“Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) Awards (for freshman only)
A limited number of Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) Awards will be available to new freshmen for the 2010 academic year. Only legal residents of the following states may be considered for WUE Scholarships at Montana State University in Bozeman: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.”
15K/yr for 4 years for ACT 33+ or SAT 2140+. Lower amount awards for lower scores.
From learning gained on another thread (should merit awards replace need aid here in parents forum), it is critically important for families struggling with EFC remaining in FA to realize THAT MERIT AWARDS WILL NOT REDUCE EFC. Merit is still good, because it will move loans to grants and may drop work/study self-help, but it does not go to reduce EFC (some outside scholarships may, highy depending upon the college.
This is s stunner for many people; please go to the referenced thread for quite lengthy discussion on the topic.
Long and short, targeting 100% need and I would say being at the top of that colleges range so it will want to be as helpful as possible in caluclating a low EFC determination or finding a true full-ride are the answer for FA families, NOT MERIT AWARDS AS SILVER BULLETS.
If your EFC is very high, then merit can reduce your contribution **.
Here’s some various examples which can reduce your contribution…
Say your EFC is $25k and the school’s COA is $25k. Therefore, no need.
If your child gets ANY merit at all, you’ve just reduced what you’ll have to pay.
Say your EFC is $25, and the school’s COA is $30k. Therefore, you have $5k need.
If your child gets $10k in merit, you’ve reduced your contribution by $5k.
Say your EFC is $50k, and the school’s COA is $40-50k. You have no need.
If your child gets any merit at all, you’ve reduced your contribution. If your child gets BIG MERIT, then you’ve reduced your contribution greatly.
In our case, we have no “determined need”, so when DS1 got free tuition, free housing, and $2500/yr, and DS2 got free tuition and $4500 per/yr, we reduced our combined contribution for 2 kids to about $11,000 per year (about $4k for one and about $7k for the other).
What Cluelessdad is refering to is when there is “determined need” that is greater than merit, your EFC is usually not reduced. So if need is $20k and EFC is $10k and merit is $5k, then no change in family contribution.
But I could have used the example of people who have EFCs of $20k and need of $20, that have been given big $30k scholarships, that reduce family contribution to a more manageable $10k.
^That’s because the COA is 40k (I presume). If the merit scholarship exceeds demonstrated need, then of course merit will take precedence–but it doesn’t “stack” with need-based aid, the need-based part is simply rendered irrelevant.
cluelessdad does make some reference to this in “finding a true full-ride” although the clarification is good.
Thanks Mom2 and Keil, all your points do help clarify. Your knowledge on merit + FA is a great resource.
My main goal in posting here is to help get the message out to FA families that they need to take a close look at what merit actually does with their EFC “out-of-pocket”, both “write the check” and loan paybacks post-graduation.
If I’m not off-topic, I’m confused about how families can cover EFC from broader sources: what if a grandparent kicks in? A rich uncle? A family friend? Someone in the community who is made aware of a worthy kid, yet it is a one-off and not part of a “scholarship” program?
My daughter was qualified for an Ivy league school, but none of them gave pure merit money. It was hard to even find schools that were 2nd tier schools that gave merit money without taking into account the financial status of the parents. For example, Brandeis and Bard both initially said they gave out pure merit scholarships, but when I really looked into it, the parents had to file financial disclosure documents, the same as for financial aid. At Brandeis, my daughter got in but no merit money was offered.
Someone mentioned Trinity and if it is the one in Hartford, they did not give merit scholarships at the time we were applying. Bucknell and Lehigh also did not give merit money at the time we looked at colleges. I remember thinking it was strange that some colleges thought they had gotten so attractive that they did not need to give merit money to attract the top students, and I guess they don’t. Same with Hamilton and Colgate, no pure merit money.
I have heard Tulane and U Rochester do give merit money.
Yes, Tulane is very generous with merit scholarships. This year they had $25K, $22K, $20K, $15K, and $7.5K that everyone got considered for. They also have between 75-100 full tuition scholarships that are awarded by competition. No financial forms are required for any of these, they are true merit scholarships.
It is accurate of course that Harvard, Yale and many other top schools don’t need to offer merit scholarships to have the top students in the country want to go there. I have no problem with that since they don’t offer athletic scholarships either, although one can argue about how much they skirt those rules in other ways. Where I really have a problem is with schools that have athletic free rides but none or much less in terms of academic scholarships, such as Notre Dame and Northwestern. But that is a topic for another thread, as is the discussion as to whether taking need into account means that merit scholarship is still an accurate description.
“I have heard that Tulane and U Rochester do give merit money.”
It is at their discretion. D2 got an acceptance from U of Miami, met criteria posted on their site for merit aid, and basically got a nothing merit scholarship.
Although this information can be found upthread, I’ll repeat it here for those who–reasonably–do not want to reread the entire thread.
Pure merit scholarships are awarded by Rice, University of Chicago, Wash U St. Louis, Vanderbilt, Emory and other highly selective universities. The scholarships are highly competitive, and in many cases require separate applications. Some of them are highly lucrative and include full tuition or more; others are perhaps only 10K per year or so. To my knowledge, most of those I am referring to do not require submission of financial forms.
Those students who are “qualified for an Ivy league school”, as the quoted poster put it, and who are interested in competing for a merit scholarship should check the web sites of all those schools, and others.
