pacnwmom2 - my ds is in the same boat. waiting to hear from RD schools now and will have to review f/a packages. also needs to visit but might knock out a couple of visits in the coming months. he likely won’t be able to make a decision until sometime in late April. that’s ok. our oldest d did that and it worked out ok.
My B+ son w/ 28 ACT/1870 SAT has received merit aid at 3 out of 3 schools so far, 1 safety and 2 target schools (Montana State, U. of New England and U. of Maine). He’s willing to go OOS and his schools include public and private, but so far the 3 schools that he’s heard back from seemed to only look at his GPA and SAT scores. So if you do your homework and apply to schools where your stats are above the 75th percentile for GPA and/or SAT and/or ACT you could be in the running for some merit dollars. The safety school gave the most ($16,000, must meet 2.5GPA to keep scholarship); Montana and UMaine both gave OOS merit that was described on their websites if you met certain GPA/SAT/ACT combinations.
re LeslieBR and Mom2collegekids
I think it IS important to hear what LeslieBR has stated – In addition to Merit, a student may be eligible for FA. Many families new to this may not realize how generous some of the private schools FA actually is. But please view it in context of each school. Many schools reduce the FA by the merit.
mom2collegekids, need-based aid at some schools that are need-blind and meet 100% of need [like the Ivies!] are–practically speaking–“merit” scholarships [based on stats!] for many kids.
Blindluck…but that is only true if there is some need. If your EFC is above the cost of attendance, a student will get no merit aid and will not be considered for any type of grant at many schools.
Parents need to understand that without need they will not get a cent from the ivies and many other schools that meet full need. It becomes confusing because people will say that they have rec’d a “merit” award from these schools…but it is still offered only as part of a financial aid package.
Careful research needs to go into whether a school gives true merit aid without need.
^^^^
Exactly…there are many who don’t qualify for any need-based aid (or little) no matter how “generous” the ivies are. So, for those people, merit isn’t a consideration.
Yes, some can argue that those who have lots of need will get good need based aid, and will get accepted because of their fine stats…but it’s their NEED that gets them that aid.
There are plenty of threads about schools that give great need based aid.
This thread is about merit aid.
There is so much misinformation and half truths out there regarding merit aid. For starters, many schools begin their info sessions by saying that you should never NOT apply because of the cost…because you never know.
Well, I knew. I knew that applying to Ivies and the like would mean full pay. I knew that many people would rather say that their kid got “merit aid” rather than financial aid. I knew that my children, as appealing as they are, were not going to be the exception. If a school said no merit, they received no merit. If a school said their maximun merit aid was XX I knew they were not going to get a cent above that total…or perhaps even under it.
Luckily I am done! D1 rec’d a merit package. D2 applied ED and did not (as expected.) For both D’s we turned down merit $ for the schools that fit them best.
Good luck to everyone starting the process.
I know how need-based aid works at these particular schools. The truth is this: it’s a kid’s “stats” that FIRST get that student into these need-blind/100%-of-need-met schools. THEN, the kid’s application is sent to Financial Aid in order for the school to meet any demonstrated need. It’s NOT the other way around. These schools are–for all intents and purposes–offering “merit” scholarships. Call it what you want. The point of this thread was to discuss college’s that offer financial help based on one’s academic merits. I think this should certainly include the need-based aid offered at these remarkable schools.
BlindLuck I have to disagree with you. My son is going to an IVY next year as a freshman and as all the other kids who got accepted had great stats. We did not get any financial aid at all. It is going to be a sacrifice to send him. He was offered a lot of Merit Aid at two other schools, but the school he chose is a better fit for him. Merit Aid is often solely based a child’s stats or EC etc. The merit aid he was offered wasn’t at all tied to our finances.
Merit Aid is a wonderful alternative to the upper middle class whose kids are IVY quality but won’t receive any FA. The two shouldn’t be confused.
NJMom23, well said, I understand your point. However, my point is still valid: you get into these need-blind schools SOLELY on your merits. Merits FIRST, then need-based aid if there’s a calculated need. [In your case, I assume, the school determined your family had none.]
