Schools known for good merit aid

Parents Forum
1541

“His mom says he does have some social challenges”

this confirms my guess that he’s an Aspie- aspies have social challenges and the SMART ones recognize they are having problems early on and tend to withdraw in order to protect themselves from being hurt or rejected by others over and over again.
Thus they are often labeled as “shy” .
The problem with small schools for those who are very bright is they actually need to find other equally bright peers, and smaller schools dont have nearly as many exceptionally smart students as bigger ones.
That’s why I suggested those 3 colleges. They arent massive- all are between 4000-6000 UG’s.
Stanford has hundreds of intermural teams, as well as many competitive Pac12 teams.

1542

Thank you, @menloparkmom. Stanford is on his list as a reach. MIT has been suggested to him. He will most likely apply to both.

1543

ADD CHICAGO!
there are a lot of “Aspie” types there! And their Economics dept is top notch.

1544

“Reach” schools such as Stanford and MIT will NOT give him merit aid, which is what the thread is supposed to be about. There have been a number of threads about automatic tuition scholarships for NMF and/or top ACT scorers that you might want to look at.

1545

^^yes we know that, but if his parents earn less than 100K then he will have great FA packages IF he gets into MIT or Stanford. And with his stats

Stats: GPA - 4.5
5’s on 3 SAT subj tests
36 on ACT
National Merit finalist (or semi, I’ve forgotten)

he has a better chance of acceptance than most.

1546

NVM

1547

@RedbirdDad my son is enrolled there and it has been a wonderful experience for him. There is a ton of school spirit and the kids go to lots of sporting events - even the less popular ones like volleyball. There are plenty of parties, but it is not a party school, and there are always multiple options beside parties. My son was placed with extremely compatible roommates - and three of the six suitemates are international. The facilities are immaculate and extremely well-maintained, so the point where practically everything looks new, even though some of the buildings are fairly old. PM me if you have specific questions.

1548

Please let this thread get back to MERIT AID not financial aid. Merit aid is given to high stats students regardless of their need for financial aid (i.e., kids that would otherwise have to be full pay). This is not the case for a kid whose parents earn less than 100K. Depending on the family assets, they will get financial aid at many elite institutions.

If you want to discuss anything other than merit aid, please start another thread - if you are looking for financial aid, there is a financial aid forum for that purpose.

1549

My post is intended to seek merit aid for this student. I merely added the parent’s salary to give a more complete picture of the student’s situation. Anyway, he is not interested in applying to any of the ivies and is looking for schools that would offer merit money.

1550

“(i.e., kids that would otherwise have to be full pay)”
LoveTheBard- there are LOTS of hi stat kids whose parents arent poverty stricken but who CANT afford to shell out 60 k + R+B per year for college. Many of those students may qualify for BOTH FA and Merit aid.
stop trying to draw an all-or-nothing line in the sand regarding who can ask questions or make comments on this thread.
your’e not a moderator.

1551

I never claimed to be a moderator, just someone that has been following this thread that – until this recent hijack – has been about merit aid.

If you go back to the start of the thread and follow through, you will find that this has been case from the beginning. The schools you recommended do NOT give merit to anyone - whether or not they qualify for FA. I was just trying to get the thread back on topic as I would venture a guess that most of the people following the thread care about merit.

And need I remind you that you aren’t a moderator either?

1552

This thread was not started to ask about ONLY full tuition merit scholarships.
Many hi stat student and their parents care about their bottom line-reducing the cost of going to college, which can be achieved by either merit and/ or FA. That is why top students from middle income families should apply for both FA and merit scholarships- FA at Stanford can often amount to more $$ than a 1/2 tuition merit scholarship at USC. I was addressing a student who has the stats to get into a lot of U’s that offer great FA packages. As well as the stats to earn merit scholarships.
What you need to recognize is there is more than 1 way to skin a cat. We did- DS won a full tuition scholarship at a great U, but also was awarded FA worth 1/2 tuition at Pomona, Dartmouth and Brown.
Stick around you may learn a lot from old timers like me who have been helping students to with BOTH merit $$ and FA for 9 years.
or not…

1553

you don’t get the point @menloparkmom. Brown and Dartmouth do not give merit aid, period. So when you bring them up in merit aid school discussions, it gives folks that don’t quality for FA the sense there is a change for merit aid there -when there is not. There are so many threads that go into FA packages (exclusively or combined with merit). It would be great to have a thread that only discusses schools that are an option for kids that don’t quality for FA - but need merit aid to make ends meet. Stanford, Dartmouth, Brown, etc… do not fit that criteria.