*If I’m not off-topic, I’m confused about how families can cover EFC from broader sources: what if a grandparent kicks in? A rich uncle? A family friend? Someone in the community who is made aware of a worthy kid, yet it is a one-off and not part of a “scholarship” program? *
Good question.
I can’t imagine that if a grandparent or uncle or such gives money to help with EFC that it’s a problem. I can’t imagine that it would reduce FA. I would think that could be used towards EFC. I have no idea how it would work if some “community person” just wrote a check.
*It was hard to even find schools that were 2nd tier schools that gave merit money without taking into account the financial status of the parents. For example, Brandeis and Bard both initially said they gave out pure merit scholarships, but when I really looked into it, the parents had to file financial disclosure documents, the same as for financial aid. At Brandeis, my daughter got in but no merit money was offered.
*
There are mid-tiers that give merit. There are some that give assured merit for specific stats. It does seem that there are less NE mid-tier schools that do, so that may have been the issue.
Yes, Rochester does give merit money. There is no additional application, although students must be selected to interview for the full-tuition Renaissance Scholarship. There is no specific criteria published for the merit scholarships.
Muhlenberg College also gives merit money without the need for financial information.
I am am a mother of Twin Sophomore (HS) boys. One is exremely bright, but not too motivated. Really counting on a lot of merit based help for the one, as paying full tuition for two at the same time is not possible for us financially.
I have two questions:
Question #1:
How do you motive a very capable child? He is taking all AP/Honors classes and has a 3.5 GPA as of right now. He is attending a private College Prep High School that is exremely rigorous. He could be getting at least a 3.75 or better, but he is not too motivated.
Question #2:
In general, what HS “stats” will qualify for merit based scholarships. What score will he need to get on the NM test?
Sorry for all the questions- but feel like we need to know these things now, seeing as they are HS sophomores.
This is a very involved area. A lot depends on the competitiveness of the university to which he applies. For example, getting a merit scholarship at Chicago or Wash U is harder than getting one at Tulane, which in turn is harder than at many other schools. As far as the PSAT scores and becoming a NMSF (which almost always turns into finalist), that depends on your state. You can find what scores qualified for SF status with a simple Google search. If he does get scores that get him into that category, there are schools that give very generous scholarships and even full tuition+ on that basis alone.
As far as motivating a child like that, I had the same issue with my S. Frankly, I am not sure there is much you can do. A lot depends on your child’s sense of what’s important. One thing that helped with mine (although it was too late in this case, was later in junior year) was taking him to see highly selective colleges that I knew he would really like, and then having him realize that he was limiting his options by not working harder. But I don’t think anyone can know what would motivate your child. Is that 3.5 UW, btw? If so that really isn’t that low, unless he thinks he is going to Harvard.
Brandeis DOES give pure merit aid even though they require parents to disclose financial aid info. Our EFC was way beyond the cost of Brandeis, so we definitely did not get a cent on the basis of need. D got a $15K scholarship from them. She also rec’d pure merit offers from GW, American, Muhlenberg and NYU.
I was suspicious that Brandeis would not give out merit aid when they saw how “rich” we looked on paper (2 incomes, NYC salaries), but they really did come through. A classmate got full tuition from them which was also totally merit based.
How to motivate a child to do well in high school to qualify for merit scholarships…
This topic comes up every once in awhile on CC…this is my “2 cents” from an earlier post…
Schedule a campus tour at a beautiful and full-featured campus that’s not too far away. Before arriving to the campus, find out where the most attractive entrance to the campus and use that entrance. (Most colleges have one or two prettier entrances, and one or two “not so pretty” back entrances.)
Don’t focus too much on the majors and academic offerings at this time (a little, but not too much). Show your child(ren) all the awesome things colleges have today - recreation centers that are fabulous-looking! Show them the nice dorms. Maybe take them to a popular campus sports event that is well-attended.
Eat at one of the campus dining venues. Later, grab a snack or meal at one of the cool off-campus “hang outs” (typically there is a “strip” off campus where the kids hang out during the off hours.) Find out where those off-campus places are.
For this exercise, meeting with admissions advisors and department reps is not necessary. Your purpose is just to show your child(ren) that college life is much better than high school life.
Many naive HS kids think that college will just be a dragging extension of boring high school. Introducing them to a cool campus will show them that it’s not. You don’t want to wait until it’s too late for your child to improve grades and test scores. Even a high school freshman is not too young to be motivated - especially if you “tailor” the visit and exclude any parts that might be tooooo much focused on academics.
Question #2:
In general, what HS “stats” will qualify for merit based scholarships. What score will he need to get on the NM test?*
The needed NM score on the junior year PSAT varies by state. But, a score higher than 224 makes it in every state. What state are you in?
As for merit scholarships…There are some competitive merit scholarships for top 50 schools, but I don’t know of any “assured” big ones at top 50 schools.
For assured big merit scholarships, you need to look at mid-tier national universities. Usually, an ACT 32 or SAT 1400+ (math + CR) will get a big merit scholarship at some mid-tier schools. Most will require either a 3.5 or 3.75 GPA.
Not all mid-tier schools give merit scholarships, and not all give them to non-resident students…but, some do. Some only give competitive scholarships, some give assured scholarships for specific stats. So, you have to target the ones that will give assured merit as well as maybe some competitive ones…
