<p>I'd appreciate information about the terms used to describe aid given to students. </p>
<p>As someone who will likely to have an EFC that is above the COA of the universities my son applies to, I am trying to keep a list of schools that give merit aid - true merit aid to students they want who have no demonstrated financial need (as shown by EFC or CSS). </p>
<p>This hasn't been as easy as one might think....right now, people with seniors are talking opening about their children's college choices and all of them speak of merit aid, but then when I go to look up these schools to confirm, most of them same NEED BASED AID ONLY. To me, merit aid implies a reduction in tuition based on things other than financial need (because the school really wants the student to accept and will reduce tuition to lure them in). </p>
<p>Can someone clarify the differences among merit aid, scholarships, grants, etc. Does a school that meets financial need only give out something called merit aid in its FA package?</p>
<p>One person told me her daughter attending a state university as an OOS student was getting merit aid, which took $12K right off the top. Would a state school ever do that? Even if it was needs based and not merit, as was told to me, do state schools actually give OOS students tuition breaks? If so, how does that work? Don't taxpayers in that state get pretty annoyed at that sort of scenario?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance. If there is a thread that explains this, please point me in the right direction. I searched a bit but didn't come up with the explanations I was looking for.</p>
My state flagship does this. I think they call it a “scholarship” but what it really is, is a discount off of the higher amount that OOS students pay. They still wind up paying more than IS students though. I don’t believe it is need-based; the school is actively trying to get more OOS students because they pay more. A discount helps ease the pain.</p>
<p>And yes, there are plenty of state universities that are happy to throw big money at talented OOS students. I have no idea what the voters think. Some might approve because they are hoping that occasionally that talent will decide to stay in that state after graduation.</p>
It’s possible some of them do, but I think most schools that meet need do not give out merit money. I would trust what the school’s web site says over what any parent says - if a school gives out merit money, somewhere on the web site is a list of all the scholarships they give out.</p>
<p>Parents who claim to get merit money from need-only schools either don’t understand what the FA award really means, or maybe they are embarrassed at having “need”, so they transform it to a scholarship when they talk about it.</p>
<p>The tricky one is schools that give out merit-based money with a need-based component. The school’s web site will often say if this is the case, but not always.</p>
<p>If you take a look at USN&WR, they have a section that breaks down the average merit and fin aid awards schools give out. As you look up the listing for each individual school, there is a section that will break this down further. </p>
<p>Getting a lot of merit money is very difficult. If your child is above average in stats and/or has something the school wants, awards can be given out, but rarely are they large amounts that can make a big difference. For example, my son who is currently in college could have gone to an instate university for about $16K a year including room and board, with a $2500 merit award which was one of his cheapest options. Though he got some very nice scholarship money from some private universities up to $30K a year, the cost of those schools was more than $50K, leaving the state school still the best choice financially. Scary that a $30K scholarship still leaves that much left to be paid. Even his taking Stafford loans and working would not bridge that gap. This is a kid with close to perfect SATs, and we are not talking about the most selective school and scholarships. He did not get the Georgia Tech Presidential award though accepted to GT, for instance or the Rhodes College full cost awards, though he did get some merit money from them. </p>
<p>In order to get those very top full ride scholarships, your student has to be at the very top of the admissions pool. I know of a young lady who has one of the 2 dozen or so half tuition scholarships that BC gives out. Sound nice but it still leaves over $30K for her family to pay. Pitt’s Chancellor Awards, the Duke scholarship, John Hopkins Beneficial awards, Emory Scholars, have competition that rivals getting into HPY. In fact many if not most of the kids who get those awards have to choose between a full ride at those schools vs going to HPY and paying full freight. </p>
<p>The best methodology that I have seen in terms of getting these kinds of awards is using MomofTexas’s advice on full ride scholarships. The list of merit awards on this forum is also a treasure of a resource. A lot of the Catholic schools offer some very nice scholarships. But getting close to a full ride on a $50K college is not easy.</p>