1554

I don’t think it’s unreasonable, once every thirty pages or so of this thread, for the fact to come up that some people might be underestimating the need-based FA that they might also have available, and then back to merit aid. Not everyone on CC has become a scholar of the process as I know many of you are! My guess is that some people are attracted to this thread by searching for merit aid, but who don’t know yet about EFCs. It’s also a very useful reminder that in fact Brown, Dartmouth, etc. do NOT give merit aid, because myths abound about that, as well, in the larger world.

1555

I really like that this thread focuses on MERIT, not need based aid. Just wanted to support @LoveTheBard and @suzyQ7 on this.

1556

^^And what you dont get or want others to know apparently is that to colleges- $$ is $$.
And families that need $$ to help pay for college may appreciate that there IS lots of $$ that can be found, in various configurations- FA and Merit- from lots of colleges.
but please, by all means continue to ignore the advise of those who have already been through the process of hunting for $$…
:open_mouth:

1557

We were looking for Merit aid for our D15 because she wanted to go to a small LAC and we could not justify $50-60K per year. D is a high stats kid and was a NMF. She wanted to be in the west, but not California, and the list of schools in the west is pretty small. She also was not interested in applying to any Ivies. We found that she got about half tuition scholarships at most of the schools she applied to (except Whitman and Colorado College which are needs based only). She applied to a few schools in the southeast because a friend’s older sister loved Davidson College. We found that about 5 of the schools on her list had merit-based competitive full tuition or full ride scholarships she could apply to. Some she had to be nominated for and some were automatic. She did her job and was invited to compete for two of the scholarships. So they are out there. Some top 20 schools offer them (Davidson College, Washington and Lee University for examples), but I’d say merit aid is mainly in the tier 2 schools and you have to look for the opportunities. I’d also say that in our experience, the schools near home were not as interested in her as the schools farther away. I think she added diversity to the far away schools and not the schools closer to home.

1558

Thanks for your concern @menloparkmom , but I think we’ll do just fine. And thanks to the rest of you who also wanted the thread back on track.

@mtrosemom - You’re probably right about the geographic diversity thing…and it’s true that it’s slim pickings for merit on the west coast beyond the usual suspects (e.g., USC, Occidental, Evergreen State). I think Whitman has a couple of merit-only scholarships these days. but they are not particularly generous. I just found this on their website:

Students who wish to be considered for the following scholarships need only apply for admission to Whitman:

Whitman awards renewable, four-year merit-based scholarships, ranging from $5,000 to $14,000 to entering students who have excelled academically. The full scholarship amount is dependent upon full-time enrollment. If a student is not enrolled full-time, their merit scholarship will be pro-rated based on how many credits the student is taking.

Whitman National Merit finalists receive either a $2,000 annual scholarship if they demonstrate need or a $1,000 annual scholarship if they do not demonstrate need.

Colorado is not specific about amounts (which means it’s low), but they have a bit of merit:

Merit Aid (Leadership, Trustee, Presidential) is awarded through the Admission Committee. All applicants are considered for Merit Aid and no additional application is required. For the class of 2018, 10% of the incoming class received some form of Merit Aid.

(According to Collegedata, 37 (7.3%) of freshmen had no financial need and received merit aid, average amount $8,224…not too generous, given the cost).

1559

Hi all - I just came upon a Washington Post listing of schools that give non-need based merit aid (described by WashPo as “College Grants for the Affluent”). It is based on 2013-2014 Common Data Set info for schools that answered the Post survey (according to the article, some schools, such as Univ. of Chicago and Columbia, did not submit data). This is similar to a listing I had seen a while back in the NY Times, but has more recent data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/local/college-grants-for-the-affluent/1526/

1560

Oh dear, my husband just spent the past day & a half looking up Common Data Sets for all the schools on our son’t list and doing just what this Washington Post article does. Oops, sorry, honey!