Schools known for good merit aid

Parents Forum
1021

What about schools with good merit aid for regular (not CC level) above average kids (1300’s SAT, close to 4.0, all honors/AP, all around EC’s, some leadership - but no NMF/S, hasn’t cured a disease, not a URM)?

DS’ top choices so far (he’s a HS jr) are match schools (not reaches), but not completely confident on merit aid there (and they are $$$). Interested in engineering (BME), which eliminates a lot of the smaller private LACs. Looking in the NE, MidAtlantic or Southeast (preferably). Looking for Jewish population too.

(University of Delaware would seem to fit his needs, but his sister goes there and he is NOT interested.)

Anyone have any suggestions?

1022

Updated with COA’s & my projected net cost. All values below include tuition, fees, room/board, travel/personal and books. If I got numbers from the school I used theirs, if I didn’t get it from them I used a standard $1348 for travel/personal and $1200 for books. To make it easier in my earlier post, I had rounded. The values below are actual amounts.

I didn’t follow up on Alabama about any other covered costs. D was not interested in traveling so far away even for a great school and she had other options closer. I’ve seen some posts that they may give more, but I’m only posting what I know for sure she would have received.

I don’t remember anything more about the Haverford grant. I will look it up when I get home and post about it then.

Alabama - $12,000 scholarship / COA $23,532 / Net cost $11,532
Butler - $17,000 scholarship / COA $46,516 / Net cost $29,516
UChicago - $18,220 grant / COA $57,964 / Net cost $39,744
Cornell - $18,891 grant / COA $59,591 / Net cost $40,700
Denison - $42,000 scholarship / COA $55,188 / Net cost $13,188
Haverford - $26,417 grant / COA $60,264 / Net cost $33,847
Northwestern - $16,628 scholarship / COA $61,115 / Net cost $44,487
URochester - $17,000 scholarship (+$3000 research grant) / COA $56,494 / Net cost $39,494
Skidmore - $21,958 grant / COA $56,332 / Net cost $34,374
Wooster - $20,000 scholarship / COA $51,948 / Net cost $31,948

D decided to attend Denison. It was one of her top 3 choices anyway and the scholarship was hard to pass up.

1023

linymom… UAB… 20-25K total cost of attendance (tuition dorm, food etc)
automatic scholarships …these are for 4 years…renewable with a 3.0
December ACT and SAT test scores from your senior year in high school.

Blazer Elite Scholarship

•$15,000
•Based on academic achievement (28-36 ACT and at least 3.0 GPA)

Blazer Gold Scholarship

•$10,000
•Based on academic achievement (26-27 ACT and at least 3.0 GPA)

Blazer Pride Scholarship

•$5,000
•Based on academic achievement (24-25 ACT and at least 3.0 GPA)

still accepting apps, and as of last week still had merit aid available for oos students.

[UAB</a> - The University of Alabama at Birmingham](<a href=“http://www.uab.edu%5DUAB”>http://www.uab.edu)
urban campus 11K undergrads, home of a top 30 med school, not football/party/greek

1024

^ Thanks. Worth looking into. Admit to being confused about the different Universities of Alabama. I take it that this is not the “Roll Tide” 'Bama, right? Which is totally fine for DS. You said “urban” but I’m sure it’s not urban like Boston U or UPenn, right?

1025

correct not the tuscaloosa campus…this is in birmingham… the campus sits around a green area so is all together… but it is red brick buildings, not a traditional college type feel

birmingham is not a huge city, so definitely not like a boston campus.

<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Alabama_at_Birmingham[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Alabama_at_Birmingham&lt;/a&gt;

is he looking for this year or next year…if next year and science major, look into sci/tech honors…incredible program!!! S2 has been doing research since his first semester. doing forensic chemistry and molecular biology there

1026

Thanks, parent56. He’s a junior now; will be applying in the fall for Fall 2013.

1027

feel free to pm me any time!!! wonderful opportunities there imo

1028

Kiplinger has some great statistics on this for private colleges and also publics.

These charts will show you which schools use a lot of merit aid as part of their enrollment management. Having just gone through this with my D, our results tracked very consistently with the Kiplinger data.

We targeted several schools on the list (i) which had a high percentage of kids getting non-need based aid and (ii) where she was an above average applicant. She got significant merit aid at all those schools. She didn’t get merit money from the schools that had low percentages of students getting merit.

Gonzaga is a great example of a school that does this a lot. 82% of their students have non-need based scholarships.

[Best</a> Values in Private Colleges, 2011-12](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/privatecolleges/]Best”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts)

1029

Ohksajo4–

The original intent of this thread was to talk about schools that offer merit aid to those who do not have financial need. In other words, not just a “high” EFC–but an EFC so high that it is above the cost of attending the school and disqualifies them from receiving any financial aid at all.