<p>We discovered that some schools have specific, named, merit scholarships (e.g. “Alumni and Friends Scholarship”) for applicants who also qualify for need-based aid. Such students would receive some type of aid package which includes a named “merit” scholarship along with various grants and loans. Brandeis and GW are examples of schools that offer merit aid to applicants who qualify for need-based aid. Brandeis used to also offer merit scholarships to students who did not qualify for need-based aid, but has reduced those scholarships to almost nothing (a few are left, for kids from Waltham, MA and maybe one for kids from Chicago, for some reason). GW still has one merit scholarship program (their “Presidential Scholarship”) for applicants “without need,” but it appears that many (but not all) of the awardees are those who applied for need-based aid and did not receive it. The amount of that scholarship is about $15K; the scholarships for students “with need” may be significantly higher.</p>
<p>I think that there may be other schools which include grant funds in students’ need-based packages which carry the designation “scholarship,” and thus, even at schools which offer only need-based aid, a student might rightly claim to have received a scholarship. Some of these may be awarded on a merit basis, and may play a role in “preferential packaging,” in which the applicants the school is particularly keen to attract get more grant/scholarship money and fewer loans to meet their need than other applicants. </p>
<p>(Since only students receiving need-based aid at these schools can get scholarships at all, full-pay students can’t be considered, even if they are “merit-based.” Quite apart from the money aspect, it is a bit chafing for a student who won’t qualify for need-based aid to be out of the running for designation as “meritorious.”)</p>
<p>Pitt has offered full-tuition scholarships (not including room and board) to OOS students with good (maybe 1450) SAT scores. Pitt is a “state supported” but not “state owned” school, so it has that flexibility with non-public funds. Penn State is also “state supported”, but does not offer that kind of merit aid. Pitt used to be fully private and Penn State used to be fully public, and that may partially explain the difference in their merit aid. Penn State does have a drop-in-the-bucket grant for their honors college students. Both are notorious for not meeting full need of in-state students. Politically, we have serious budget issues in Pennsylvania but there is a lot more concern for in-state students because the sticker price for OOS is already much higher, and much of the state grant money for in-state students has already disappeared. I don’t think the Pitt OOS grants are widely known among state residents.</p>
<p>In Texas, an OOS student can qualify for in-state tuition by winning a small merit-based grant. I think some other states do this as well, but the details will different and it’s a good question whether all those programs will survive state budget cutbacks. </p>
<p>FA packages are all different, but it’s typical that loans and work-study make up a large portion. </p>
<p>Basically, you have to keep on collecting information, identify financial and academic matches to your son, and apply to the right mix of schools. No, it’s not easy and it takes a lot of time. Your son can do a lot of the work, especially if you let him know in advance how much you can afford. This may not be the same number as EFC. Furthermore, private schools using CSS Profile will come up with different EFC numbers than FAFSA.</p>
<p>If you fully expect not to qualify for need-based aid, then it should not be a concern to you whether or not the school “meets full need.” (Except to the extent that it might produce a more socioeconomically diverse student body than a school that does not do so.)</p>
<p>University of Maryland is apparently not too generous with need-based aid, particularly for out-of-state students, but does offer merit scholarships to highly qualified students, both in-state and out-of-state. I believe the justification is that the more diverse student body, drawing from a larger pool of applicants, raises the overall quality of the school experience, so the taxpayers don’t revolt. OOS award amounts are actually larger than in-state, often bringing the tuition down to in-state level. There are also additional scholarships only available to Marylanders, but an OOS student can get a pretty decent deal at Maryland if he/she is at the top of the applicant pool. There is even a merit-based full-ride scholarship program for which OOS applicants are eligible.</p>
<p>If you don’t qualify for financial aid, “meets full need” schools are not of any use to you unless they also have substantial merit awards. A number of such schools do not give any merit awards. None of the ivies give merit scholarships, nor do schools like Williams, Ameherst and a number of other highly selective schools.</p>
<p>A number–a good number–of state schools offer merit aid to OOS students.
