I guess what I should say is that the trend in many schools is to give less money to people without need and to try to come as close as possible to meeting need for top students who qualify for financial aid. My older D was class of 2012 and my younger D class of 2016. In that time period several of the schools both D’s were interested in eliminated merit aid (Brandeis, F & M) and several more lowered the amount of awards for merit aid. (GW and American.) Again, I am talking about true merit aid…awarded even though a student’s EFC may be above the cost of attendance
I think there are many top 50 schools that give merit aid, especially those in the 30 to 55 range that are looking to attract the top students of their future class and subsequently move up the rankings. They give both merit and then financial to make up the difference; some gap and some don’t. Additionally, there aren’t too many families out there that can afford 60K a year, especially when there are multiple children involved. Both my children received 20K merit awards plus FA as well. I like the merit aid because it is constant. The FA can change year to year and is the source of some anxiety for us!
As we get closer to awards being received, I can not stress enough that if a school does not provide enough aid for your child to attend, CALL THEM and tell them you need more money. Some will listen and some won’t. My daughter’s package to her first choice school was improved immensely with that call (to both the merit office and the FA office) and that is where she is today.
geogirl–helpful post. what school is your daughter at?
My DD is a freshman at the U of Rochester. We called after she had been accepted, they responded, and very nicely, I might add. My DS is a soph at the U of Miami. They did give him a bit of FA aid when we called prior to him accepting their offer. However, they did not increase our FA his second year, even though his sister started college that year. We thought we would get a bit of a bump up in FA. That is why I like merit aid, as it is gaurenteed for 4 years. FA fluctuates based on your EFC and doesn’t always increase even though school tutition and COL increases.
Just a reminder for folks joining the thread…merit aid is ONLY given because a school thinks you will not enroll at full price. That is the point: to lure you away from the competitors that you will otherwise find more attractive. So a student will almost never get merit aid at a school that is an admissions reach. Yes, some students will get merit at schools like Duke and Chicago that are technically reaches for everyone; however, the students who get the merit are those who also get into HYPSM, and Duke is trying to pull them away. Meanwhile, W&L is offering merit to pull its top admits away from Duke; Elon is offering merit to pull its top admits away from W&L; etc. etc.
^^
“So a student will almost never get merit aid at a school that is an admissions reach.”
and will almost never get mariit aid at a school that is an admissions match…unless you have some other big hook that the school wants (art talent, ethnic diversity, regional diversity).
I’m often surprised that people think that if a school accepted you, then they’ll want you enough to give you merit scholarship money. no.
And again, remember that “merit” aid that is given to someone who also qualifies for financial aid is not necessarily true merit aid. (As in the case of Geogirl1’s D’s.) The merit money she is referring to may or may not be available to students without need. Her children qualified for financial aid, so it is unclear. Rochester does give pure merit aid, but the same exact award and the same quantity ($20K) may not be available to those without financial need. From what I remember for kids who were accepted at Rochester without need, merit aid was generally not as high as $20K a year in recent years.
^^ Just visited the Rochester site. Seems that they do clearly delineate between merit aid and financial aid. Many schools do not. So a merit scholarship from Rochester is given out by admissions without any need criteria, whereas financial aid is separately handled by the financial aid office They spell it out clearly, so kudos to them! But what I commented above, is true for many schools.
In many schools, especially those in the top 30to 55 of USNWR rankings, the Admissions Office determines Merit Awards and the Office of Financial Aid determines FA. They don’t talk to one another till the very end, when you go and ask for more $$. Merit is not FA. Merit is given to students that a college wants to entice to come there and is not financially driven; although it will “count” towards meeting your financial need. Merit Aid is more likely when your SAT/ACT scores are at or above the top 75% of students in the school. Look at the common data set section C9 of the specific school you are investigating to determine where you fit within their student body.
I think this question of where to go and how much is “worth” it to pay is student and family dependent. I think there is a big difference whether a student is looking at a top 15 university, a top 50 university or a small LAC college. I think a student’s potential major makes a large difference as well. However, this thread is about schools known for giving good merit aid. There are schools that are generous and by generous I mean they give 16K, 20K and 24K. WIth schools sitting at about a 60K A YEAR price tag these days, 24K is a lot, and not a lot of money all at the same time. Like I said, up thread, I don’t know too many families that can afford 60K a year, especially when there are multiple children involved. So, every family has to figure out what they can do and where they draw the line and say, “no, not worth it for us”.
