University of Oregon gives an automatic $15k/year OOS scholarship for any student with combined 3.9 unweighted GPA and 1450 SATs. The OOS tuition premium relative to in-state is $25,000 so that cuts it down by 60%. They also have lower tier smaller OOS scholarships based on similar formulas.
I don’t know if that is good or not. But it is the most generous OOS scholarship I’m aware of at any of the Pacific Northwest flagship universities.
Hello,
I recently discovered this Scholarship Chart on West Virginia University’s website: https://admissions.wvu.edu/cost-and-aid/scholarship-chart
I was impressed. Out of state tuition is $25,320 and Room and Board is listed at $10,284. Figure out from the chart where your kid may land, and I was pleasantly surprised with the dollar amount. Then I made myself even happier when I subtracted the $5,500 my D would take for her Stafford Loan freshman year.
I did a google search for “scholarship chart” and was surprised to find quite a few helpful results similar to the WVU chart that @Winky1 posted. Be sure to look at the images as well as the regular results.
Here’s a strategy that we used with my D18 a couple of years ago. She applied to the University of Arizona only because she knew from their chart what her OOS merit scholarship would be. It was $30,000 back then. She is at Pitt now, and I know they have stopped using this form, but back then, Pitt had a scholarship appeal form. We are in state for Pitt, and they did give her $5,000 intially. We completed their form outlining Tuition, Room and Board, and Merit from both schools, and the University of Arizona had Pitt beat. Well, Pitt then gave her $10,000 per year after considering her appeal. It is disingenuous in a way, but those automatic merit offers are good negotiating tools with other schools.
nvm
Iowa State and Utah St. have auto merit for OOS students based on stats. It’s always important to keep checking as things change, however.
Our personal experience has been as follows: One kid got full ride at UVA, WUSTL and Tulane - but he choose Stanford. Second son got full ride at Duke and Rice University but he choose Harvard. Second son also got into M & T program in UPenn and but choose not attend. M &T program is not full ride. If you want your kids to get full ride, make sure that they are involved in many activities in leadership position while in High School including politics, writing, math and science club, besides good score and GPA. Start participating in various activities from elementary school.
Rice offers full rides?
@amsunshine yes but it is a combination of merit plus need based aid.
@casinoofny WashU offers full rides? I was under the impression their largest merit scholarship was full tuition?
@CollegeBoundBrit merit plus need based aid in our case
@casinoofny Were any of the other schools you mentioned full rides from a combination of merit scholarships plus need based aid? Since it’s so rare for schools to simply just ‘stack’ merit scholarships on top of existing need based aid and not replace, it would be good to know which few do indeed stack.
Or was it that your kid was invited to the scholarship event, received a full tuition scholarship, but need was calculated to be the full COA so a need based full ride was given, whilst still being named and having the benefits of being a Danforth scholar or whatever other full tuition scholarship it was?
@CollegeBoundBrit My both sons attended the most famous prep boarding schools. Hopefully daughter may be invited to attend to the prep school. We spent money on summer math/science and writing/english enrichment programs starting in elementary schools, through middle school and high school. In college selection, they both were invited to scholarship events. I am not sure how things played out, but both did receive a combination of merit plus need based aid. I am sure stacking was allowed as they have brought lots of $$$$$$ from outside scholarships too. My all three students have received scholarships from elementary schools. We are always hunting for new opportunities for $$$$$ for scholarship. We have found that communication and essays and interview prep are must. Biggest focus is to build good habits from early on.
Did your son get the Jefferson at UVA? It is administered by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, separate from UVA financial services.
Thanks for that. This is very unusual to have need based aid stack with merit. In any event, given this is a thread dedicated to merit aid, let’s make sure to use correct terminology. Stacking need based aid with merit is not a “full ride“.
@amsunshine
A “full ride” simply means all costs are covered, regardless of the type of aid. A combination of need and merit certainly can be a full ride.
@amsunshine Let me say that there are programs that pay tution, books, room, food and other expanses. Program pays on top of that stipend money for summer travel or internships. Despite having choices, our kids just choose different route as they want to be starting their own business and want to meet like minded students. Their college choice was based on this fit rather than name or where they get more scholarship money as they felt that they need to learn from other students and be challenged. We are supporting them in this endeavor the best we can.
@casinoofny Yes, there are programs like that. That is the purpose of this thread. Schools which offer MERIT based scholarships. That is great that your kids received need based aid from Rice and WashU on top of merit scholarships, but many students that don’t qualify for need based aid, like myself, use this thread as an almost encyclopedia of what colleges offer what merit based scholarships. We don’t want anyone under the wrong impression that there are full ride merit scholarships available at schools like Rice and WashU.
That’s great that your sons were able to choose where to go to school without concern for finances. Not everyone has that luxury, hence the purpose of this thread concerning MERIT scholarships.
@dadof2d I think that @amsunshine simply meant that it is not a full ride merit scholarship, considering that this thread is solely for merit scholarships.
@CollegeBoundBrit you summed it better than I could. Thanks
@CollegeBoundBrit my daughter received a full ride merit scholarship at American University. My definition of full ride merit scholarship implies that need is not considered. @casinoofny and @amsunshine I think parents who are reading this thread are looking for merit awards because many of us do not qualify for need based aid. Thank you though for letting us know other options that do exist at different schools. For parents who are looking for other merit based options, I would recommend the Cameron Impact Scholarship and Coolidge Scholarship. These two scholarships in particular offer full tuition scholarships at any university in the country. My daughter was a finalist and I think it helped her receive merit awards from top colleges and universities in her college process.