Systematic way to identify colleges most likely to be generous with merit aid?

Paying for College
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<p>I've seen threads asking for input on which colleges are "known" to give lots of merit aid, but those responses all seem to be anecdotal, e.g., "Tulane", or "Here's a link to the merit scholarships available at Rice", or "My son was offered x amount of dollars at the University of Georgia and y amount at the University of Alabama". Are there any DATA-based ways of predicting which from among a cluster of similarly-selective schools are more and less likely to offer substantial merit aid to a given student?</p>

<p>I thought perhaps endowment size might be a predictor, but I assume that's too simplistic? Does the extent to which a college's students have their financial aid needs met serve as a good predictor? One interesting example I found is the University of Pittsburgh. Their endowment of about $2.6 billion apparently ranks them 26th in the country. According to the College Board, however, on average their students have 55% of their financial aid needs met, a figure much lower than many, many colleges. So, they don't appear to be using that endowment to dish out need-based aid.</p>

<p>Any ideas on how I might predict my D's best prospects for merit-based aid, setting aside the issue of selectivity?</p>

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<p>I don’t think the statistics about “financial need met” are very useful when it comes to figuring out which colleges offer merit aid. Merit aid is based on stats, not financial need (though there are some merit aid scholarships that take into consideration financial need.) Others may have suggestions, but when it comes to merit aid, I don’t see the need for prediction - just go visit the college websites you are interested in, search for scholarships, and read the requirements. Some schools like Alabama, Alabama-Huntsville, Ole Miss, Louisiana Tech (those that I am most familiar with) are very forthright with the requirements for automatic merit aid. Even USF in Tampa shares parameters for merit aid awards. Many schools offer competitive merit aid, but how could one predict that without knowing the number and quality of the applicants. As far as need-based aid, many colleges dish out the federal aid first, rather than tapping into their endowments.</p>

<p>I cannot think of anyway around just old-fashioned, site by site research (which others have done here at CC) to find out about merit aid opportunities. But I am sure if you figure out a data-based way of predicting, you could probably create your own website :slight_smile: Best of luck.</p>

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<p>Thanks chesterton. I know that need- and merit-based aid are determined differently. I just meant that perhaps there might be a correlation between which schools are best able (or most willing?) to meet the need-based aid are also more likely to give out more merit-based aid?</p>

<p>I have seen (partly some via useful threads here) many descriptions of specific colleges’ criteria for automatic merit aid. That, as you rightly say, can be sussed out with sufficient legwork. I’m trying to get at the non-automatic aid, though. Perhaps there is no systematic way to do so.</p>

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<p>Not really. Because things change so quickly. Pitt used to be a leader in fin aid as late as 10 years ago Those who got accepted to the HOnors college often got full tuition paid. A 1350 two part SAT got you into the Honors College. I knew a lot of kids who got the Chancellor’s Awards. Penn State, you got zippo, lucky to get a couple grand for getting into Schreyer. Now I’m seeing kids, OOS and otherwise, not even in the Honors College getting money. Not a whole lot, but more than they would get from Pitt. The tables have turned. </p>

<p>There is no advertisement, notice, anything about some local colleges that will give tuition remissions to kids likely to go there. All word of mouth. A deal a lot of affluent families took because it was that good. Schools do not guarantee most awards. If you look in the section of guaranteed money, you’ll see that it’s not all that plentiful at all. So you gotta guess, where it is most likely to get big awards The college.data is helpful, as it gives you some stats, but translating them into what the chances are to get a BIG award is not so easy.</p>

<p>That’s where the problem lies. The BIG awards. My kids got all kinds of merit for under $5K. Over that… Not so much. Very little. And the sobering fact is that schools cost so frigging much these days that when we rejoiced over one $30K award one of mine got, it struck me like a ton of bricks that the danged school was not even half paid for at that level. Crazy.</p>

<p>You can get a list of the largest merit awards by amounts given of the “name” school Google and a NYT list will show up, but getting a big award from any of those schools is like winning a lottery ticket. For most kids just getting accepted there is a big deal.</p>