Nobody is saying that a student with financial need isn’t getting accepted because of their stats or “merit”. Of course they are. But the next step is critical. Once it is determined that a student is accepted, they are essentially placed in one of two piles of applications after being reviewed by financial aid officers.
Pile A shows that there is financial need.
Pile B shows there is no financial need.
If a school’s policy is to give true merit aid (no need), then students in both Pile A and B may compete for some of the same merit awards.
If a school’s policy is to give NO merit aid if there is NO need, then the students in Pile B do not compete for any grants/ awards. Some of those students may have sky high stats, but they will not get this form of merit aid. They are not considered for it.
So the second type of “merit” aid is not considered true merit aid since it only goes to students who also have need.
That doesn’t lessen the fact that the student with need has been awarded their merit scholarship based on their accomplishments. But for the sake of this thread, it is still considered part of a financial aid package.
That said, some schools require students applying ONLY for merit to submit some FAid forms, including FAFSA & other forms. We did not apply to any of said schools and never submitted any FAid forms.
And of course for schools that aren’t need-blind, some kids in pile A won’t get accepted at all.
Well, for kids with significant financial need, getting admitted may be the easiest part of the battle. When they’re admitted with a huge gap between what they need and Cost of Attendance, and/or parents expected to take out HUGE loans, it’s essentially an “admit/deny” because of the huge gap.
Back when my older D was applying, Brandeis was giving out merit aid without need. They did, however, require students to submit a CSS profile to be eligible for any award. I was skeptical, but D was awarded a $15K merit award, despite the fact that our EFC was high.
D is at NYU. When she first applied they did not require any financial disclosure for merit awards. However, in subsequent years they required that we fill out the FAFSA. Younger D will be attending. This time around they asked us to fill out the CSS profile for early deceision applicants to be considered for merit aid. We complied, even though I knew that merit awards would not be given for any art ED students.
uskoolfish: You are exactly right in your details of merit aid. Its all so confusing. Our EFC doesn’t allow for any financial aid, so the only money my S got were true scholarships that were granted when he submitted his applications or when he completed an extra application for a specific scholarship.
Last year I was so confused because my own niece, who had nice stats and ec’s but not nearly as good as my S was getting merit money at the same schools that my S was recieving nothing. But she was eligible for finaid, where we weren’t. Its a bit disheartening because kids/parents due brag that they are receiving Merit Scholarships when in fact its truly based off their need first. Again, I’m not saying that they aren’t good students but the unfairness of it is that students with better stats and ec’s get nothing and are left to feel like they don’t ‘rate’.
Honestly, just call it financial aid.
BTW a school that has fantastic Scholarships is Tulane. My S applied by September 1. He recieved his acceptance by mid October and a $20K/yr scholarship. That was based on his academics because the fafsa and css weren’t even thought about at that time. Then he completed another application for a full tuition scholarship to Tulane and again he received that. Once again it was independent of his fafsa.
Tulane is great for scholarship money!!!
Congrats! Did you apply for separate scholarships or were they awarded automatically based on high school stats? Any idea how many kids received that much?
The 20K/yr scholarship was based strictly on his application information. The second one was called the Dean’s Honors Scholarship, and he had to complete a separate application along with a project. (They give you a white sheet of paper with a small box drawn in the middle of it. The box is probably 2.5" x 2.5". Then they tell you to do anthing you want with it. The only thing is that you have to make sure that when your project is done it can fit in a file. If you are the recipient of this scholarship you have to forego the first one because this is now a full tutition scholarship for 4 years. Its worth about 40k/yr.
If you want more information, go to the cc post for Tulane. There are a lot of threads that discuss Tulane’s merit packages. Its a very active threads. Good luck. Hope this helps…
I agree that for this thread we need to clearly differentiate “merit” aid from “financial” aid. We also have zero chance of financial aid, so all the merit aid my S has received is only based on his application and stats. However, there is some merit aid, like at Boston U, that only kicks in once you prove that you have a high EFC, but not so high to be rich. In that case, they could offer a Dean’s scholarship (10k/year) to students with high SAT/GPA and other good stuff in their application.
Well several schools post that given x GPA and x SAT = x dollars (while maintaining x GPA while at college).
That seems very straight forward to me.
No need at all is mentioned or implied.