U Pittsburgh, Indiana U, Alabama, Auburn, U Louisville, U Kentucky, several publics in SC…probably many more states as well, those are just ones I know of off the top of my head.</p>
<p>NoCook…most people are unlikely to share their financial need with you. We found, also, that many folks whose kids were attending schools that awarded only need based aid did not share that part of the info. We had a good friend whose kid got a “full ride” to Penn…they made it sound like merit aid. Another got $12,000 from Wellesley…again…need based. Parents didn’t mention that part.</p>
<p>If I were you…I’d let that part go. The reality is that families are not going to share their personal finances with others. </p>
<p>There are some schools that meet full need that DO give scholarships (merit )as well. These are HIGHLY competitive scholarship. UVA and UNC Chapel Hill come to mind. Davidson meets full need and I know they also have a very competitive music scholarship they award…I think they offer others as well. </p>
<p>The Ivy League schools do not give any merit scholarships. Neither do many of the other tippy top schools (Amherst, Williams for example).</p>
<p>"If you fully expect not to qualify for need-based aid, then it should not be a concern to you whether or not the school “meets full need.”</p>
<p>I think you misunderstand me - I’m not concerned about whether a school meets full need. What has confused me is trying to match up what people tell me with what I’m reading… I’m mentally taking notes about all these schools whom people tell me gave their kids merit aid and then when I go to check it out, 9 times out of 10, it says the school meets financial need only. I’m latching on to the part about merit aid availability and now wondering what I’m missing. My question here is to try to figure out if I’m understanding the difference between these terms that are used. And now from what I’m reading on this thread, I’m wondering if schools that say they only meet financial aid actually do slip in merit aid to kids who demonstrate no financial need…?</p>
<p>No, I believe I understood you and what you are trying to find out–I was responding to some posts upthread which referred to schools meeting/not meeting need.</p>
<p>My impression is that if schools have need-based aid only, that’s that. You need to have “need,” by their calculations, to qualify for any institutional aid at all. Some schools will call some of their institutional grant aid “scholarships.” Tufts has a few of these. They have a few named “scholarships” and refer to them as “loan replacement” programs which allow them to give more grant money and fewer loans.</p>
<p>Some schools offer merit aid, but if you look closely, most/all of the money is merit aid directed to students who also qualify for need-based aid. You can find the numbers on the Common Data Sets, but be aware that schools do change policies year to year and you can be disappointed (as we were) aiming at a school which gave merit aid to applicants with “no need” in the past, but shifted their funds to direct them to need-based instead.</p>
<p>Other schools offer straight-up merit aid: You don’t even have to fill out FAFSA or CSS forms.</p>
<p>Finally, there are the very, very selective and very, very well-endowed schools which offer need-based aid only but define “need” very differently from the typical formula. For example, Harvard considers families with incomes of $180K to qualify for their need-based aid.</p>
<p>I beg to differ with you DeskPotato just a bit about Tufts. I was just there (yesterday) at a financial aid meeting for families of admitted students at their open house. The fin aid director was VERY clear that they do not give any merit aid awards, no scholarships, nada. Everything is based on need. Maybe you were referring to something like NMSF scholarships? I know of one student (from my daughter’s hs) who went to Tufts last year and got a $2500 scholarship for being NMSF.</p>
<p>For us personally, my d has gotten a large variety of need-based aid only and scholarships from 2 meets- needs schools and from schools that don’t claim to meet need. The first 2 mentioned schools gave her large grants and sub fed loans and work study. The other 5 schools gave her a combo of scholarships, grants, sub and unsub loans and work study. She also got the Alumni and Friends Scholarship from Brandeis that DeskPotato spoke of earlier.</p>
<p>NoCook if you want to PMme, I’d gladly tell you about our experience.</p>
<p>As the admissions rep on that thread explained, they are “loan replacement” components of the need-based package but did come to the admitted student with designated names such as “Neubauer scholarship” and “Stern scholarship.” </p>
<p>It sounds like the original poster anticipates being in a full-pay situation, so needs schools that give merit aid to students who do not qualify for need-based aid. Neither Tufts nor Brandeis would be good targets for this family.</p>
<p>If the OP’s s or d has good stats, Northeastern gives good merit aid. My d got a $20,000 per year (for 4 years) scholarship without any fin aid application. In fact, I would say that all the colleges my d got into that weren’t need-aid based gave her great scholarships. The key is stats, well-written essays and some kind of hook that makes the student stand apart. Really no mystery.</p>
<p>Wow, that Merit Aid Percentage from Common Data Set is great info to have. Thanks so much!</p>
<p>Looking at it, though, has got me a bit confused. Several of the schools that are listed as needs-based aid only (in college search books) are on the list as giving merit aid. Looks like merit aid is more prevalent than my research was showing.</p>
<p>That’s excellent news about Northeastern. The thought of my kid having some practical work experience looks mighty attractive. Thanks upstatemom for your comments.</p>
<p>Nocook, a lot of parents just don’t know the difference in terminology. They may think that the school really thought Janie was so special they gave her a “scholarship” when it just means Janie got the need based aid that her family income qualified her for and not a penny more. Go with the college websites, not a parent’s say-so.</p>