<p>The best way to go is to hone those lists, look at the lists up front and also read the threads from Momfromtexas in the archives. Though a lot of the specific info is outdated and the schools may not offer the same deal, her methodology is excellent and is what it takes to come up with exhaustive likely big merit money. There’s no easy way. Gotta put the work in , to find the money.</p>

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<p>Yes, go to the Princeton Review website and do a search for those schools where the average GPA and ACT/SAT score are well below your daughter’s. Schools that offer merit aid make that offer to applicants who are exceptional in comparison to the rest of their applicant pool. So, find the schools where your daughter will be exceptional.</p>

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<p><a href=“Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com”>Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com;

<p>This is the info I was referring to I did not see a 2013 update.</p>

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<p>if you look at the percentages getting merit money odds are as dodgersmom says it’s the kids that are entering in the top 10-25% depending on the college, but it also appears to run in streaks as some of the schools everyone was chasing 5 years ago are not currently ‘all’ good bets for merit money. </p>

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<p>It helped that D was interested in an uncommon major, but we started with a list of schools that offered her preferred major and then researched each school, eliminating each one that did not even offer substantial merit aid to kids like her, competitive or automatic. We used lists here on CC and also checked every individual college website. We certainly did a lot of work coming up with a list of schools. It is as everyone says. Find schools where your student will stand out. You’re looking for schools that will accept payment in “prestige”—the currency your student brings to the school in addition to, or in replacement of cash tuition dollars. There’s too much variety here to simplify things with a formula, but in general, you’re looking for schools that have money and want more prestige (ie. top students, more women, more guys, more whatever your kid brings to the table). Even then, results will vary. There’s lots of smart, interesting, high stats kids out there.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all of the responses. Okay, you’ve convinced me: there are no shortcuts.</p>

<p>Special thanks to you, captain. The NYT link was very helpful. On another note, curse you, captain, as the NYT article was very depressing! We’ve already started D getting used to the idea (she’s a sophomore) that she will probably not be able to attend the most selective schools to which she might be admitted. In looking at the %s for “above-average” LACs, it looks as though perhaps 10% of admitted freshmen receive merit aid. The top 10% of those students, though, I guess would be really, really strong students.</p>

<p>Almost (ALMOST!) tempts me to dip into her college fund to get her a personal soccer coach to turn her from a marginal Division III soccer prospect into a Division 1 recruit. Who am I kidding? If I really thought it would work, that’s exactly what I would do. Otherwise, she’s just going to be another strong-but-not-phenomenal white girl from the suburbs of a large east coast city. Not much to distinguish her. Her school district alone could likely populate a decent-sized university full of nothing but kids with SATs in the 700s.</p>

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<p>For schools that give assured amounts of merit money for certain stats, those stories arent anecdotal. </p>

<p>when someone tells you that Bama gave you XXXX amount, that is probably an assured scholarships for stats.</p>

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<p>They are anecdotal in that they are examples from specific schools, that don’t necessarily apply beyond the context of those schools. As my second post noted, it really is the “discretionary”, rather than strictly criterion-based aid, where I’m trying to peer into the black box.</p>

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<p>Look at it this way - the old saying was on time, on quality, on cost - pick two…well finding colleges is a similar exercise…except perhaps location, selectivity, cost – pick two. If you’re looking for all 3, it’s tougher and you have to do your research. But there is droves of info here for the person who wants location, selectivity, AND cost and it can be found with effort. My sibling never understood why my kids looked nationally…my sibling was going to “keep his kids close to home”…well the first one is a junior and guess what Bama and Arizona are on the list. Financial and quality can be found but you have to be able to give up location. If you want local in the NE you might have to give up selectivity to get financial. The biggest problem a newbie can have is to think that selectivity ends at the bottom of the top 10 in the NE. And many “non-NE” posters will tell you, that is a NE problem. </p>

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<p>@rrobb… there are so many opportunities out there. Every time I see mom2collegekids’ icon, I say a prayer of thanks because of her posts about Alabama. Last summer, even though we have family in Alabama, and deep roots on my husband’s side, we have never once considered Alabama, or many of the other schools on that automatic merit aid thread. CC has been a lifesaver, a door-opener, a legacy-changer, and I owe so many thanks to parents like m2ck who dedicate so much time to sharing about schools like Alabama - which, for all of its great features - still does not get mentioned when people who are looking for “selective” schools are seeking out information.</p>

