<p>Thanks. I hadn’t fully realized all that was available through the common data set. It’s still a little frustrating in that I can’t get at EXACTLY what I want, but those data come close. From what I see, it’s hard to get a complete picture from the CDS as to the proportion of students who get merit-based aid. The one exemplar college I viewed gave the number of kids who had no financial need who received merit aid, but I couldn’t tell how many students who received need-based aid also received merit-based aid. The CDS info includes in bold type the following notation: “Aid that is non-need-based but that was used to meet need should be counted as need-based aid”. </p>
<p>It’s close to what I initially sought, so I’ll have to be satisfied with it, but the ideal would be to see data on how many kids who had some need also received non-need-based aid, as that’s my family’s scenario (trying to see if we can off-set some of the Expected Family Contribution).</p>
<p>My D (more so than us parents) is the one very focused on very selective schools. Her favorites right now are Bowdoin, Vassar and Amherst, and I have to make her understand that a non-flagship, in-state public university may be a more realistic scenario, but do so in a way that doesn’t de-motivate her and cause her grades, test preparation, etc. to drop.</p>
<p>Merit awards received by students with need are essentially irrelevant at schools like that - if they are less than need they just reduce need-based aid and if they are more than need you end up with only the merit award, which is already predicted by the figure quoted previously, merit aid for students with no need.</p>
<p>Thanks, Bob, I hadn’t fully understood that. Let me make sure I do now: Say a student attends a university costing $40,000. Her EFC is $25,000, so her “need” would be $15,000. She receives need-based aid of $12,000, so she’d be counted in the CDS as a student who received need-based aid. If she also received a strictly merit-based scholarship of $2,000, that would still be within the limits of her total need, so that would be counted by CDS as need-based aid. On the other hand, if that scholarship were for $10,000, she would then be counted both in the need-based category ($15,000) and in the non-need-based category (the $7,000 in excess of her need). For that reason, one shouldn’t add the need and non-need students together to get an overall percentage of students receiving aid, as some students would be double-counted? Man, I’m getting a headache!</p>
<p>It isn’t just how it Is counted. I think what BobWallace is trying to tell you is that unless you earn more merit than the total amount of need based aid you are awarded, the merit is irrelevant – they just reduce the need-based aid by that amount. Whether you get $15,000 in need based aid and no merit, or $10000 in need based aid with $5000 in merit, the cost of attendance for you is the same. Most schools don’t take the merit off your EFC, they reduce their need based aid by that amount. This is not true for every school, but I think a lot of schools do it that way. Note that even outside scholarships are often used to reduce need based aid, not your EFC.</p>
<p>Now if you had $20K of merit and only $15K of need based aid, you would get $20K off cost of admission at most schools. Here is the past thread that has a helpful discussion of this issue:</p>
<p>This is not necessarily true. Some colleges may apply merit scholarships first against student loans and work study, which actually does reduce the net price, although only to the amount of such student contribution. Others which do not come close to meeting need may apply merit scholarships against the financial aid gap, in order to make themselves more attractive to those students they really want to attract (i.e. the ones that they are offering the scholarships to).</p>
<p>One thing I don’t see mentioned here that often is offer matching. Some schools will match offers from other peer institutions for students they really want. Since we wanted to get a great merit offer from a school that doesn’t have guaranteed huge awards, we applied to Bama as our financial safety. That way we were prepared to offer match if necessary. It turned out not to be necessary because our school came through with what we were looking for. I have to say that Honors colleges at some of the state flagships are little islands of excellence that get overlooked by some. </p>
<p>rrobb, an easy way to home into the data that BobWallace has shown you for Tulane is to go to: <a href=“Tulane University Tuition | CollegeData”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1555</a> As you scroll down, you can easily see those particulars that Bob has highlighted for us. On the upper right hand corner you can see a space to put in the name of any college and you can go right to the “Money Matters” for that school . The Admissions Info is also very useful for any given school. That’s as good as it gets for someone like me with no real strong connections to the college admissions world.</p>
<p>Bobwallace, I really don’t know why my experience for UD and even just going by anecdotes on the board, gossip, etc does not even come close to the actual hard numbers for that school. It certainly is no standout in funding the performing arts I know, for example, that UBuffalo, will pretty much auto give a student with certain stats $2500 a year in awards, with $3500 to those in the performing arts, a nice little bonus on top of the low in state SUNY price. For the number of kids I know who have gone, are going to UDel, it makes no sense that I don’t know a soul that has gotten ANY money, much less the larger awards like the DuPont. My cousin/niece was way up there in stats and went in as a female engineering major. Not a dime did she get. </p>
