What outside scholarships did he get?
@ambkeegan - Vandy has three full tuition institutional scholarships that require additional applications. According to the website:
âEach year Vanderbilt awards merit-based scholarships to applicants who demonstrate exceptional accomplishment and intellectual promise. These students represent the top 1 percent of all freshman applicants to Vanderbilt, and with the limited number of merit scholarships available, the selection process is very competitive.â
Specifically, three signature scholarship programs are: 1) The Ingram offers full tuition plus stipends and is based principally on dedication to community service; 2) The Cornelius Vanderbilt offers full tuition and a one-time summer stipend designed âunder the aegis of a coordinated and cohesive scholarship;â 3) The Chancellorâs offers full tuition and a summer stipend, and is designed to ârecognize students with outstanding leadership, strength of character, academic achievement, and a deep-seated commitment to diversity.â
These scholarships require more than just high stats â those are a given.
My D17 received two of the three scholarships â the Chancellorâs and the Cornelius Vanderbilt. They unfortunately donât stack, so she would only get one full tuition award and stipend. She turned them both down and is attending Stanford.
Since weâre listing results, here are Dâs merit-only scholarships:
Vanderbilt - 2 full tuition scholarships as described above
Wash U - 2 full tuition scholarships
USC (California) - full tuition
U Chicago - ca. $17K per year
Grinnell - full tuition
Kenyon - full tuition
Rice - $26K per year plus a $4K research stipend for 2 years
Bryn Mawr - $30K (maybe 33K??) per year
Scripps - $27K (maybe $26K or $28K - I donât recall exactly
Duke - $1K (really?? but was also a semi-finalist for the Robertson
Davidson - $25K (but was also a finalist for the Belk full ride)
Some of the UCs offered Regents and maybe one might have offered for her to compete for a ChancellorsâŠI no longer recall.
She had great stats (1580 SAT; 35 ACT; 4.7 weighted GPA); 8 APs, solid ECs, amazing recs, and wrote killer essays. She also got into HYP and, as mentioned earlier, S.
I feel like it would be more helpful to future families if folks listed the final cost of attendance for the family after any merit awards applied.
While a merit of award of $25,000 sounds like a lot, if the total COA is $65,000, it may leave a final price beyond a lot of families. OTOH, if the full COA is $30,000, $25,000 likely makes it doable, as a Stafford loan could cover the balance.
@cag60093 Northwestern does not give merit aid. If you received a scholarship from them, it was based on need.
@homerdog You are correct. I reviewed the award letter and itâs listed as need-based, but also listed as various scholarship in the breakdown section. I assumed it was the latter, but need-based award makes sense. The other schools did not offer any need-based aid.
@LoveTheBard Did your child receive awards from Stanford as well? I didnât see anything listed which is why I ask. An impressive list of awards for sure! You must be very proud!!!
Stanford, like HYP, does not award merit scholarships.
Stanford doesnât have merit aid but their finaid is stellar. Now if you make 100K or less its full tuition and room and board and if you are 125K to 101K its full tuition. Then if you make more than 125k its a portion of the the COA.
Tulane has fantastic merit aid. Its on a rolling basis. So the faster you get your applicAtion in the easier it is to get money.
Loyola MD, Loyola Chicago, Loyola Marymount all give high 20âs to low 30âs per year
George Washington also gives out upper 20kâs
Congrats AGAIN on all your Ds accomplishments.
I have a question about the 2 full tuition WashU scholarships your D was awarded.
My D17 received a full tuition Rodriguez scholarship and I had the opportunity to meet with several people from the office of scholarships and admissions and was told that even when students apply to several scholarships they only receive one full tuition scholarship.
Is there one I donât know about?
Good question, @Cubanmom3 â @LoveTheBard
I get the impression by following the Parents of 2017 kids that @LoveTheBardâs kid is truly exceptional and should not be the bar for others against which to compare their kids.
@homerdog
Also, they assume your house is worth a certain amount; when I ran the calculator I think it was higher than just about every other private school I looked at. I called and verified with their financial aid office that they had calculated that our house was worth way more than it was, based on some program they use that assumes yearly appreciation at a certain rate. Unfortunately, our house has not appreciated at all in 20 years :(.
Overall, they more heavily count your home value than most other schools. I sarcastically asked the financial aid person if they expect people to sell off their homes. Although he avoided answering, I do think the answer is yes.
â@cag60093 Northwestern does not give merit aid. If you received a scholarship from them, it was based on need.â
Was reading through this thread (son number two is a junior in hs so we are thinking a lot about money). We started having the money talk with our kids in 9th grade. They understand it is the last piece of the admissions puzzle. I created a spreadsheet that lists the cost of attending (gross price), then any aid, and then a net price. I then have a final column that multiples that by 4 years. (I didnât try to estimate the increase for this purpose.) For my oldest, it was eye opening. That $10K was suddenly $40K which seemed even larger to him. Note that this spreadsheet also included all of his criteria (e.g, in a city, good economics program, good running program, etc.). It was incredibly helpful.
@swimmingdad for cost on your spreadsheet I hope you include cost of transportation and cost of living in different places when looking at the money picture.
@Atyraulove - I only listed merit aid awards. My D got a small amount of FA from HYP and S, but a drop in the bucket compared to the COA.
@Cubanmom3. @rerunagain - The maximum amount of merit that Wash U offers is full tuition. You can, in some cases, be awarded more than one full tuition scholarship, but they donât stack, so you still end up with full tuition. Vandy does similarly with their ânamedâ scholarships (my daughter got both the Chancellorâs and the Cornelius Vanderbilt).
Wash U.'s university-wide named scholarships (e.g., Rodriguez, Ervin, Danforth) can be âcombinedâ with with school-specific scholarships Honorary Scholarships (e.g., Lien for Social Science; Moog for Biological Sciences; Mylonas for Humanities; Compton for Physical Sciences) or they can be combined with scholarships in the Arts (Conway/Proetz), writing (Nemerov), etc. Again, the maximum you can get is full tuition (sometimes with a stipend, as is the case with the Rodriguez, which offers a $2,500 stipend). All of these scholarships require separate applications and finalists need to go to campus for a few days for interviews, etc. (If youâre being considered for more than one scholarship, your time is split between/among them.)
This is what WashU says about the Rodriguez:
Multiple full-tuition scholarships with $2,500 stipends; Multiple partial-tuition scholarships
Rodriguez applicants may apply for other Academic Scholarship & Fellowship Programs that match their interests.
@3scoutsmom I actually created my own "student budget"beyond what the schools said. For instance, some schools had a student spending less than $50 per monthâŠwhich means a kid couldnât meet their coffee and pizza budget let alone beer. 
My DD picked up $32k from Hofstra but the balance is still way too high, she is negotiating.
She has been awarded Tuition and housing for 8 semesters at University Alabama Huntsville.
34 ACT
4.76 Weighted
IB course with some AP thrown in.
"She has been awarded Tuition and housing for 8 semesters at University Alabama Huntsville.
34 ACT
4.76 Weighted
IB course with some AP thrown in. "
Congratulations!!!
DD just got a very nice merit award from Arizona State. It covers most of tuition, but no housing.
Does University of Arizona give merit aid scholarships? Or University of Miami? My daughter is interested in these schools, she will be an out of state student.