<p>My middle school aged son is a long way off from college, but it's already clear that we will not be able to afford it without most or all of the cost being offset by a scholarship. He's gifted in math and science, has a clear penchant for engineering and a strong interest in physics and aeronautics. He's been accepted by his California school into a special program for gifted kids led by Stanford instructors (EPGY). </p>
<p>It seems our best shot is to find a full-ride merit-based scholarship. I've tried without much luck to compile a list of such scholarships and also get a sense of what factors, in addition to academics and leadership, might improve his chances of winning.</p>
<p>To save me some time and also give me a sense of whether this is even realistic or just a fool's errand, I'd appreciate it if any/all can point me to full-ride merit-based scholarships (name, amount, hyperlink would be super). </p>
<p>I'm particularly interested in these schools:</p>
<p>UC Berkeley
CalTech
MIT
UCLA
UC San Diego
USC
U. Michigan
U. Illinois
Carnegie Mellon
U. Washington
U. Virginia
UT-Austin
Swarthmore
Williams
Amherst
Cornell
Columbia</p>
<p>Have you already determined that you won’t qualify for financial need? If so, why do you think you need ALL of it paid for? Not qualifying for need would suggest that you can at least pay a dollar or two. The schools you have listed mostly don’t give merit only scholarships.</p>
<p>This is a poor list for what you seek. Forget the UCs and last 5 schools on your list. UCs have small merit scholarships and the last 5 have none. To get a big merit scholarship you need to look at way less selective schools where he will be at the very top of their applicant pool. Have a look at Alabama.</p>
<p>* I’d appreciate it if any/all can point me to full-ride merit-based scholarships (name, amount, hyperlink would be super). *</p>
<p>That is a horrible list if you’re looking for full-ride or large merit scholarships. :(</p>
<p>Almost NONE of those schools give such merit scholarships. USC may be the only one to give full TUITION (not a full ride) to those with super stats and it’s unpredictable. Even NMFs only get half tuition and that leaves about $40k to pay. My friend’s D had a 4.0 and a 35 ACT, Sal of her class and got NO MERIT at all from USC.</p>
<p>Those OOS publics won’t give you much in merit or in need-based aid. Many of those privates ONLY give need-based aid.</p>
<p>It’s obvious that you’re looking at rankings, but frankly you’re not going to get big merit that way. At the top schools ALL THE KIDS have super stats, so your child will not be exceptional therefore they don’t give merit. </p>
<p>Look at it this way…WHY would a top school give a child with high stats a big merit scholarship when MOST of their students have similar stats? The school would have to give everyone big merit and let students go for free. Obviously, that wouldn’t make sense. </p>
<p>You need to look at lower mid-tiers to get the big merit.</p>
<p>Free rides (or close to it) are very hard to come by unless your child is a NMF…and again, this would be at lower mid-tier schools.</p>
<p>What is your situation?</p>
<p>Would you qualify for need-based aid?</p>
<p>Or would you qualify for some need-based aid, BUT STILL wouldn’t be able to pay what your “share”? </p>
<p>How much can you contribute each year? $5k? more? less?</p>
<p>I explained why top schools don’t give huge merit scholarships (and many don’t give any merit at all…at any amount).</p>
<p>You need to understand WHY certain schools give do large merit scholarships. They don’t do it to be “generous” or out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to improve their school’s profile so that their rankings will improve. They give large merit to kids whose stats are high for THAT school so that their middle quartile reports will improve. </p>
<p>Since top schools already report fabulous stats, they don’t give big merit. And, many focus their funds on need-based aid…or needy instate kids (in the case of publics like the UCs and UMich.)</p>
<p>I would also like to say that you don’t know what your son is going to like/want in 5 years. Frankly, middle school is far too early to be thinking about a major and whatnot. I was one of those math/science kids until my sophomore year when I discovered that I absolutely loved anthropology and ancient cultures. </p>
<p>Good luck, but I think you’re looking too far ahead with regards to merit scholarships and whatnot. If you’re a “full pay” family then surely you can start cutting back now and saving. Don’t bank on merit scholarships</p>
<p>Swarthmore,Williams,Amherst,Cornell,Columbia, MIT and Caltech only give need based financial aid. While Caltech gives merit money to a few students in the EA round, you must have a financial need.</p>
<p>I agree that middle school is too young to be thinking about where you can get a full ride because you don’t know what the next 5/6 years will hold. In addition, you don’t know what the pool is going to look like in the next 5/6 years. If you look at the RD decision threads, you will see that there are plenty of students with stellar gpas/scores tho were waitlisted and flat out denied admissions.</p>
<p>Right now let your kid be a kid. Sure you can support his passion, but make sure that there is also some balance</p>
<p>Actually, I think it’s a good idea for the family to learn now that the schools on their list either don’t give merit or don’t give much. They might as well know NOW, that they need to refocus on finding schools that DO give large merit.</p>
<p>Yes, if the family is determined to have their child attend a top ranked undergrad, then they would need to re-evaluate their financial situation and determine if some changes will allow them to pay. However, sometimes that’s just not possible. So, if that is their situation, then they need to start identifying the kind of schools that give HUGE merit (which is what they want.). </p>
