<p>The Common Data Set, section H2A, clearly distinguishes between athletic scholarships and other non-need-based aid. The figures I cited above for UVa were for non-need-based aid excluding athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>For those of you who aren’t familiar with the “Common Data Set”, it is a file that presents (in a standardized format) all sorts of statistics about a school’s demographics, admissions, financial aid, class sizes, degrees conferred by major/field, etc. If you Google for [school name] + “Common Data Set”, you can find and download CDS files for most major colleges and universities. Section H2A presents statistics on non-need-based aid (broken down for non-athletic and athletic scholarships).</p>
<p>In current figures (might have been different at the time you’re describing), it looks like 25K from GW still wouldn’t bring the COA down to the UT-Austin in-state COA, though.</p>
<p>Pugmadkate, my friend was in the same situation with her girls. They got merit and financial aid from their privates but the cost ended up still a little less at their in state schools that offered token merit.</p>
<p>Considering the fact that there are ~4000 colleges in the country, I do not understand the real point of this thread. If you are lucky, you can get responses back for ~100 schools (if you are lucky). This leaves over 3800 schools on the table.</p>
<p>I would recommend that you narrow the question down a bit as to what specifically are you looking for. If you can hone in and give a little more information, you can probably receive some useful answers.</p>
<p>Large research university /Small liberal arts college/single sex school
Urban/Suburban/Rural
close to home or great distance
cold weather/warm weather/beach/mountains
East coast/west coast/ north/south/midwest</p>
<p>While there are plenty of schools that do offer merit, not every student who is eligible for merit is going to receive merit.</p>
<p>Schools that meet 100% demonstrated need with large amounts of institutional aid, are very competitive as far as admissions is concerned. What exactly would be the point of this thread to list schools that only give need based aid to find out that you may not be a viable candidate.</p>
<p>Not the OP here, but I know we didn’t want to waste time considering no merit aid schools (high stats kid), so having a list of those who don’t provide merit aid would be quite useful instead of having to check each school individually.</p>
<p>Some like prestige - it’s easy to find that on several different top whatever lists. It’s harder to find options for decent values/costs if one doesn’t want to pay a ton and has a kid who has worked hard to get top stats. I’m glad many top stat kids choose non-merit aid schools - makes the competition less (though it’s still very high as we’re not the only ones who value cost over perceived prestige). ;)</p>
<p>S was very surprised to get $10,000 merit offer from U of Chicago. They even contacted us in January to confirm that we would not be seeking need based aid. While the aid made the choice a little harder, in the end he is going elsewhere.</p>
<p>sybbie 719, OP here. Creekland got it right. There is a thread called Schools that Offer Merit Aid and it has gotten clogged up with too many posts from parents touting need-based aid. My family is not willing to invest $50-$60K a year for a school that does not offer merit aid and our EFC, like many families, eliminates need-based aid. I’m pretty confident that my D will qualify for merit aid. Like many, I already know that the Ivies don’t provide merit aid and a lot of state schools do not either. But like you said, there are thousands of schools and it’s nice to not spend a lot of time on the Colgates of the world that simply won’t work for our family. For example, I had heard that Franklin & Marshall had offered merit aid in the past and has just recently eliminated it. That’s too bad because it sounded like it would have been a good fit for D. But not at $50K a year so it goes off the list.</p>
<p>^ IMO there is a much easier approach. Have your child research schools ignoring merit aid … if a school look very interesting have him/her send a quick email to admissions asking about merit aid (or look on-line at the school’s web-site for the answer). The answer will be up to date … and no possibility of unintentional misinformation from a CC poster.</p>
<p>Agree with sybbie and 3togo. Use google to search the college websites for merit aid. For example, </p>
<p>merit aid site:rice.edu</p>
<p>will bring up links to merit aid at Rice. If you get no likely-looking hits, then that’s your answer. Faster than emailing the admissions office. </p>
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<p>The problem is that the lists go out of date quickly, and you’ve got to double-check them anyway. D1 was an NMSF/F, and even keilexandra’s excellent NMF scholarships thread required updating from forum participants to monitor changes in policy. </p>
<p>Even if a school has merit aid, it might have just a smidgeon (e.g. Tufts, which does offer $2k to NMFs), or it might just be a handful of highly-contested scholarships (e.g. U Chicago and Duke).</p>
<p>There will never be a static list of good or bad merit schools because schools change their policies! [ul][<em>]Schools that previously offered good merit decide to quit, usually in favor of boosting their FA. Sometimes, the motivation is purely philosophical; other times, such as in recent years, the economy is a compelling factor (as students financial needs grow yet college investment and development funds slump).[</em>]Schools that previously offered bad merit may start dangling merit to attract students with top stats. As emeraldkity4 explained above, these emerging schools hope to use their students high academic profiles to boost their rankings and otherwise further institutional goals.[/ul]
Because the status of merit is so dynamic, I think it is preferable to keep CC discussion in one place to reliably capture all of the communitys knowledge and good advice and, importantly, prevent incomplete, inconsistent and even inaccurate reporting over two threads. The tip on the handy Kiplinger tool is a perfect exampleif I hadnt brought it to this thread, it wouldnt be a part of the knowledge base in the no merit discussion. </p>
<p>Besides, no one has articulated a compelling rationale for maintaining a separate no merit list. Convenience of not having to look at individual college websites is not a good reason, nor is avoiding discussion that may be irrelevant to you (although if I was seeking 100% merit, learning a school otherwise of interest is offering combined merit+FA awards would be a valuable tip–I’d want to investigate how much pure merit is extended, without regard to need, before investing any time or money chasing the merit at that school).</p>
<p>And there may be schools where the COA sticker price is discounted because the school doesn’t offer much or any merit or need-based aid. Paying list price of $40k versus getting $20k subtracted from a list of $60k, but ruling out the cheap school because there’s no merit aid makes no sense.</p>
<p>Set a budget, come up with an initial list, then ask on various forums here on CC for suggestions for any additional possibilities.</p>
<p>"I bet Ghostt… who doesn’t think there’s a good argument for merit… doesn’t object to schools jacking up cost so that full pays can subsidize need based aid. "</p>
<p>It’s pretty easy when it’s not your money doing the subsidizing.</p>
I don’t understand why Holy Cross lists “average non-need based aid” as $31,389 (awarded to 6 students) when they clearly state that they don’t give merit scholarships? Were these athletic scholarships or something else?</p>