost schools are less expensive then our in-state Flagship. I used this site [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics) to quickly see the percentage of students that get grants and then the average grant. If over 75% of the students are awarded merit aid over $10,000 then that school was given a close look. Oh, and they had the major! Of course, more thought went into the real selection for visiting and applying but we really didn’t look at any colleges that didn’t start with that base line if their cost was over $30,000.</p>
<p>" Gosh, I’ve found the exact opposite. Every private schools my son has been accepted to gave him merit money. The best he has gotten is $30K a year - the rest were all between $18K and 22K a year. One OOS public gave him $8K and Binghamton gave him nothing. "</p>
<p>When was that? and were those Ivy League schools? where are they located?</p>
<p>I found the mid-west schools to be the most generous with merit while the New England Schools only give out financial aids and close to no merit money.</p>
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Just out of curiosity I looked at the web site…the aid information is a few years old. If the two schools offering no scholarships to my son, Brandeis listed 64% of students getting, on average, $26K in grants or scholarships, and Northeastern listed 80% of incoming students getting, on average, $15K in grants or scholarships.</p>
<p>Seems the key would have been for my son to pick one or more schools that would have been closer to a safety. I’m not sure what schools would have been suitable in that regard…except for UMASS he really wanted urban or suburban schools and he was mainly looking in New England.</p>
<p>This has been a real learning experience…</p>
<p>Dad, the Ivies don’t give merit. To really work the merit game, you have to have an A-/B+ student and find the right schools. You can’t expect merit money at schools like Brandeis. Look instead at the Colleges That Change Lives and the good but not famous LACs.</p>
<p>My A- daughter got merit money at Clark, Dickinson, American and Goucher. Friends are getting money from U of Puget Sound, Denison, Muhlenberg, Knox, Redlands, Hampshire, Willamette, Tulane and such. The more elite schools focus more on need-based aid. They don’t need to give merit aid-- everyone wants to go there anyway.</p>
<p>Congrats on the Clark merit award. </p>
<p>Regarding merit from privates, as others have said you need to do your homework. There are schools out there they will give merit, some very good schools, you just have to find them. And there are some OOS publics that are very good values. My S has been offered significant merit at some good privates.</p>
<p>The daughter of a friend has gotten merit offers from every school she has been accepted to, even ones that I thought might be reaches. I’m not talking full-rides, but significant discounts of 7-25,000/yr. Her instate publics gave not one dime of aid so in this case she has several private colleges that are below or at the same price as her publics. The Pennsylvania liberal arts colleges are a good place to look for merit aid.</p>
<p>In the case of Brandeis there are named merit scholarships that are earmarked for applicants with financial need. The “alumni and friends” scholarship, which seems to be quite generous, is not available to applicants with an estimated contribution (based on Brandeis analysis of the CSS Profile) that exceeds the COA. Brandeis requires submission of financial information for consideration for merit scholarships, even from families that know they won’t qualify for need-based aid. They have almost completely eliminated the scholarships that they used to award that were available to students with no “need” as per their calculations. They have a couple left, designated for kids from Chicago or kids with other specific characteristics, but other than that, they have re-directed the merit money towards the applicants with need. </p>
<p>Is it possible this also be the case at other schools which seem generous with merit to some and inexplicably stingy to others? Maybe that explains the discrepancy. One really needs to look at the stats for the number of applicants without need who were awarded grants.</p>
<p>And, as others have said, that type of aid is generally used to attract kids at the top of the applicant pool who might otherwise go to a more selective school; for all intents and purposes, yes, that means the school is more on the end of low match/safety for that kid.</p>
<p>I can’t say that Pennsylvania LAC’s are any better then other states as far as merit aid. My kids have gotten merit from Colleges in IL, VA, NY, CT, NC, FL, VT, MA and PA. Three colleges were techy ones, not considered LAC’s. The only need based financial aid we’ve gotten from any college was a work study for one of the kids for one semester when we had two kids in college at one time.</p>
<p>"When was that? and were those Ivy League schools? where are they located?</p>
<p>I found the mid-west schools to be the most generous with merit while the New England Schools only give out financial aids and close to no merit money."</p>
<p>This year. </p>
<p>No Ivy’s</p>