<p>The family doesn’t just want a $10k scholarship to reduce a $60k school to $50k. This family wants a “free ride” or close to it. That means looking at schools that give such scholarships AND the student’s stats need to be in the top 1-2% for the school (or be a NMF). </p>
<p>Of course, schools do change/reduce/eliminate their merit offers, so anything found today may not be offered a few years from now.</p>
<p>This family needs a strategy…</p>
<p>1) Identify the schools that might offer a very large scholarship (these are highly competitive awards that can’t be counted on).</p>
<p>2) Identify the schools that will give ASSURED large merit for stats.<br>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic+scholarships[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic+scholarships</a></p>
<p>3) the family needs to assume that the most that they can get is “full tuition”…which means that the family pays for the other $15k or so for room, board, books, etc. The family may get a full ride somewhere, but shouldn’t count on that.</p>
<p>Also…large merit depends HEAVILY on very high test scores.</p>
<p>There is a very large pool of students who have high GPAs…</p>
<p>There is a smaller pool of students who have very high test scores…</p>
<p>There is an even smaller pool of students who have BOTH very high test scores and high GPAs…those are the ones who usually get the big merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Thinking ahead is good. I started in 9th grade with very smart D working and planning for her to become NMF because we wanted to capitalize on NMF scholarship opportunities. In our case, I could see the potential based on her 9th grade PSAT score. She did easily become NMF and is getting a basically free ride at our college of choice (Texas A&M). Our D felt very strongly that she wanted to pay her own way through scholarships and we are very happy with her choice.</p>
<p>If UT-Austin meets your criteria, you might consider Texas A&M. UT no longer seeks out or pays money for NMF’s but A&M courts them. We did our own test prep at home, btw.</p>
<p>thibault,</p>
<p>Back when Happykid was in 9th grade, I looked around for a FAFSA calculator and found the one at [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) Good thing I did too because it forced us to take a much more realistic look at our options. I’d suggest that when you have filed your taxes this year, you print out this year’s FAFSA formula and work your way through it. <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/010512EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/010512EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf</a> Not every kid can qualify for big merit money, so you need to know what the minimum is that the colleges and universities are going to expect of your family. You absolutely need to have a back-up plan that does not require that your child get a full ride. You need to find someplace that will be affordable with whatever it is that you can pay, what he can borrow in Stafford loans, and what he can earn.</p>
<p>The other thing a family needs to understand at this early stage, if they might qualify for some need-based aid, is the way that need-based aid works. </p>
<p>Suppose your child wants to attend a school where the total cost of attendance is $60K. And your EFC is $25K. And the school meets full need, so they are going to offer your child a package to cover $35K worth of costs, and expect your family to come up with $25K in cash. </p>
<p>First of all that $35K financial aid package will not likely be all grant aid. There will most likely be up to $7500/year in student loans and $2000 in work-study. This is referred to as “self-help”. So you can’t usually use your student’s stafford loans to go toward your $25K family contribution. </p>
<p>The second important thing is that merit scholarships decrease need first, whether they are given by the school or by an outside organization. So if you get a $10K outside scholarship, the school <em>may</em> just reduce your grant aid by $10K and your student would still have to take the loans and earn the work-study funds, and your family would still have to pay $25K in cash. Many school are more generous and allow the student to reduce their self-help first – so they would replace the loans and work-study with the scholarship money before reducing the grant aid. But… your family would <em>still</em> have to come up with $25K. But in this case your student could use their $5500 in automatic Stafford loans to go toward that.</p>
<p>The third thing you need to know is that schools that meet full need are fairly rare, though many on your list do. But when a school meets full need, they almost always use the CSS profile and a custom formula that they have developed (and do not publicize) to assess what your need is and what your family contribution should be. It may not be the same as your FAFSA EFC. (It is often higher, but can be lower.) It almost certainly won’t be a number you think you can afford if you see it right now. Expected contributions are usually shocking to middle-class families especially.</p>
<p>mathmomvt, do you know which schools will 1) reduce loans/work-study if they award you a merit scholarship and 2)which schools will then let you apply your loans to what you pay instead of their aid package?? I would love to know of these schools!</p>
<p>One of D’s friends did this program @ UW. It requires consolidation of four high school years into one but it saves a lot of money on college.</p>
<p>[Robinson</a> Center Early Entrance Program](<a href=“http://depts.washington.edu/cscy/programs/early-entrance-program/]Robinson”>Early Entrance to the UW - UW Robinson Center for Young ScholarsUW Robinson Center for Young Scholars)</p>
<p>Since you mention the EPGY program, I was wondering if one of the CA schools have something similar.</p>
