Stacking -- cutting into EFC

Yowza. What did I do (other than be a newbie with newbie questions) to engender hostile comments like “magical unicorn” and small private school which DOESN’T EVEN have them sit PSAT as a soph (emphasis mine)? Luckily I am not thin-skinned.

FYI the “small private school” is one of the top schools in Minnesota, and the kids did practice ACTs and SATs soph year. DD is awaiting the results of SAT II’s in World History and Chem.

I’ve been doing my research and have found a number of private schools in Iowa that offer full tuition scholarships; we’ll visit four of them during Iowa private college week in August. We are visiting two in Wisconsin next month.

We are seriously considering some southern schools but are a little concerned about some of what we read as DD is Chinese.

Thanks to those who’ve offered supportive and useful private comments. I am now looking at schools that offer full tuition.

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didn’t read the linked thread but UChicago stacks need with merit. G


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While UChicago doesn’t use CSS, they have their own institutional formula and will give as they see fit.
Your DD was a very desirable applicant, perfect ACT, NMF, and a URM. Likely UChicago wanted to insure that she picked them rather than another top school. That is a strategy that many tippy top schools do to poach from each other.

Other than Morningside, I’m not aware of Iowa privates with automatic full tuition. If you would be so kind, I would love to know what they are, and I have no ulterior motive.

ordinarylives, not automatic full tuition – I’m sorry if my post was misleading. POSSIBLE full tuition schools we are looking at in Iowa include Central College, Coe College, Cornell College, Drake University (also has a few full rides), and Wartburg. Hope this is helpful.

MODERATOR’S NOTE:

Even though this is the OP’s quote, let’s not confuse the issue. Stick with the FA/stacking aid discussion here. If OP wants to discuss schools with racial diversity, she should open a new thread. 7 posts deleted.

@Momto2girls I don’t remember which poster initially wrote the magical unicorn comment, but I commented on their post quoting their use of it. I don’t think they meant it offensively. I know I didn’t. I know why they used it and I was attempting to expand on their thoughts and explain why they posted that wording.

Many parents when they first start this process are under the illusion that if their child gets merit scholarships, especially outside scholarships, that they will reduce their parental contribution. And while that may be true in certain circumstances (for example, at schools not providing institutional grant $$), it certainly isn’t true across the board. It definitely isn’t true at most meets need schools or schools that are offering institutional grants. The vast majority of elites will not allow any reduction in parental contribution (unless the student is full pay and not receiving any grant $$). Here is an example from Brown’s website:

The only way I know of for parental contribution to be reduced is by university sponsored merit scholarships stacking on top of additional university sponsored merit scholarships without any need-based aid involved (with the exception of Pell and SEOG as @mom2collegekids pointed out in her post and Brown stipulates in their quote.)

There are a handful of very large scholarships at top schools: Robertson at Duke and UNC, Jefferson at UVA, Stamps at various schools across the country, etc. Those scholarships are going to be awarded to extremely high-achieving kids who are tippy top school competitive.

If you go down in rankings, the likelihood of large $$ awards goes up for top students. But it will take merit on merit, not merit on institutional grants, to typically make that happen. Fwiw, a far more common scenario for MC families at higher ranked schools is for them to offer a decently large dollar scholarship that is smaller than pure grant award and then add a smaller amt of instutional grant $$ on top of the scholarship. But, there is not much opportunity to reduce parental contribution that way.

Someone posted, “OP is looking for a unicorn. If there is one out there, I am looking for 2.”

I don’t think that’s an insult. I think they’re saying that the desire is like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, and if there is such a thing, she has two kids and would also be looking.

Schools consider merit as something that diminishes “need”. Obviously if there are two students with equal incomes/assets, but Student#1 has a 50% tuition scholarship, then s/he has less need than Student #2.