<p>NY & PA. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t have commented on this thread at all except for the fact that two of my son’s schools (including the one which gave him the biggest award) is ranked higher in USNWR than Clark. Not that I give a hoot about where a school is ranked but if it’s not slumming if his kid goes to Clark he wouldn’t be slumming at my kid’s schools.</p>
<p>" if it’s not slumming if his kid goes to Clark he wouldn’t be slumming at my kid’s schools." I know it’s early, but you just made my day :)</p>
<p>An excellent thread on this topic is Momfromtexa’s full ride scholarship one. The techniques she advises in order to get full ride or close to them, can be slightly expanded to get substantial but not as generous awards from schools that are bit better known. I have found that my going outside of the local list, the opportunities do expand since many schools like to get some geographic diversity and are willing to pay for it.</p>
<p>For my first two college kids, we went for the “prime beef” and getting into those schools tended to be the reward. No money there. Not a dime. The second one did apply and get into some schools where his stats put him way up there, plus he had some other features that made him desireable to those schools, and they did give him a bit of merit money, but nothing over $5K. It wasn’t until my third one that I focused on picking schools that would specifically want him, geographically, as a male, for his major, etc and by strategically picking schools that way, he got some very nice awards. It really had to be something deliberately done and carefully chosen. Any of the schools that he picked that were the usual picks in our area did not yield the generous money. And no wonder; those schools had the pick of the local kids. They could probably fill their class with kids from this area who are full pay. Why pay for one of that kind? I see this particularly in schools like NYU and BC. A huge number of kids from here apply to those schools and they are mostly outstanding candidates. But they do not tend to get the merit awards from these schools that I have seen others outside the geographic get, unless those kids have something extra those colleges really want and are willing to pay to get.</p>
<p>This time around, we did the same thing, though I did not have a whole lot of hope that this son would get much in merit money because his test scores are on the low side and he really did not want to go too far from home. The results, predictably were with few merit awards and only from the true safety schools with one exception which has become a top choice school for him. A nice surprise actually as other schools in that same bracket did not offer a dime.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies.
With the public budget situation, I can understand no in-state public university will give merit money, if they do, it will be under 5K and extremely selective.</p>
<p>I still recall in 2009 with my older son, he was so happy with all the acceptance from all his apps including Ivies, then totally disappointed with the award letter. On the other hand, all the non-Ivy private schools gave him merit money, typically from 1/2 upto 3/4 of the tuition. He later managed to get a 4-year full ride after the first semester …</p>
<p>He also got Regents Scholarships from all the state schools, but that was at most only 2K/yr. Those are good reputation state schools but with 35K undergrads, hard-to-register classes and large-size classes taught by grad-students. He is now happily enjoying 20-30 student class size at a private institution with real professor doing the teaching.</p>
<p>Bottom-line is that I found private colleges much more affordable than one would think. For my younger son this year, he stays away from the Ivies to avoid the disappointment.</p>
<p>glido wrote:
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<p>In all fairness, not all private schools “decide” this. Some don’t have the endowment to do otherwise.
And yes, as others have pointed out, merit aid means different things to different people. For some, a discount helps and makes the school affordable. Some people are talking about “full rides” which is a whole different ball game.</p>
<p>“Dad, the Ivies don’t give merit. To really work the merit game, you have to have an A-/B+ student and find the right schools. You can’t expect merit money at schools like Brandeis. Look instead at the Colleges That Change Lives and the good but not famous LACs.”</p>
<p>The comment about the “Colleges That Change Lives” is spot on. My two kids had remarkably similar highschool grades/SAT scores—top 10% of their class, 1900-2000 SATs. Both applied to schools in the CTCL book—Kalamazoo, Centre, Rhodes; both got nearly identical merit based aid offers from all of the schools–in the ball park of $17K per year. Both also applied to better known schools–Tulane, Wake Forest; both got admitted, but no merit based aid. To me its just a numbers game–there are virtually an infinite number of people who have heard of and want to go to schools like Tulane, Wake Forest and the like; they don’t have to be as generous with aid to attract quality candidates. Many (maybe most) people have never even heard of the schools in the CTCL book.</p>