@merc81 sorry, my bad. Somewhere I thought I had seen a reference to Hamilton joining NESCAC when we were looking at soccer programs but I am obviously misremembering!
@Midwestmomofboys : That makes sense. Hamilton, though a charter member of NESCAC, also played a Liberty League schedule for a number of years. When they, relatively recently, fully articulated all their sports with other NESCAC schools, this had the appearance of a âmove toâ NESCAC.
Cooper Union and Olin have completely free tuition, the problem is they are very competitive.
I thought Cooper Union started charging tuition a few years ago. And Iâm not sure Olin is completely free either, is it?
Olin stopped the full tuition scholarship after the 2008 downturn. They now offer a half scholarship, so the COA is about $40k a year. Cooper has also stopped the full tuition scholarship, though I donât know what it is now.
Cooper Union offers half tuition to all and additional need based FA is available:
Starting in the Fall of 2014, all students enrolling for the first time at Cooper Union receive a half-tuition scholarship currently worth $20,400 per year ($10,200 per semester). Additional financial aid is provided to the least fortunate students to help cover tuition, housing, food, books, supplies etc.
Wofford College has great merit scholarships and financial aid for households with a low income! I would check them out if I were you. Parents make < $65,000 a year. Received good merit aid (3.49 W GPA, 24 ACT) - $56,000 over four years and really good financial aid. I am going to be paying only $700 a year to attend Wofford.
I can only comment on what I saw first hand. The schools that gave the most money for my sonâs search were
(and we only looked in the Northeast) Hofstra and St. Johnâs in New York. Susquehana (PA) Fairfield (CT) Quinnipiac (CT), Loyola (MD) My son has a 4.0 weighted GPA, 1930 SAT and 27 ACT and excellent ECs.
Wellesley has a lot of merit aid.
To the best of my knowledge, Wellesley give absolutely no merit. None. Zilch. Nada.
Agree. Wellesley gives financial aid, not merit aid.
I am new to this board and I am new to sending a child off to college. Let me start by saying I went back and read all of the threads in the past year.
I believe that I am looking for merit based aid for our child. Our AGI is 150k and our EFC is 34k. Our daughter is looking for a larger school that does research. We would like her to stay on the west coast (CA UCâs, LMU, Arizona State, University of Arizona). She will be applying as a bio/neuro-bio major. She has a 4.4 weighted GPA and we are waiting for her SAT results.
Can someone give it to me straight about financial aid because the schools she is looking at are not. If our EFC is 34k, I am assuming we will get zero need based financial aid. Does that sound correct? If so, does anyone have any experience with merit based in any of the schools I mentioned?
Thank you in advance for helping a newbie.
i suggest you start a new thread regarding your specific questions on the FA/ or parents forums, as this is an old thread and your post may not get much attention.
Youâd certainly be full pay at the UCs, as their COA is less than your EFC.
The COA at many private schools can be between 60K and 70K; with an EFC of 34K, you would probably get some aid from schools that meet 100% need.
If your D does well on the SAT or ACT, she might also qualify for merit aid. How did she do on her junior year PSAT?
@cycle95928, I too would suggest you start a new thread with your questions in the Financial Aid & Scholarships forum because I think youâll get a lot of good advice and suggestions there.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/
And check this recent thread too because I think it touches on some of the things youâre looking for:
As youâre probably becoming aware, the big merit awards are more common in the south and southwest. And, based on our experience a few years ago, with an EFC of $34,000, if your daughter is competitive for the tippy-top schools, she may very well be eligible for FA that makes your EFC right in line with that $34,000 number if sheâs admitted.
You might want to consider a few school like that too if youâre comfortable with that number. The nice thing with need-based aid (as opposed to merit) is that thereâs no GPA requirement component (aside from not flunking out). Merit awards can have GPA requirements that sometimes force a student to bale on an intended major out of fear of losing a scholarship.
Cycle. You can look up the numbers on each schoolâs common data set on the school website. Or use a database (like Kiplinger) to sort it for you.
But a few quick California examples for you.
At LMU 50% of kids get merit money and the average merit award is $9400. The average need-based financial aid award is $19,400. Sticker price is $60k. So if your kid is the kind of kid that qualifies for an average merit award at LMU, merit money knocks your net price down from $60k to $50k. Then you get an FA award that knocks your net price down to $35k. You pay $35k since that is your EFC.
At USC, 27% of kids get merit money and the average merit award is $19k. Average FA award is $31k. Sticker price is $65k. So your kid might get $19k in merit money knocking the price down to $46k. Then you get another $10k in FA, so you still wind up paying your EFC of $35k.
At Stanford, no one gets merit aid. But the average FA award is $40k. Sticker is $65k. So your kid gets at $30k FA award, no merit award, and you pay your $35k EFC.
As you can see, the merit money game primarily works to lower the net price to people who donât qualify for need-based aid. If your EFC is at the full pay level, getting $10-20k off of the LMU sticker price or the USC sticker price saves you money.
If your EFC is $35k, merit money only helps you if the amount of the merit award by itself is large enough to knock the net price down below $35k. So your kid has to be a strong enough applicant that the kid will get a $40k merit award (which is 4X the LMU average merit award and double the USC average merit award).
Correct: Wellesley is very generous with FA, but does not give merit aid.
Brandeis was quite generous with its merit scholarship.
Dear Parents, I didnât know where to ask this question, so let me know if this is not the proper place to ask this question regarding FAPSA.
My son who just became a Senior in HS in CA will be applying to Global Studies/International Relations/International Studies major and maybe Business Marketing minor. He is fluent in two languages and conversant in two others. We just found out that he surprisingly made the National Merit Semi-finalist cut, so there is a good chance that he will make National Merit Finalist. Therefore, I started doing some research on which colleges have good scholarships (free money) for National Merit Finalists, which led me to this forum. My specific questions are:
- At around what time do I have to fill out FAPSA if he will be attending college next year?
- Also, if he happens to take a gap year after graduating from high school and will not be immediately attending college after graduating from college, should I wait until the year after he graduates from high school to fill out FAPSA?
- Do some parents not fill out FAPSA because they already know due to their income/asset level they will not be getting any financial aid?
- Any other advice you think might be helpful?
@websensation, You may fill out the FAFSA starting in October this year and you may use your 2015 tax returns to do it. I am not sure what the end deadline for getting the FAFSA in is. Probably no later than when you have to commit to a school. We filled it out for D15 even though we knew we would not qualify for needs based aid because some scholarships require it. It turned out that we did not need to fill it out again for sophomore year because all of her scholarships are school based and have no federal govt. money involved. I would err on the side of safety and fill it out unless you have philosophic reasons not to because not filling it out may inadvertently take you out of the competition for some scholarships.
Gap year - Iâd suggest doing everything you need to do to enroll this year because you may miss scholarships if you donât. Usually if a school lets you defer, they also defer your financial aid with it, so you want that lined up.
For NMF scholarships by state and school, look at this list: http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/