From your post I gather that despite having a “high” EFC it is still not above the cost of attendance. If it were, then your D would not even be receiving any work study.

So when your D received these scholarships and grants, they were still based on the fact that she had financial need. They don’t have to call it financial aid on their offer–but it is still financial aid. If you had an EFC of 70k+, your D would not qualify for any of this money at several of the schools you mention.

Cornell (University) --or any of the ivies–do not offer any merit aid. Skidmore College offers merit aid for music students only. Someone mentioned Haverford as not giving merit aid in a previous thread.

I understand that the financial aid summary lists these awards as merit/ grants/ or scholarhships, but while “merit” may be part of the reason they were given, they are still financial aid and cannot be compared to pure merit aid without need. (Even in schools like Rochester that offers true merit aid–your “merit aid” numbers may be higher than those without need.)

1030

uskoolfish - i did not claim that all of these were merit awards, which is why i separated them out as grants and scholarship. Our EFC is approximately 38K, some of the grants gave more than this and some gave less. I didn’t think this thread was simply meant for people with an EFC of 70K or higher. Forgive me if I misunderstood. D received work study from only 2 of her schools, including the one that gave her the $42K scholarship so I doubt that was need based. The UofR merit amount was based solely on her being NMF and had nothing to do with financial need thus it is listed as a scholarship.

1031

No need to apologize! :slight_smile:

It’s just that the more you get involved in this process, the more you see that many, many people say they are getting merit aid/ grants/ scholarships as if it is not a component of their financial aid package–but it is!

People need to understand that from the onset of the process, it’s like the financial aid office makes 2 distinct piles—one pile (A )is for those needing financial aid (their EFC is below the cost of attending) and the other pile (B) is for those who have no financial need (their EFC is above the cost of attending.)

In most schools, the merit aid, scholarships, grants for those with need (pile A) are NOT available to those with an EFC above the cost of attending (pile B). So to call it true merit aid is mis-leading, since it is probably only available to those with need.

So my D’s can have the exact same academic/ leadership/ etc profile (or "merit’), but they are not considered for these grants/ scholarships if they are in pile B. It is not true merit aid if there is still that financial component.

Some schools do mix the piles and will give merit aid to those with or without need. Other schools consider each pile separately, but will still give some merit aid to those without need. However, the amount rec’d as merit will often not be the same for those with need or without.

That is why it is important for people to differeniate between whether they have need or not if this thread is to be helpful to others.

My D is receiving a $10K/year talent-based merit scholarship from NYU (no need.) That is near the top of what they give without need. (Talent awards are one of the few true merit awards that NYU still gives out.) She has friends in her program with extremely low EFC’s who are getting a talent award with the same name–but their’s is a lot higher (maybe $25K/year) and they also got other academic grants which D was not even eligible for. They did not get more money because of better grades or more talent…they rec’d it because they had financial need, whereas D didn’t.

Hope this helps clarify what I meant!

1032

LINYMOM -

University of West Virginia might be the ticket. Drove through Morgantown last Sunday and spotted a Hillel, but is big football school.

1033

ohksaj04–Thanks for your information. Seeing a $15,000 merit aid is meaningless if you don’t see the total COA and I guess I am lazy but looking up that information on every college listed here would take a LOT of time :D.

1034

I just looked at the post that started this thread. If this was the original intent, I don’t know how to read. What am I missing?

1035

Merit aid is aid you receive without having financial need. The common data sets of schools make that distinction as does US News and World Report. They will show average need based aid in one column or chart and non-need based aid (merit) in another. When this thread started and throughout it, the distinction is made again and again.

The Ivies, Tufts, Vassar, Williams, Georgetown, Boston College, Haverford and many, many other colleges and universities do not give merit aid. It will show it on their common data set as 0.

If you do not have financial need (too high an EFC), you will not get money from them.

People who do get money from these schools (and the school may call this money a grant or scholarship) are really getting financial aid.

However, this thread was not about listing these financial need based grants or scholarships. It was about listing schools who give actual merit (non-need based aid.)

To help clarify what I mean, the following was copied from the common data set for Haverford College (2010/2011):

Number of Enrolled Students Awarded Aid: List the number of degree-seeking full-time and less-than-full-time undergraduates who applied for and were awarded financial aid from any source. Aid that is non-need-based but that was used to meet need should be counted as need-based aid.

