“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.”
Skidmore does give merit aid but it’s very specific and few receive it.
"Merit Awards
Filene Music Scholarship
Filene Music Scholarships are awarded each year through a performance competition coordinated by Skidmore’s Department of Music. This scholarship is awarded without regard to financial need. The Filene Scholarship carries with it a four-year scholarship totaling $48,000 (12,000 per year). Click on link for additional information.
Porter Presidential Scholarships in Science and Mathematics
Porter Presidential Scholarships in Science and Mathematics are awarded on the basis of superior accomplishment and exceptional promise, without regard to financial need. Each Porter Scholar is awarded a four year scholarship totaling $60,000 ($15,000 per year). Students interested in being considered for the Porter Scholarship are encouraged to include a recommendation from a science or math teacher with their admission application. Click on link for additional information."
I would not, however, put Skidmore on any list for schools which are known for good merit aid.
Emilybee, I was not talking about the schools and what they claim. I was talking about what people imply by not giving the full picture. On the previous page I gave showed a link to the Haverford common data set. The common data set clearly shows that Haverford (as an example) does not give merit aid. There is a big fat zero in the box that lists how many students receive non-need based aid.
The issue is that people will say that they got merit aid from Haverford (as ohksaj04 did), when in fact they rec’d a scholarship or grant based on having financial need.
This leads people to believe that the school may perhaps give them merit aid, even if they do not have need.
I am not saying that the schools are trying to mislead people…but they certainly make it easy to get confused when they end up calling need-based aid “merit aid.” And in many cases a student with equal need to another student will get a better package or a particular scholarship because a school wants them more based on their “merit.”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard stories about the really big scholarship a kid got from the ivies because the ivies wanted them so much. Umm, no. The kid got accepted to the ivies because they wanted them so much. If they got a big scholarship it’s because they had a lot of financial need!
You are right about Skidmore. D had her CD all set to go to apply for the Filene’s scholarship, but was accepted ED at NYU instead.
If you check their common date set, I think it shows a whopping 5 or 6 kids that receive merit aid total. I did mention the music scholarhship on an earlier thread. But, yes, in general, Skidmore does not give merit aid.
"I am not saying that the schools are trying to mislead people…but they certainly make it easy to get confused when they end up calling need-based aid “merit aid.” And in many cases a student with equal need to another student will get a better package or a particular scholarship because a school wants them more based on their “merit.”
I have never seen a school which doesn’t give merit aid call a scholarship merit aid. And, imo, most people are well aware of the schools which don’t give any merit aid, especially since they are pretty much only the top 25 Uni’s and top 25 LACS.
My son’s FA is called the “College Name” Scholarship and obviously, since his school gives no merit aid, it is based on need. I imagine very few who are applying to a school such as that don’t know the difference, especially given that every one of those schools is quite clear they give no money based on merit.
Are there any other examples accept the one poster who mentioned Haverford on this whole thread - which goes back to 2005? I’ve read pretty much the whole of it and can’t seem to recall bad info regarding this subject.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard stories about the really big scholarship a kid got from the ivies because the ivies wanted them so much. Umm, no. The kid got accepted to the ivies because they wanted them so much. If they got a big scholarship it’s because they had a lot of financial need!”
Well, actually my son did. He received FA well over what our EFC suggested he would get. Private schools can pretty much do anything they want. I am no way suggesting this is merit of any kind, either.
I live in an area where a lot of people are at the cusp of receiving/ not receiving financial; aid. And believe me, there is plenty of confusion and plenty of misleading info passed around.
And yes, people constantly interchange the term merit aid and scholarships and grants…implying that their children got scholarships for merit and not need. This leaves others without need the impression that they may get $.
There are lots of schools–regardless of their ranking–that give the majority of their money for financial aid and not to merit aid.
Even more confusing is that in recent years, schools known for merit aid (like Brandeis or Franklin and Marshall) are no longer giving it out.
And other schools have lowered their merit awards in the last year or so by 1/3 or more (American.)
In terms of the actual amount of a particular award–whether it is merit or need–many are determined by need and are not necessarily a set amount.
And if we want to talk about how schools confuse people–well let’s talk about the many schools who as soon as you sit down in an info session will tell you that no child should assume that their college is unaffordable. That they do their best to meet each students need.
Well explain that to the kid whose parent say, no we won’t even pay our EFC, let alone the gap the school left. Or the kid whose parents are doing well on paper (high EFC) but live in an expensive area and can no way afford to spend $60K per kid on college because they missed the cutoff for aid by having a few thousand dollars more in income than the amount that would have allowed them to pay only 10% of their income in tuition.
As for this particular thread, I doubt that there is just one example of misinformation in 7 years worth of posts. Even your statement that most schools that are below a 25 ranking give merit aid is extremely misleading. And even if they give merit aid—for most schools we are talking about awards of $10K to $15K, leaving students with a bill for $40K to $50K plus.
I assume you are referring to Bates College when you are talking about your son.
Congrats on getting even more than what you expected from the school. You are right that once you are in the system that a private school in particular can do what they want in terms of financial aid.
But I would bet that if my D applied, she would not get any money because our EFC disqualifies us from getting financial aid. I doubt there would be any surprise there, even if she had unbelievable stats, etc. Bates clearly states on their Common data set that there were no students getting any aid without need.
It goes back to what I had said in an earlier post. The starting point for this whole process is based on whether your EFC is above the cost of attendance or not. That will determine whether you are considered for certain awards or not. You are either in Pile A or pile B.
^ I think it’s for an individual to determine for themselves what amount of merit is worthy enough.
Interesting that you brought up what the schools tell the parents. My son’s school came right out an said at the admissions session that it’s a parent and their student’s responsibility to pay for college, unless there is demonstrated need.