<p>All I can say about selectivity and quality of students is that my son is going to be able to room with some really outstanding young men, and the list of possible roommates that Alabama’s housing site matched him up with is full of even more really outstanding, remarkable Honors students. He is going to be surrounded by so many fantastic students I just really cannot believe it. I have read through the profiles, and cannot get over how utterly impressive these young men are. And Alabama has awarded them all with some kind of merit aid, and in most cases, with full tuition, and in some, full rides. No doubt these young men could have excelled at all of those “selective” universities. But they are heading to Alabama, and will be able to pursue their dreams while being financially rewarded for their accomplishments, and graduating without the enormous burden of debt many take on to attend those other “selective” colleges.</p>

<p>So, instead of your daughter looking at all that she is not going to be able to do, maybe encourage her to start looking at what she will be able to do. Help her find a university that will reward her for her hard work, and will give her a chance through an honors college program to work with a bunch of impressive young people. It does not have to be Alabama, but then again, why not? :)</p>

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<p>You know about the common data set, right? For any school you are interested in, Google “<college name=”"> Common Data Set" and look at the most recent one. You will see percentages of students who got merit aid and the average amount. Putting together your kid’s stats with the scholarship descriptions on the financial aid page of the website should help you zero in some on where your kid is likely to get merit. Know that generally higher end stats for the school and sometimes geographic diversity help increase merit. I always figure showing some interest in the school helps (most schools that offer significant merit do take student interest into accounts in admissions, so I figure it can’t hurt the chase for merit $ as well). </college></p>

<p>So there is no way to avoid the legwork, but there is hard data out there if you know where to look. A few colleges don’t have the Common Data Set in obvious places (U of Chicago is notorious). We used this process last year for D2, and she was very successful in getting merit awards; she got into all 8 colleges she applied to, and 5 of the 6 that award merit gave her reasonable merit awards. (Of course, she picked the sixth school). :(( </p>

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<p>It’s worse than that even, Rrobb. If it’s the top 10% getting merit aid, you then have to cut that in half, since there are often other factors involved as to who gets that money, factors other that straight up academic excellence. There was one year where I just happened to know two girls very well who applied to the same school. Girl 1 was a top flight student who just missed the Ivy League school, waitlisted at a bunch of them, and it would have been no surprise had she been accepted. Girl 2 was not. But who got one of the few juicy awards from BC that year? Girl 2. Helps to be from Cleveland. Not many BC kids from there, and the NYC catholic school girls are lined up around the block to get in at full price. Why should BC PAY for one, when all of those high stat vals and sals are begging for a seat. But they could use some midwest blood in the mix. Throw in URM, different backgrounds, unusual major, some sort of contribution to college life that’s on the school wish list that you may not even know exists, and you have to understand if your kid doesn’t fall into any such special category, your chances are not up there to get the money. Plus if the school gives 10% of the kids merit awards, not all of them are going to be big bucks. As I said in an earlier post, I had one kid who got all kinds of $5K< awards, and though every dollar counts, frankly, if you are looking for $30-40K off the $60K+ sticker prices, isn’t going to be the deal breaker. So the chances of getting the big awards, the deal breakers are not too good. </p>

<p>The list on our board of guaranteed awards is about as good as it gets. And I don’t think those awards will be automatic after a while. Alabama, for example, is trying to bring some more academics stats that are up there into the fold. I like to tease Mom2Collegekids that it’s “one for the money, two for the show” in terms of reasons to go there. Bama has both. Also, you talk to the high school counselor and ask if she knows some local schools, some small schools in the state that are good to the kids in the high school. Most can come up with some good info like that. I know some friends in western PA who have done well with schools like Washington and Jefferson, Westminsiter, Allegheny, Grove City and some other little college that give some nice merit. In Ohio, Denison, Ohio Wes, Ottobein, Wittenberg have all come up money to make it more affordable for kids who are interested. The Catholic school, the smalller ones, not BC or ND or Georgetown, tend to discount too. </p>

