Hi. First post …
I am the parent. Good family income, far from a Wall Street Titan’s income. We couldn’t afford full tuition at Rose but could handle a typical state school.
My son is a Junior. He has 4+ GPA. All A’s so far, with a bunch of APs, at a competitive HS. Scored a 36 on the ACT and 1500 (out of 1520) on PSAT. Has not taken the SAT yet. “Good overall” student … in robotics, math/ science clubs, music, etc.
He’s also interested in Engineering. Other schools of interest that he’s seen: MIT, Princeton, Yale … Haven’t visited yet but seem promising Harvey-Mudd, Stanford, Notre Dame.
We really liked Rose (tops what we’ve seen so far).
Assuming he keeps up his grades, what could he expect from Rose regarding merit? Is a full (or mostly) ride realistic? (White middle class kid).
Thank you!
I don’t know much about merit aid past my own experience which is a decade old now, but in the absence of anything else I’ll share my one measly data point! I applied to Rose with 4.0 UW, AP math/sci/econ classes, 35 ACT, FIRST robotics, science bowl, white male, upper-middle class and I received a little less than 50% if I remember correctly. A friend with similar stats that I know received a similar offer, but neither one of us did too much optimization of our application or finaid packages.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned, my knowledge of the application/finaid process is 10 years old now so it’s widely outdated. But, Rose’s overall financial situation hasn’t changed much and I certainly wouldn’t count on full-ride merit. No idea of how possible it might be though…sorry!
Thanks for the data point @gobeavs . One clarification question - when you say “a little less than 50%” - do you mean tuition only, or including room and board (which seem to be non-trivially different)?
(The RH site currently shows about $43k in tuition, and about $19k in room/board/other stuff. I also found a version of that page from 3 years ago, where it was $39k + $18k, so a little bit cheaper.)
Rose appears to be looking for leaders with outstanding extracurriculars.
@thshadow good clarification - I received just under 50% of the total. Total cost was a little over $40k and I received $20k as I remember.
Anecdotally I just looked at the 2007 financials and tuition was $30k, room/board/other was $11k. I’m surprised the non-tuition costs have gone up that much.
I would recommend you look in the Rose Hulman CC site (under Colleges and Universities) to see what kids reported getting for scholarships the last couple of years (look around early admit time and regular decision time). This is self reported data but it might give you an idea…
@nutmegmom2 - isn’t this the Rose Hulman CC site?? 
@ElvisPays Find out your EFC number. You may find MIT, Princeton, Harvey-mudd, Stanford…will still cost you more than you want to pay or borrow.
My co-workers daughter got a full ride including housing. She is a sophomore there now.