<p>mamagx3,
I wondered how the economy would affect merit aid this year too, but I have been happily surprised. My son has a full ride, and my daughter so far has three offers of free tuition and one full ride. Perhaps you are looking in the wrong places ? We focused on CTCL schools. The alternative of course is that your view of ‘stellar stats’ is different than the colleges your daughter is applying at. 'A’s are not enough – not by a long shot. E.g., at my kid’s public HS (one of the three best in our modest state), the AVERAGE gpa is 3.5! Grade inflation is off the charts. Significant merit aid that say, covers 3/4rths of the cost of attendance for a lot of private colleges in the 50 - 100 group in national rankings starts with kids at about the 99th percentile nationally. A weighted gpa of 4.0 <em>might</em> hit the 80th percentile at our HS. A student below the 90th percentile – maybe even the 95th – is just barking up the wrong tree in expecting merit aid.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>Very true…</p>
<p>The pool of kids with high GPA’s is very big. Because of grade inflation and weighted scores, sometimes the top 10% of a school has over a 4.0 GPA.</p>
<p>The pool of kids with high test scores is smaller. (test scores of - say - at least 97 percentile and higher)</p>
<p>The pool of kid with both high test scores AND high GPAs is very small. Those are the ones that can get big scholarships if they apply to schools that give them.</p>
<p>Based on the data I have seen, a high stat middle class student has much higher chance to get generous NB FA (~full tuition) from the very tip top schools than to get same amount of merit aid from a way lower tier school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Dad II…the reality is that the reason for this is the HIGH STAT middle class student…like your kids…would not HAVE demonstrated NEED at any but the most tippy top generous schools with huge endowments that give need based aid to families with incomes in excess of 120,000 a year. </p>
<p>However, there are some wonderful full rides for high stat students at many schools…University of South Carolina (McNair), Alabama, things like the Trustee Scholarship at Boston University. These are merit awards that cover the full cost of attendance.</p>
<p>Okay, here is a different scenario. We have a hard working B+ student with solid ECs from a middle class family. His standardized test scores are solid, and were good enough to submit to any of the test optional schools on his list. Our son applied to a large number of private schools because we needed to compare a lot of financial packages. He applied to 14 private schools and was fortunate enough to be accepted to all of them. His best 3 financial aid packages (I am including merit awards which he received from 12 out of the 14 pirvate colleges) were from 2 safety schools, and one match school. All three of them have lower endowments. The schools with much greater endowments were not nearly as generous to our family. The spread in our packages was huge. The best 3 packages, interestingly, were within $400 of each other (I considered direct costs only, subtracted only grants and the subsidized Stafford loan. I did not care about any of the other loans that were offered in packages or the work study amounts). After those 3 packages, there was an out of pocket jump of 2500 for schools 4 and 5, and it grew greatly as moved past school #5’s offer. My conclusion is that the schools with lower endowments felt the need to discount more to entice our son to attend. Oh, and 2 of the 3 are outside of the northeast. Their strategy worked, because my son is considering 2 schools out of the 3 that offered the best packages. There is one school that might offer more money though as the result of an additional program that our son was invited to apply for at their school. We will hear back about that in about 3 weeks.</p>
<p>My S will be a first generation college student in the Fall of 2014. I have worked hard to break a terrible cycle in my family’s history; the result being children who can at least look at a “dream” school and not have to believe it is out of reach. I am not asking for a hand out for my son, but a hand up. I think it is simply wrong, for anyone to say, that by hoping for enough financial aid to send your child to a school they want to go to, is somehow wrong. A “dream” school is different for each student. The reality is that most people in this country cannot afford $200,000 or more for college and no family should be made to feel bad because they cannot. I, for one, plan to fight for my son to attend the college of his choice. The result, an adult who pays the generosity he has received forward to others who need help. That is what America should be about. Good luck to everyone and your students.</p>
<p>Dad II quote: Based on the data I have seen, a high stat middle class student has much higher chance to get generous NB FA (~full tuition) from the very tip top schools than to get same amount of merit aid from a way lower tier school.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on what you call “middle class” … Some people who consider themselves “middle class” have EFCs too high to get much “free” need based aid anywhere. </p>
<p>It’s true that a high stats student who is middle class and has - say - an income of $55k and a low EFC, can get great FA at a top school…if he gets accepted. There’s the rub. Those schools that meet need w/o big loans have a high rejection rate. Hence the need for those kids to have big merit schools as their safeties.</p>
<p>My earlier post requires some clarification and a correction. When I wrote 99th percentile kids, I meant based on gpa + SAT. My daughter told me this morning that a friend of hers has a weighted gpa of 3.8, and is ranked 70th in the 425 student class. So as Mom2 wrote, a 4.0 (w) gpa is probably closer to a 90th percentile rank. This is still no where near what is required for a large merit scholarship.</p>
<p>The CTCL schools we looked at and the state U’s tend to give large merit scholarships to about 3% of their enrolled class. If you consider that these schools are not enrolling the bottom half of the domestic freshman cohort, one arrives once more at the 99th percentile of college bound students who will score large merit awards. This is 1/10th of the 4.0+ gpa group.</p>
<p>EricLG, where are you drawing the line between a “large” merit scholarship and a not-so-large one?</p>
<p>^ Fair question.
I’d say 0.5 Tuition or better scholarship, or less than $20k/year cost of attendance that includes tuition, room and board for private or OOS schools.</p>
<p>EricLG: My D’s stats are stellar in anyone’s book. I’ll just leave it at that.</p>
<p>^^
<shrug> I’m not the one your daughter has to convince.</shrug></p>
<p>btw, I’m only speaking about unhooked students.</p>
<p>One other thought, mamagx3:
I started a thread not too long ago that can be found by clicking my name, that reports standardized student profiles, schools applied to, and merit awards given for the 2010 school year.</p>
<p>Use it for leads, or as a reality check, as needed.</p>
<p>(clearing throat) Excuse me! Read the first couple of pages of this thread - let’s keep the discussion to whining about FA packages. Feel free to start any new threads you like!</p>
<p>EricLG: I thought this was a thread so you could have a good-natured whine about FA, so please allow me to have my whine without analyzing my post. I was commiserating with abasket and her son. </p>
<p>Congrats to your children on their FA, but not all are as fortunate.</p>
<p>Our financial aid offer came in from our instate public U. Nothing but loans. Our instate schools are high priced too (nearly double the price of some other states like NC). Our instate public Us were not a financial safety for our family.</p>
<p>Boston University gave me 0 money.
My EFC happens to be 0.
They Match.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>What do you mean…“they match”?</p>
<p>Also…are you saying that they gave you no institutional money?</p>
<p>I believe Commie means that his EFC is 0 and his financial aid package was 0.</p>
<p>Commie – that doesn’t make any sense – are you sure they got your FAFSA? Did you file on-time? At a minimum you should have gotten the Pell $ and federal options, and I’d be really, really surprised if they didn’t have some college grant for you.</p>