<p>Going through the athletic gauntlet is not necessarily a great windfall either. A lot of those awards go to International students that really, really good, when it comes to some sports, like soccer. My friends DD was on the Ohio State NCAA women’s soccer team and she did not get money. You trade getting in and getting to play for money unless you are the best of the best. My son was a national athlete and yes, he could have probably gotten a full ride at Utica State, St Bonaventure and some other such school but he probably could have also gotten a nice scholarship academically to them as well and he did not want to go there. The schools on his list were NOT offering him a dime to come. They were letting him in the door even though he was in the running stats wise, it was in the bottom half, and the athletic card was what got him selected over those with better academic numbers. But no money. Ivies and D3 schools do not give money for sports. </p>

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<p>It is likely that at least some of the colleges where “discretionary” or “competitive” merit scholarships are a black box intentionally keep them in a black box. The motivation may be that they do not want to publicly announce such scholarships or award amounts that they may or may not offer any given year, but do want to be able to offer them to applicants whom they really want to get. In some cases, they might not even call the “discretionary” money a scholarship, but just “preferentially package” need-based financial aid.</p>

<p>Of course, the disadvantage to such schools and potential interested applicants is that, in the absence of publicly announcing the scholarship availability, some potential interested applicants may assume that they have little or no chance of getting a large enough scholarship to make the school affordable, and therefore not bother applying. However, such risk to the schools is likely low, since it appears that most applicants do not consider costs until the sometimes-unpleasant financial aid and scholarship surprises come in April. But the risk to the schools would increase if more applicants and their parents looked at costs before applying.</p>

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<p>Most schools are purposely vague about even the size of merit scholarships. I thought D1’s college (Dickinson) was clearer than most about theirs on their website (but that was several years ago, they might have changed that). I know they still do give out a lot of merit awards, though.</p>

<p>I assume you know that even with merit aid, a lot of colleges are still quite expensive. You can get $15-20K off at a 30th ranked LAC and still have a bill of $40K. Of course the price break is great, but it is still quite a bit of money.</p>

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<p>U Del really surprised me. I have a lot of family who went, go and were accepted there. I don’t know anyone who got a dime of merit money, and my one cousin/niece who goes there is right up there in stats. They could have used a little something too as their EFC was close to the cost for them to send her there and live on campus. It’s their state school. For them, most any aid they got still didn’t bring the price down to UDel level and yet, that has still been a stretch for them.</p>

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<p>The data-driven way to evaluate is to look at the Common Data Set (CDS) information for each school, in the areas of admission statistics (grades and GPA) and merit-based aid.</p>

<p>For example, Tulane, mentioned in your post:</p>

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<p>So you need to be in the top 34.5% of Freshmen to get merit aid at Tulane, and well into that group (say top 17%) to get something like the $20,000/year average.</p>

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Grade Point Average of Enrolled Freshmen (4.0 scale)
Average GPA 3.51
3.75 and Above  31%
3.50 - 3.74 26%
3.25 - 3.49 20%
3.00 - 3.24 15%
2.50 - 2.99 7%
2.00 - 2.49 1%
SAT Scores of Enrolled Freshmen
SAT Math    662 average 
620-710 range of middle 50%
Score of 700 - 800 32%
Score of 600 - 700 56%
Score of 500 - 600 11%
Score of 400 - 500 2%
Score of 300 - 400 0%
Score of 200 - 300 0%
SAT Critical Reading    670 average 
630-720 range of middle 50%
Score of 700 - 800 35%
Score of 600 - 700 52%
Score of 500 - 600 12%
Score of 400 - 500 1%
Score of 300 - 400 0%
Score of 200 - 300 0%

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<p>So you want an SAT score above 1400 and a GPA above 3.75 to get merit aid at Tulane, and you need to be well above those stats for substantial merit aid.</p>

<p>Competitive merit aid at Tulane and many other schools is also dependent on “soft” factors as well, so stats alone won’t necessarily tell the whole story. </p>

<p>At other schools, the awards are purely or nearly purely stats-driven. Alabama is a good example that has already been mentioned.</p>

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<p>I have heard the same thing, but someone is getting merit aid there:</p>

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<p>I suppose those could be drama, music, or other talent-based awards rather than academic?</p>