Geogirl1…In many schools the distribution of money is not like you’ve described. Just look at the common data set to understand what I mean. If a student is qualified for need whatever $ they get from the school is lumped together and is considered financial aid if there is need. There are only two categories on the common data set: need based aid and non-need based aid. It really doesn’t matter what the school calls the $ given. Some call it a scholarship, some merit aid, some financial aid. But if the $ goes to a student with need it is need-based aid. Now what many schools do is that they will add more money to the package if they really want a student. So the gap between determined need will be less or even non-existent. And in some cases the merit money that a student gets may not have a financial consideration. So a school may give a certain sum to all students who score over 1350 on the SAT. But the issue is that for many schools to get any $ you need to have need. Or the merit money given to non-need based students is a smaller amount of money to fewer students. The way to see this is to go to the common data set and see what is listed for schools under non-need based aid. There it shows merit awards and athletic award averages that have no financial need component and have been given to students without need.
NYU where I have one current student and one graduate is an example of this. The financial aid department will come up with a package based on recommendations from admissions. Students they want are given awards that total more. They are called scholarships and merit awards with various names (for academics, talent, leadership etc.), but are only available to students with need. Additionally the departments of art, film, and music have money that they can give out as talent merit aid money without need. But it is only given out to regular decision students.
So my older daughter got a merit award for $10K for talent from the music department. Younger daughter wasn’t considered for any merit aid because she applied ED1.
Uskoolfish, I understand what you are saying and I agree with you, but I think you are talking about a narrow band of schools and you think you are talking about most schools. I have found that in many schools, the merit is awarded as part of the admission process, and it is awarded based on SAT score/GPA. That is what this thread is about; what schools are good at awarding merit aid. Merit, because some families don’t qualify for FA and other families are trying maximize their total aid (FA and Merit) to meet full need (or as close as they can get). Merit first, then the FA is awarded based on the school’s policies. NYU is known not to award good merit aid and bad FA as well. Additionally, the Ivies and “close to Ivies” have started awarding FA only. You are correct, they call it many things, but it is their form of meeting FA. However, MANY schools, especially those in the top 30 to 55 schools (and many ranked below that) do award merit as part of their acceptance packages, not tied to financial need. Of course, that merit is counted towards any FA package, but it is a stable number parents can count on every year.
I think what parents who are just starting this journey can gain from all of this is cast a wide net, know what you can and can not do as a family financially, and choose schools that meet your needs. “Reach” schools are schools that you may not be able to afford, even if you gain admission. When developing a student’s list of schools to apply, safety and match schools are schools that you can afford as well as be admitted. This thread gives great examples of schools that do award merit, exclusive of financial need, including; Tulane, Rice, U Miami, U Rochester and others mentione “up thread”.
S’12 was offered both merit and need-based aid from his schools. Merit awards always came with admission letters (before we even filed FAFSA), need-based awards (whether grants or loans or work study) came with his FA letter in March or April 1. I assume if we’d had no need at all the merit offered with admission would have been it.
When the FA letter came, it did include the merit aid, I assume his need-based grants were reduced by those amounts. I am not sure what his awards would have been without the merit aid.
Another factor is athletic aid. At least in our case, my daughter can receive athletic aid and merit aid, but no need based aid. She can receive merit aid because it is available to all students on an objective basis, whereas need aid is subjective and the NCAA requires the school to count that as athletic aid, thus reducing the amount available to the team.
Our merit aid was presented by the FA office (in a letter), but granted by the admissions office, as I learned when I called to ask a question and was passed from office to office until the right office was located.
Our son just received an acceptance letter from Univ of Rochester, priority review. No mention of merit aid. Rochester was a reach for him. I think we will still call the Univ & ask about merit aid, what can we lose, right?
Sometimes the scholarship offer comes a week or so after the admission letter – worth checking the Rochester forum to see what the usual timing is for them.
Our son just received an acceptance letter from Univ of Rochester, priority review. No mention of merit aid. Rochester was a reach for him. I think we will still call the Univ & ask about merit aid, what can we lose, right?"
no harm in asking. But I wonder…why would you expect merit scholarships from a school that was a reach? Are his test scores within the top 25% of the school? It will be fabulous if he gets some merit. 
My son was accepted five years ago at the U. of Rochester. He received an offer of about $33K a year in scholarship and grant monies. I do not know if having a dad who was a U or R grad helped but it certainly did not hurt. My son was a National Merit kid, too, so maybe that helped with the scholarship offer.
If you want the best merit aid package, apply to schools where you are above the 75% level. My D got the best package from the school where she was just at, or slightly below the 75% level. Sill leaves us with about $25K/year to fund out-of-pocket w/o any loans. I can swing that first year, but subsequent years she may have to take out some Stafford unsub loans. So bottom line is if you want to reduce what you have to pay out-of-pocket or don’t want excessive debt then apply to those schools. She also applie to a match school (Catholic University) and only got a paltry $12K/year in merit and they added the $5500 unsub loan into that. With their COA and if she took the loan I would still have to come up with over $30K/year…not an option for me.
Carnegie Mellon
<a href=“http://www.cmu.edu/finaid/scholarships/university.html”>http://www.cmu.edu/finaid/scholarships/university.html</a>
What is the point of filling out the FAFSA? Is this to minimize the size of the merit grant if the school thinks you are too affluent?
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