<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/a-rise-in-students-receiving-merit-awards.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/a-rise-in-students-receiving-merit-awards.html</a>
[url=<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/reports/best-college-values/]Kiplinger.com[/url”>College Rankings | Kiplinger]Kiplinger.com[/url</a>]
Happy hunting.
^^
Not sure what you’re saying. Can you clarify?
Hi everyone,
I wanted to throw my D’s hat into the ring for guidance.
She has a 3.7uw, 3.85 w GPA at the end of her jr year. Has taken 2 APs so far (3 tests: 4,4,5) and will be taking 3 AP classes next year (4 tests.) Her school offers 9 AP classes.
SAT 1930.
She has good ECs and decent leadership. Her strength is in volunteer work and service: will have gone on MANY mission trips including 2 out of the country and has an internship in her field of interest (social work/sociology/psych) as well as many other volunteer activities.
Should have good recs.
We will not qualifying for need based aid but since we have two more kids who will need college educations plus a retirement to fund, we will be looking for merit aid.
This is her list as it stands right now:
Vandy (just for fun as we are grads- financially do not expect this to be feasible.)
CWRU
0hio Wesleyan
St Mary’s C0llege of MD
Denis0n
Furman
Maybe W00ster
James Madis0n
University of Mary Washingt0n
Where do you think she stands in terms of merit aid from these schools?
Our goal is to be within 20-35k/yr.
Are there other schools you think she should consider?
Thanks so much!!
Think about Tulane. They offer scholarships on a first come first service basis. So you need to apply asap. They love people who are very involved with community service and are one of the few schools who require 20 hours of service in order to graduate.
Merit scholarships are often highly tied to test scores and GPA. ECs might play a part in competitve awards for the down-selecting process, but high stats is often the primary component for awards.
What is her Math + CR SAT? That is what’s often used for merit scholarships.
For Tulane, I think her M+CR needs to be over 1400 to be considered for any significant merit scholarships.
I’m guessing that her M+CR is around a 1300??? That’s not high enough for significant merit at many of the schools that you’re listing.
For instance, at Furman, the upper quartile of the school has a 1360+…so if that school awards significant merit to its best applicants, then it might take a 1400+ to snag a good sized one.
If you’re looking to spend around $20k-35k per year, then that means needing significant merit at schools that are now costing up to $60k per year. You almost need full tuition scholarships…or at least 2/3 tuition scholarships.
Look at each schools’ scholarship pages to see if they offer merit scholarship and what the req’ts are. Some schools’ merit is competitive, some merit is assured for stats.
Also, at the schools that do give generous scholarships to a good number of students, look at the upper quartile M+CR scores. For your D to get significant merit, her M+CR should be well-within the top quartile.
Also, look at these threads…
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic+scholarships[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic+scholarships</a>
Have your d retake the SAT and also take the ACT. I realize that Vandy maybe too expensive, but to get an acceptance, her SAT likely needs to be at least a 2150+.
Besides the advice on these threads, the graphics with the NY Times story are the best tools I’ve seen for finding the most generous schools for merit aid:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/a-rise-in-students-receiving-merit-awards.html?ref=education[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/a-rise-in-students-receiving-merit-awards.html?ref=education</a>
Click on the graphic link to the left of the story and you can can sort each column and see which of the more than 600 schools offer merit aid to the highest percentage of freshmen or give the highest average awards.
It’s also worth checking the Education Life section in the Sunday paper for another graphic that filters out most of the small schools and lists the top 100 merit-aid schools that have at least 2,000 undergraduates, give awards to at least 10% of freshmen and provide average amounts of at least $5,000.
Thanks for the advice! It looks like more research may be in order. 
Vandygrad: I can comment on two of your schools. First, JMU has a very low out of state cost ($35K range) so you would not need as much merit aid there. Second, this past year it seemed CWRU was giving out $10- $15K merit aid to students who might be comparable to your child’s numbers. I think the most they give is $27.5k per year, but that is for much higher stats. I also bet Denison and Wooster would provide some merit aid in the $10k range, but that is more anecdoctal than what I know about CWRU from this past year and is not going to get you down to the desired cost.