As for my statement - perhaps I should have said it another way. That few schools in the top 25 uni’s or LAC’s give merit aid and that most merit aid is given at schools below that threshold, since this is a thread discussing merit aid.
“But I would bet that if my D applied, she would not get any money because our EFC disqualifies us from getting financial aid. I doubt there would be any surprise there, even if she had unbelievable stats, etc. Bates clearly states on their Common data set that there were no students getting any aid without need.”
I am not suggesting she would as I have no idea what your financial situation is. And Bates is very clear that they expect you to pay unless there is demonstrated need. However, that being said, it’s my opinion that there are large numbers of people who think they won’t get anything and don’t bother filling out FAFSA and CSS. We were advised that if one makes less than $300K a year you should fill out the forms and check the FA box on the common app.
I never heard that advice before (in terms of the $300K threshold). Our EFC has always ended up above $65K with 2 incomes and $ in savings from the proceeds of the sale of a parents home. (Not our money for real at this point.)
Between 2 kids applying to college, we never have had any surprises. No unexpected financial aid. No merit aid above what was stated on web sites.
The best advice I give to parents is to call schools to confirm info that they themselves have researched.
Kudos to Bates for being so upfront about the financial aid policy. I have been to info sessions where the school makes it sound like we were lying to our kids when we said we probably could not afford to send them there and that we wouldn’t get any $ in aid.
WPI gives “at least $20,000 renewable to valedictorians, salutatorians, and NMF’s” Don’t know more details than that and need to look into it more. Hope this helps for your math/science son.
uskoolfish–If you go back and read the post you are arguing about, she very clearly stated what was scholarship money and what was FA. I found her post to be very helpful, far more helpful than “my child got $15,000”. That tells people nothing.
I don’t care how much FA someone gets because that is not going to be the same for anyone, but for a thread titles schools known for GOOD merit aid, I don’t consider $15,000 from a $60,000 school “good” when other schools are giving $15,000 with a COA of $30,000, not that $15,000 is still $15,000 but is it really “good” vs just “some”.
One LAC Tier 1 school’s been in top 5 on FA and merit aid for the past 5 years. Denison U. They have a healthy endowment and commencing 15 or 20 years ago, when they had a rather dramatic change in residency, Greek policies, and several other policy changes, they determined to invest heavily in top flight students. It seems to be working in transforming the school’s niche.
30 years back, Trinity in Texas andTexas A&M used similar strategies and ironically, back in that day, came under heavy fire. Only problem was it works, i.e. rewarding and “paying” top students to attend, especially when the product is already of high quality and reputation is lagging reality. And there are many many campuses with great reputations that no longer merit the respect they receive. But this one is the proverbial attempting to turn an aircraft carrier in a 10 acre pond. Very difficult and sometimes the water’s too shallow and too short to allow it.
It’s actually very common, which is why a thread like this is needed. Even on CC, many parents and students are under the impression that they earned merit scholarships, when in fact the awards were need-based with a merit component.
There are a ton of threads here for schools with good FA policies. This is one of the few threads that focus on pure merit.
There are a ton of schools that blur the description, and it’s clear that many parents don’t pick up on the distinction - even here on CC.
I’m the parent of a high school sophomore who has undergrad and most likely, graduate school on the horizon. At this juncture, we’re ONLY looking for schools that offer merit aid since our EFC is prohibitive and we are not inclined to take out loans. This thread would be truly helpful if it would stick to schools offering merit aid. Perhaps we should even put together a separate thread of schools that DO NOT OFFER ANY MERiT AID. It’s hard enough with all the editorializing to separate the wheat from the chaff. I really appreciate the efforts of parents who broke down their kids’ financial packages into grant/merit aid categories. For those of us who have this looming on the horizon, it makes it easier for us to eliminate schools where we don’t stand a chance. We’ve explained to our daughter that safety also means “financial safety.” Until kids slave a 40+ hour work week, there is no way we can expect them to understand how many of us have to work to make their college dreams come true.
As a contribution to this thread, I’d like to applaud Case-Western. Case has been mentioned before, but they’re still delivering. They offer scholarships in significant amounts that can really impact their $240K-ish 4-year COA. If you look at their subforum threads, you’ll see awards ranging up to $32,500/year.
Many schools mix in a little bit of merit-based price discounting as a sweetener, perhaps moving a $250K COA to $200K at best. Case really stands out.
Just one more plug for the Kiplinger database. It basically tells you where your kid will get merit money and a good estimate of how much. Just look for a school with a high percentage of kids getting non-need based aid and where your kid is an above average applicant.
Our income was high enough that we knew we would not get any need-based aid. So we did not even submit a FAFSA to any school. Our kid got merit money at all the places we expected.
All the school mentioned on this thread show up on the list – Denison, Tulane, Gonzaga, Oberlin, Santa Clara, Case Western, etc.
northwesty–well, based on the Kiplinger report, it looks like Gustavus in MN is “the best” with 98% of it’s students getting non-need based aid–unless I am reading that wrong. That pretty much means everyone gets non-need based aid, merit or not. WOW. Average award is $12,400 with a COA of $45K.
Case Western comes in at 50% with a similar award size.
You are reading that exactly right. There’s plenty of colleges that have the Lake Wobegon business model – most of the kids get merit scholarships (otherwise known as discounts). Even if you don’t qualify for need FA, you don’t have to pay sticker price.
What was interesting to me was the difference in how somewhat similar schools handle the merit-aid piece. Look, for example, at Denison and Oberlin vs. Kenyon in the LAC database. Pretty comparable schools, all with similarly high sticker prices. But tons of discounts handed out at Denison and Oberlin, and very few at Kenyon. If you are a family that won’t qualify for need FA, Kenyon is going to turn out to be much more expensive than the other two.