<p>*Suppose your child wants to attend a school where the total cost of attendance is $60K. And your EFC is $25K. And the school meets full need, so they are going to offer your child a package to cover $35K worth of costs, and expect your family to come up with $25K in cash. </p>
<p>First of all that $35K financial aid package will not likely be all grant aid. There will most likely be up to $7500/year in student loans and $2000 in work-study. This is referred to as “self-help”. So you can’t usually use your student’s stafford loans to go toward your $25K family contribution. *</p>
<p>This is very true. And, yes, many people mistakenly think that their child can take a 5500 loan to help reduce their EFC…only to find that the FA pkg already has those loans. And, yes, many think that the entire need is met with grants (at a full need school), but about $8k of the need is filled with loans (Stafford and sometimes Perkins) and also work study.</p>
<p>I think this family is concerned that they won’t be able to pay their EFC. Yes, they may qualify for some FA, but if their EFC isn’t affordable, then a $18k in a FA pkg won’t make a $60k school affordable if they can only pay $5k.</p>
<p>Since the family is looking for “full rides,” that suggests that the parent has determined that they can pay very little towards college costs. Unless they’re low income and their child gets into a full need school, that will be a problem.</p>
<p>Agree with mom2college. There is nothing wrong with starting early with a plan. I started college process with S when he was in 9th and thus D when she was in 7th. D is now a junior and we have a list of 15 schools that we mutually like. There are 3 schools on the list that do not give merit, however the rest of the list she has a fighting chance IMO. </p>
<p>As I read through the 2016 site, it is heartbreaking to read about all of the students who are rejected or waitlisted with incredible stats. It affirms what I have learned on CC, to expand your list and love thy safety.</p>
<p>The list we created consists of reading the links mentioned above as well as looking at common data sets. I looked through the number of non need aid and average amount of aid. We have focused on those schools for our various college visits over the years. So far we have visited 19 schools which has provided her a sense of what she is looking for. In the fall, we will apply to as many diversity flyin visits to any schools she hasnt seen. Some of the schools also invite merit winners down for interviews. </p>
<p>This has been a long journey and look forward to next year at this time to see where she will land. I hope it is with great merit, but I followed this same process with S and he ended up with only 5k in merit and in a college he absolutely loves.</p>
<p>Oh well. Good luck! You need to do what is best for your child.</p>
<p>^^^
Lacrossemom…</p>
<p>Since you’re looking for merit, why not include at least one school that gives assured merit for stats??? At least that way you’ll know that you’ll AT LEAST have that in the back pocket. Since getting merit is a crapshoot when awards are competitive and amounts unknown, I think it’s good to include a school with assured merit.</p>
<p>sgtDonut, usually schools only let your reduce your loans and work study if you get an outside merit scholarship, not if you get a merit scholarship from them. And if you reduce your loans from your package, you are then free to take $5500 in Stafford loans to meet your family contribution.</p>
<p>As to which schools, no I don’t have a list, but almost every school my S visited said this was their policy for outside scholarships. You need to check every school’s financial aid page, as everyone’s policies are a bit different.</p>
<p>I appreciate your taking the time to make multiple posts, mom2college, but all I wanted was a shortcut, if someone already had taken the time to compile a list of full ride merit scholarships at first rate schools. </p>
<p>For others reading this thread, I ignored the mostly useless advice here and did my own googling. I came across two scholarships, one at U. Virginia ([Jefferson</a> Scholars Foundation](<a href=“http://www.jeffersonscholars.org%5DJefferson”>http://www.jeffersonscholars.org)) and another at U. North Carolina, and another jointly administered by Duke and UNC ([Robertson</a> Scholars: Homepage](<a href=“http://www.robertsonscholars.org%5DRobertson”>http://www.robertsonscholars.org)).</p>
<p>I also learned that U. Texas per distinguished alum Adm. Bobby Inman is now trying to compete with these first-rate southern schools for top scholars and has plans to offer its own full ride merit-based scholarship. </p>
<p>I would expect other first-rate, >$1b-endowed state schools to join the arms race for talent in coming years and offer similar scholarships.</p>
<p>Most full-ride scholarships are based on many factors, including academics. leadership and community service. Same as admission to many of the schools on your list 
Really, your son needs to find a passion and pursue it, well, passionately. This isn’t something you can really plan, however. Best of luck to you and your son. I’m sure he’ll have lots of opportunities when the time comes.</p>
<p>For kids who are stronger on academics than the “other stuff”, the National Merit competition can result in a lot of merit-based scholarship opportunities. But it’s not the tippy-top schools offering those awards, it’s the next tier down trying to attract the tippy-top kids and raise their profiles. Check out this thread for a list (which I believe is updated further down the thread, but for early planning purposes, the initial list is probably fine) <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html</a></p>
<p>Realistically, for most very strong applicants, it boils down to a choice between tippy-top schools and excellent merit scholarships. Many of the tippy-top schools do offer better-than-average need-based financial aid though.</p>