Vandygrad-I can only comment on Univ. of Mary Washington but I can say there will be nothing, nada, nil, squat from them. Girls are a dime a dozen there and unless you are URM there is no joy financially.
Thanks for the info, all! The search continues…
Just got a postcard in the mail from Miami University of Ohio about their OOS scholarship awards. Apply by Dec. 1 and it sounds like you will get one of these scholarships if you have the stats. They also want “rigorous coursework” in addition to the GPA/SAT/ACT. The campus looks pretty on the postcard. They are located in Oxford, Ohio.
ACT/SAT (cr+m)
32+/1400+ w/3.7 GPA $57,300-114,500 (half to full tuition per year)
29-31/1290-1390 w/3.7 GPA $24,000-48,000 ($6,000 - $8,000 per year)
27-28/1210-1280 w/3.7 GPA $16,000-$32,000 ($4,000 - $8,000 per year)
26/1170-1200 w/3.7 GPA $2000-$16,000 (up to $4000 per year)
Merit money for DS,
NEU, full tuition+$6k co-op grant
Case Western, $27k/yr
Tulane, $25k/yr
URochester, $17k/yr
UMaryland, $8k/yr
Brandeis, $10k/yr
mom5i52,
Re: Brandeis—did your D quailify for any financial aid? In other words, was your efc above the cost of Brandeis or below? My understanding after attending an info session was that they discontinued virtually all merit aid without need last year.
D was accepted by another school ED so D never applied, but I was curious since older D had rec’d $15 K in merit that does not seem to be available anymore.
Thanks!
uskoolfish,
You could find more info in Brandeis Forum. It was a big surprise for us too. This year less than 3% of students received merit awards. Brandeis held a special reception for the students and families, which was very nice. I haven’t heard anyone received more than 10k this year.
well that’s a big surprise! Congratulations!
I checked the Brandeis forum and it seems that they gave out Presidential Scholarships for $10K each. When my D was accepted 4 years ago, the Presidential winners were at $25K+. She rec’d a lower award (Dean’s sholarship) for $15K.
So certainly a big reduction in what they awarded as merit and to whom, but based on what they said at the info session, I expected virtually no merit at all.
One of the articles written last year about the change in policy spoke of how awarding top merit did not necessarily bring into the school the students they wanted.
So maybe, they purposefully wanted to turn off those who were only there to collect merit awards, but not attend. (I’ll admit that D went to NYU instead as did another student from her school who gave up a full merit scholarship to attend Stern.)
I would say Brandeis is rising, so it doesn’t have to offer big $$$ to attract good students.
NEU and CWRU are rising too.
CWRU is over-enrolled this year and didn’t use waitlist. It had 50% out of state students before, but it jumped to 75% OOS for class 2016. Both Engineering school and healthcare education are very good. It offered merit scholarships to many students and minimum GPA requirement is only 2.0! You will never lose it!
CWRU is an excellent place to look for merit aid. According to 2011-2012 CDS, out of 283 freshmen with no need, 167 received merit aid (59%) in an average amount of $18,355.
I second CWRU. My own kid got huge Merit there 5 y ago though. She ended up choosing another UG. But if she has chosen Case, our balance to pay was only $5k for 4 years, not bad at all for private school.
It’s not whether or not Brandeis is rising or a good school. I would have been happy if either of my D’s attended. But I do think that merit aid was being used to try to lure tippy top (ivy) candidates to the school. And it wasn’t really working. (At least this is what a spokesman for Brandeis published.) So a lot of that money was being awarded but not used. If instead you award the merit to the top students who will more than likely actually attend, then the money is being used to those student’s benefit.
Older D was probably awarded the Dean’s scholarship because of her leadership and involvement in musical theatre and acappella. She went to an audition-based musical theatre program at NYU instead. So although she wasn’t ivy claiber, I do think they felt her talent was very strong and hoped that the scholarship would seal the deal.
St. Ambrose, Davenport, IA. COA is $35,000, automatic merit aid for test scores. ACT 30+ is $20,000 and down from there. 26 or above gets $14,000. Strong focus on science and fine arts at this school. 10 students awarded full tuition scholarships with 31+ ACT as bottom qualifying but this is a competitive scholarship, the rest are automatic.