<p>U of R is her top choice. She has the credentials to get into Richmond either ED or RD. The obvious upside to ED is having the decision early and reducing stress on her and us. The downside to ED for us is merit aid. We cannot afford the full price at U of R and if she applies ED and we get a decent merit aid we will never know what type of aid we might have received from other schools.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>My son applied and was accepted this year ED I. No merit aid. 
On paper, he was more than qualified and he assumed a guaranteed acceptance. But college admissions has become a game and you never know what can happen. If you need/want merit aid, you will only have a chance through RD. I have not been able to find any ED students getting merit aid. If you’re out there, I’d love to hear from you.</p>
<p>Thanks! That’s really helpful.</p>
<p>Same. My daughter applied ED1 and we haven’t heard anything regarding merit aid. Very disappointing considering other equally competitive schools she applied EA at offered some monies with their EA acceptance. Thought she would have been an excellent candidate for merit as her stats are great!</p>
<p>@ 132obs-Can I ask what her stats were? My son applied EA to one school and the acceptance/offer came a few days after Richmond. $72,000 over 4 years! Certainly makes one question the whole ED thing. I think they reserve the merit money for RD students to convince them to come. The ED students have no choice anymore.</p>
<p>2010 SATs ( she’s not a stellar test taker); #3/162 class rank; GPA 4.1 out of 4.3; took almost all the APs offered at her school, maybe 11 ( I forget); lots of activities, leadership roles; has a regular part-time job plus summer job last yr; doing an internship at a community bank this yr as a class (running out of classes); attends regional Catholic high school. Same as you: EA safeties gave her $18k/ yr., others gave $5-10k with acceptance. Agree they seem to save $'s for RD- chance we took! How about your son’s stats?</p>
<p>32 ACT. School doesn’t rank. GPA 95. Only 5 AP’s. Moderate amount of activities. Has been working part time for the last year. I would have given your daughter a scholarship. :)</p>
<p>Ditto- I would’ve gave your son one too:)</p>
<p>We were at spring preview yesterday and admissions were clear that the merit scholarships were chosen separately from ED and RD. The committee is not aware of their decision status. It makes sense that merit is used to attract students so I am just sharing what we were told.</p>
<p>They tell you that ED and RD applicants are equal candidates for merit scholarships. I have been trying to find an ED accepted student who has received merit money.</p>
<p>Checked with a contact in Admissions. They indicated that 5 to 7 top ED students receive Presidential Scholarships ($15K). Also said that ED students get full consideration for Richmond Scholars (like rom828 said, faculty aren’t aware of decision status), but only one or two actually get it. I think the caliber of student who receives RS usually isn’t applying ED, but rather is keeping their options open.</p>
<p>Do you honestly believe that? The only students that I know that apply regular decision are those that require financial aid. I believe UR is using merit scholarships to offset the amount of financial aid they are awarding. Also, no need to give an ED student any merit money as they have already committed.</p>
<p>@robsamg I have no reason to doubt it. Contact is a friend who wouldn’t have any reason to misinform. A few years back, UR actually had a separate “Trustee Scholarship,” which was basically a Presidential equivalent set aside for top ED candidates. They had to discontinue because they got called out for “unethically incentivizing” kids to commit early that way (against national good practices). So they just rolled it back into Presidential and still award a few each year.</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean about applying regular decision…? There are tons of students that apply to colleges RD who don’t require financial aid. They want to keep their options open, see where they can get scholarship $$, and compare offers. This applies especially to extremely high-powered students who are confident they’ll get into a lot of great schools (the type of students who tend to get Richmond Scholars).</p>
<p>I worked in the admissions office and financial aid office at UR as a student, and I know for a fact that the merit aid process is need-blind just like the admission process. Both full-pay and full-need students receive merit scholarships (I had friends on scholarship from both categories). Richmond Scholars is run almost entirely by faculty committees, who don’t care whether a student is full-pay or whether they’re ED or RD - they want to award the strongest students who will be top scholars and leaders on campus. You’d think it a “waste” of resources to give any merit money to ED students who are already committed (my current employer doesn’t), but that’s not the mentality at UR. Of course, five presidential scholarships and the occasional Richmond Scholar in ED still means the vast majority of merit $$ is going to RD students.</p>
<p>@robsamg got our $0 FA package in the mail today. Oh but we did qualify for the unsubsidized $5500 loan. Hope you made out better.</p>
<p>My Junior daughter was an ED admit and received $34k in grant money freshman year. That went to over $40k (grant and scholarship) for Soph and Jr years.</p>
<p>Is grant money a form of financial aid?</p>
<p>robsamg - grant and scholarship money are both forms of financial aid. Personally, I don’t care what they call it. It’s free money. But when calculating the need, UR also considers your eligibility for subsidized and unsubsidized federal loans along with work. Part of my daughter’s need calculation included campus employment. It doesn’t account for much, but it’s part of the formula.</p>
<p>I was there this past weekend for the Scholars Visit and I personally met several Richmond Scholars who had been ED kids. The other prospective scholars were more than qualified for Richmond and therefore did not need to apply ED. They were also looking at Yale, Princeton, Stanford, JHU, Duke, Williams, Amherst, Brown, and UPenn just to name a few that I heard that weekend.</p>
<p>@Cassie-It’s interesting that you use the expression “need to apply ED.” I am sure there are many students who apply ED because they are 100% certain that UR is where they want to go to school. I assume that no one is accepted if they are not qualified. Here is another thought…did you meet any Richmond Scholars that did not have a financial need? Admissions has become quite a game, for those willing to play.</p>
<p>Yes. One boy was looking at Stanford, Georgetown, and Cornell. He would have to pay full at those schools because his family made over 100K a year. His allure to Richmond was that his tuition would be covered. Another girl would have to pay 50K to either Williams or Brown if she attended, but only 10K to UR. many students I met were more than capable of paying for college.</p>