<a href=“http://www.haverford.edu/ir/pdf/CDS2010_2011.pdf[/url]”>http://www.haverford.edu/ir/pdf/CDS2010_2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (page 24)

H2 a) Number of degree-seeking undergraduate students (CDS
Item B1 if reporting on Fall 2010 cohort)-- 1177
H2 b) Number of students in line a who applied for need-based
financial aid-- 674
H2 c) Number of students in line b who were determined to have
financial need-- 616
H2 d) Number of students in line c who were awarded any
financial aid-- 616
H2 e) Number of students in line d who were awarded any needbased
scholarship or grant aid-- 586
H2 f) Number of students in line d who were awarded any needbased
self-help aid-- 561
H2 g) Number of students in line d who were awarded any non need-
based scholarship or grant aid-- 0

You will notice on the above last line that no (0) students rec’d non-need based schoalrship or grant aid. Yet, 586 were awarded need-based scholarships or grant aid.
In simple terms, one can say that Haverford gives out financial aid, but not merit aid.

To list any money awarded by Haverford as merit aid is misleading to those who do not have need. This thread’s intent was to list schools that do NOT have 0’s in the non-need based scholarship column. (GW, Syracuse, Goucher, Muhlenberg, American etc. would meet this criteria.)

All schools give financial aid–what is harder to find are those schools that give $ to students based purely on merit.

1036

Yup, uskoolfish. I get the difference between merit awards and need-based aid. I am quibbling with the notion that this thread has to be for people who have, in your words, an “EFC so high that it is above the cost of attending the school and disqualifies them from receiving any financial aid at all.”

For example, we are not a full-pay family. We are a pay-plenty family, but not full pay. So my D applied EA to a school listed in this thread as giving good merit. She was awarded $19.5K per year. At the time we received notice of this award, this school had no idea what our need was or wasn’t, as I hadn’t filled out FAFSA (it’s a non-CSS school). So does that count? That was clearly merit awarded to someone whose EFC was half the full COA of the school.

IOW, I get that the subject of this thread is MERIT awards. I just don’t see that the point is talking about merit for people who have no need whatsoever, which is what you are saying when you say the point of the thread is to “talk about schools that offer merit aid to those who do not have financial need.”

1037

I am not trying to exclude people from this or any forum at all. That is not the point of what I was saying.

Of course the school that granted your D a $19.5K merit scholarship would be included on a list of schools that offer merit aid. What point are you trying to make? That $ would have obviously been given to someone who had an EFC of zero or an EFC of $99K+. It is true merit aid.

The only thing I was trying to exclude from this forum was misleading information, even if done unintentionally. My point is that an award that is based on financial need should not be listed as merit aid if it is really need-based.

All I said is that the point of this particular thread was to list these merit awards so that even those without need could have a resource.

To be fair, though…what is the end result of the school that awarded your D the $19.5K? Did you receive more money once the financial aid info was filed? If your EFC justified it, you should have been.

So (hypothetically) if in the end your D only rec’d the $19.5K, that school would not have been particularly generous to you if other schools did a better job of meeting your need. However, it would have been generous to you if you had no financial need at all.

That is why the distinction needs to be made between merit and not. So that people can have a better idea of where they will stand based on their own particular need.

In my opinion (and this is not said to chase anyone from this thread), people who have financial need would be best served by researching what schools meet the highest percentage of need without loans.

1038

I agree with what you’re saying, mostly, uskoolfish. I am just quibbling in particular about the bolded part of this quote: "The original intent of this thread was to talk about schools that offer merit aid to those who do not have financial need. In other words, not just a “high” EFC–but an EFC so high that it is above the cost of attending the school and disqualifies them from receiving any financial aid at all."

I agree that there is no point in including need-based grants on a thread about merit.

1039

No problem, absweetmarie–to clarify the bolded part:

The reason I said not just a “high” EFC (in italics–lol)… is that I was referring to ohksaj04 and her post.

She wrote that she had a “high” EFC. (She later added her EFC was something like $38K). I was trying to emphasize that she still had financial need especially at schools with COA’s at $60K and that the scholarships and grants (and workstudy) she got was based on that need.

She was implying that schools like Cornell, Haverford and Skidmore were giving merit aid scholarships to her, when in fact merit aid is not offered by those schools.

I was trying to clarify that she would not have gotten any money had her EFC been above the cost of attending. Then she would have been disqualified from getting any financial aid and–so these awards were NOT based on merit.

Done! I think we understand each other. :slight_smile:

1040

Uskoolfish, schools do not give FA in the guise of merit aid. In fact, most schools list the amount of merit aid that will be given based on GPA, SAT/ACT scores, class rank on their web sites. You can have a billion $'s and if a school gives merit aid your child will receive it.

There is a gray area where some schools to get certain scholarships the student has to submit a supplemental essay. Besides what the student writes in his essay what other info they use to determine if one is awarded a Presidential Scholarship, a Trustee’s Scholarship, etc., etc., I have no idea and they may also be self selective in that kids from families where money is no object don’t bother to apply.