DD sent in the supplemental scholarship stuff last night, but we really don’t have any calibration about those or merit aid. Her final stats are:
36 ACT (SS, 35 raw)
4.3 gpa
NMSF
plenty of ecs with leaderships, great essays plus awesome recos
Applied to genetic biology, planning to be pre-med
We are both Purdue alums, but now OOS with a very large family, so $$$ (and honestly, honors) are super important. Just can’t get much of a sense for what to expect? Would so appreciate any input; she’s reeeeeally getting her heart set on this Purdue program!
It’s really hard to predict merit for Purdue, especially for OOS. My daughter was accepted to honors college but no merit money. The valedictorian of her school with perfect stats was accepted to HC but also saw no merit money. The other four students who applied from her school were all NMF but didn’t even get into HC, let alone receive money. (All six of them applied for engineering though.)
My sense is that Purdue is more focused on keeping tuition low for all students as they are on year 8 of a tuition freeze.
Unfortunately our accepted parent FB group was filled with disappointed families choosing other schools with better merit packages for their uber bright kids last spring.
My advice is to have a affordable backup on the list that your daughter will be excited to attend just in case the merit $ doesn’t come through.
Wish I could have shared a different response!
If you are NMF and Purdue is listed with NMSC as your first choice, then you will get $500 per academic year (max $2,000) from Purdue: https://www.admissions.purdue.edu/costsandfinaid/freshman.php#value (see heading for “National Merit Scholarships”). That’s about all you are guaranteed, at this point (assuming that your child becomes NMF, of course).
My son is an OOS freshman in FYE and in the Honors College. His stats were a +/- 1540 SAT, 4.0 unweighted GPA and +/- 4.6 weighted GPA. Good extracurriculars, relevant to engineering. Commended National Merit Scholar (but not a semifinalist). A whole bunch of AP credits, and he took five math and physics classes at a local community college his senior year (not dual credit - but he did report them to Purdue). He received a $10k/yr Presidential Scholarship. Only +/- 100 Trustees Scholarships and +/- 830 Presidential Scholarships are granted each year - so competition is fierce. These academic scholarships are allocated across each of Purdue’s colleges - so it may be slightly less competitive in one college compared to another. I did read about plenty of highly qualified candidates with great stats/extracurriculars that did not receive the academic scholarship(s) that they thought they deserved.
I’m not a Purdue alum (so we missed out on this opportunity), but we did hear that several/many Purdue Alumni chapters do have scholarships that are granted to students local to the chapter. So I encourage you to research your local Purdue Alumni chapter.
On a sidenote, my son is really, really enjoying Purdue and the Honors College. He seemed to have some trepidation/nervousness this summer (he did math research at a local university, and I think that he was having some “buyer’s” remorse), but he seems to be very happy with his decision to go to Purdue.
Best of luck to you and your daughter!
@landturtle makes a good point about Purdue Alumni chapters that award scholarships to local students who will be attending Purdue. A caveat – our local chapter awarded a $1000 scholarship at the end of the summer to a student from a local high school who was matriculating at Purdue; unfortunately, the local chapter did not have the names of all the high school students from our area who would be attending Purdue, so the award was made considering only about 50% of the eligible student population. When asked about this omission, the local chapter president said that he wasn’t provided all the names by Purdue.
I don’t know the obligation of Purdue to provide those student names to the local chapter; but I would be proactive and inquire with the local chapter early, and be sure that it has your child’s name if he/she will be matriculating at Purdue.
The supplement form is a pain. 99% of it is what honors have you received and what activities have you done. These are both already on the common app. Waste of time to re enter this twice.
I just wanted to add that based off Purdue’s website, only 15% of students receive scholarships. This is my main reason for not applying to Purdue Engineering. I’m from the Midwest and a LOT of kids interested in engineering from my state go to Purdue, as they’re really good and don’t have too many gen ed classes for engineers.
Purdue is VERY strong in STEM fields.
But, no aid means I won’t be able to go.
Consider Alabama!! She could have a chance at a full ride because she has a 35 (they require a 32 for the full ride scholarship consideration.)
Where do you find the supplemental scholarship form? I did not see it be mentioned in common application.