<p>If one has financial need, has strong state school access, the merit awards often turn out to be a wash, since any scholarship a school gives is used to reduce need first. Without a big fat award, it can make no difference at all in cost. Same cousin did get money from other state universities and private schools, but still could not beat UDel in state price. The FAFSA EFC was just under the COA for that school, so even some generous awards put the total personal COA over what U Del would cost. Some private options tucked the Direct Loan into their packages and work study to bring cost down, but for her, she could use the the unsub Direct Loan and find a job to pay the family EFC rather than as part of the fin aid package making the family costs at a figure with no wiggle room She gets about a thousand or so of the DLs as subsidized is all, and she works about 15 hours a week—UDel has some snack shop or something to which they have a connection and she has worked summers at a branch of the same shop so she gets a bit of a premium in hourly wage working there, Plus the transportation costs are much less, and she can come home to see full family easily by going there over her other options, so she went there. She is in their honors college. But you can see that when a student comes from a family with an EFC right about at the cost of the state flagship, even a pretty good student isn’t likely to be able to beat that price and get the quality. Every $1000 increment over what this family has to pay as it is, is hard gotten money. They are frankly strapped sending her to UDel even.</p>
<p>Ucbalumnus, I was surprised to find out that a lot of schools making the best fin aid lists, do integrate their ownm merit money internally which means the kid ends up with WS and loans still. If the kid got the awards from an outside source AFTER the fin aid awards were given, they would be applied to the self help first, but internal reduces aid.</p>
<p>An example is the Marquis Award It’s s very nice award that Lafayette gives to their top kids If you don’t have fin aid, it’s a nice chunk of change. If you do, their fin aid office just takes it off your need and you get the same proportional package with loans and WS as you would a student at that need level Stupid on their part, IMO, because I know of a situation here on this board where L lost a Marquis recipient that way Same with the above niece. She got the award but the final cost was still more than UDel since the school gave her self help for need, integrated the scholarship. </p>
<p>I was a top scholarship recipient in my day at Lafayette and they did not do that to me. It was my best package I recall. But that was many, many years ago. Some cost cutting guru probably thought this was double dipping and came up with the less than brilliant idea of integrating which has reduced their access to some of their most most desired applicants. </p>
<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>
<p>I’m not sure what you want. </p>
<p>If a school posts on its website the exact requirements for certain merit awards, and will award that amount to EVERY applicant that qualifies (and applies by the deadline), how are those mentions merely 'anecdotal".</p>
<p>the aid isn’t discretionary, and it is using a criterion-based system. You dont have to worry that you might not get the award. You dont have to worry that only students that add regional or ethnic diversity will get the awards. If you have the stats, you get the stated money.</p>
<p>I want to echo what others have said that if you’re not going for guaranteed merit awards (e.g. Alabama, Temple), then word of mouth from other parents and school counselors is the way to go. In the Philadelphia area, Drexel, LaSalle, and St. Joe’s are all known for giving excellent merit aid. Villanova not so much. </p>
<p>It’s funny everyone’s talking about U Del. A lot of full pay families here in Philly send their kids there - it is often considered a less overwhelming (and only slightly pricier) alternative to Penn State. I know several kids who’ve gotten scholarships. I think (but I’m not certain) all of them were admitted to the honors college. Since my kids have expressed no interest in Delaware, I’ve never pursued the conversation to find out exactly how much these kids were awarded in scholarship money, but I’ll often hear that “it’s costing about the same as Penn State would.” But since Penn State is about 30k and further away from here, these kids could be getting anywhere from 5k to 20k. I do know one kid, who had really high stats, who wanted Delaware as his first choice. U Del didn’t give him enough money to afford it without loans. Drexel, with its merit aid, ended up being much cheaper for him. </p>
<p>One other thing - not all parents distinguish (or even understand) the difference between merit and financial aid. RIght now, in our neighborhood, there’s a parent going around telling everyone his kid won a 20k scholarship to Georgetown. Well, Georgetown doesn’t give money unless you’ve got a financial need. On the other hand, I will say that most affluent parents I’ve talked to (i.e. folks who are likely to be full pay) do understand the difference and concrete talk about hard merit aid numbers is what full pay Moms will gab about at the gym or when they run into each other at the grocery store.</p>
<p>We’re hoping for merit money. What I’ve done with my daughter is figure out what she likes in a school and then try to research schools that have what she likes. I compiled a decent list of merit granting institutions. She’s figured out which ones she’ll apply to (all but two on the list). All of them have her in the top quarter of students stats wise, so we hope one of the schools she really wants will come through with substantial merit aid. She understands that she may receive some financial rejections, although we’re not anticipating any rejections outright. We’ve got some nearby financial safeties for her to choose from if none of the other schools work out. </p>
<p>In this case, not applying the merit scholarship first to reducing self-help (loans and work study) nullified its value in attracting the student to the school, so that sort of defeated the purpose of offering a merit scholarship.</p>
<p>Penn State is $32,668 for in state. U Delaware is $43.732 for OOS. That’s a pretty big divide for a Pennsylvanian. What I usually see in PA. is when kid doesn t get into PSU Main Campus, but wants Big State U experience. So a number of them go to state schools in Ohio, WV,Del. MD. PSU Main Campus only has about 5000 freshmen spots. Though instate PSU prices are high, one of the highest,if not THE highest priced state school for its residence.they are still a good $5-10k less than OOS options. Perhaps UD is giving a little sugar to some OOS applicants.</p>
<p>Schools really don’t like to be asked to “match”. It does work sometimes to ask for a “review” of your financial aid because another college has a lower cost of attendance due to their financial aid package. And if they ask, you provide the other college’s FA letter. But that other college better be comparable or better than the college you are asking – and even then they often won’t change the offer. We have been down this path a few times. Once it worked, twice it didn’t.</p>