Tuition Exchange for Fall 2022 Freshman applicants (Class of 2026)

Last year TE posted it on the website around end of April. Was hoping they will post this years soon.

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Thank you for sharing! Did Wesleyan give any merit? (I know they are almost exclusively meets need) Which highest merit schools? Would you be willing to share? Thank you!

Wesleyan didn’t award any merit. My understanding is that aside from a few “Lin Manuel Miranda” writing scholarships, they don’t do any merit. We were pleasantly surprised that their financial aid offer was so generous.

I don’t mind sharing at all! I was in the dark about all this a year ago and I know that any info (even anecdotal) helps.

Her best merit awards were as follows:
Bryn Mawr - Presidential Scholarship ($40k/yr) + some fin aid
Lehigh University - Trustee Scholarship and Eckardt Scholar (half tuition = $27k/yr) + some fin aid
Sarah Lawrence - Presidential Scholarship ($35k/yr) + some fin aid

At Agnes Scott, she got the Trustee Scholarship ($26k/yr) + TE which covered full tuition
At Belmont (husband’s institution), she got Faculty Scholarship ($15k/yr) and would have had tuition reimbursement for the rest.
At American, TE ($40k/yr)

She also got into Vassar and Wellesley with excellent financial aid (they’re both no merit schools).

And for anyone still following along, she was waitlisted at Amherst, Barnard, Swarthmore, and the University of Chicago; and rejected from Brown, Georgetown, Harvard, and Yale.

One more tiny piece of info: after getting her acceptances, the worst overall package was from Lehigh, a school she was still interested in because of a fall semester in Ecuador/the Galapagos Islands. I called their fin. aid office to see if there was wiggle room in their financial aid. They asked for the best offer she had and they matched it (after putting in some additional info and decreasing the percentage of home equity they were considering). So… there is room on financial aid offers. There is NOT room, as far as I know, on merit offers.

Hope this helps! I was so grateful for the info provided last year to members of this group. Couldn’t be happier about how our journey turned out and hoping the same for all future members.

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Our journey is done now too. Brief recap – 4.0, 3rd in class of 570, almost exclusively AP/Honors/Dual Enrollment, SAT 1520, ACT 34, varsity athlete. She was accepted at all the TE schools where she applied (and interestingly, to no non-TE schools.)

TE Schools (her preferred order)

  1. Richmond (TE waitlist, not awarded; 20k merit)
  2. Elon (TE denied, 21k merit offer)
  3. Furman (TE waitlist, not awarded; 45k merit)
  4. Bucknell (TE awarded - set rate, no merit)
  5. Berry College (TE denied; 25k merit)
  6. Rollins (TE awarded - set rate; 32k merit, but did not stack; in state Bright Futures did stack with TE)

She applied to a handful of non-TE schools too. She was waitlisted at Colby, Davidson, Wake Forest, Middlebury, and Boston College and as of now, hasn’t gotten off any waitlist. (To be fair, she didn’t send any LOCIs or demonstrate any continued interest because we realized that it was highly unlikely to get merit offers at these schools to make them affordable). She was denied at Swarthmore and Dartmouth.

We held out until the last minute hoping to get off TE waitlists, but this week we heard from both Furman and Richmond that all of their spots were accounted for, and unfortunately they couldn’t offer us an award. At that point, Furman did add an extra 10k to the previous merit offer though, which made the cost of attendance within 1k of Rollins. So Furman it is and she’s excited to be heading out of state to one of her top schools with a very decent offer.

I am admittedly a bit disappointed (and surprised) to have only had the two TE offers (both at set-rate, non-stacking schools). I know we could have cast a bigger net, but she was kind of particular in the schools she wanted to go to. Both Furman and Richmond were in the 11-40% range of awards last year, and I felt that would give her a really good chance to get at least one of them, but I was wrong. I don’t know if all their standard wording of “competition for the awards was more difficult than in previous years” is true, but it certainly seemed that way. We knew it was a crapshoot though.

My biggest disappointment/frustration in the process was how difficult it was to get information from schools about their selection process. I had a very difficult time from most schools getting any information at all. Elon was actually the most helpful in that regard and I learned they had a 2 person team looking through the applicants to select 3-4 awards and that it wasn’t strictly based on merit/stats.

My son is a freshman and I’ll be better prepared in a couple years when his turn rolls around. His stats probably won’t be quite as a good as my daughter, but I expect he’ll be a recruited athlete, which I’m sure will make things different too.

Best of luck to everyone as they make their transitions into college next year, and hopefully all of this information is helpful to someone who will be going through this process in the future.

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It is frustrating as my employer tauts this tuition benefit as rationale for lower salaries.

I have a low gpa son so who knows if he will get TE anywhere.

Is your son not eligible for free tuition as a dependent at your home institution? If so, that is a great benefit. When I first started working at my college 22 years ago, i took a much lower salary but both my husband were able to get degrees that would have cost a boatload of $$ for each to get.

Yes. Sadly my college does not offer his major.

FYI, TE has released the short list of those colleges who still have TE openings for fall 22 admits.

Truett McConnell
The American College of Thessaloniki
Coe College
Luther College
The College of Idaho
University of Evansville
Valparaiso University
Bethany College
Southwestern College
Bellarmine University
Regis College
Wheaton College
Meredith College
Bloomfield College
Marist College
Wagner College
Elmira College
Ohio Dominican University
University of the Arts
Albright College
Wilson College
Sherman College of Chiropractic
Southern Wesleyan University
Schreiner Unversity
Virginia Wesleyan University
Viterbo University

Immaculata University

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My son is up a Providence on a TE Scholarship. He was on a wait list and came off at the 11th hour. Loves it up there! Good luck.

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What school is it?

Did anyone have any luck with University of Tampa?

Interesting, thanks for posting! Surprised about Marist College. Last year it was very hard to get TE. Wheaton College (if it’s the Massachusetts one) is a great college if anyone out there is still looking!

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Funny about Marist as someone at hubby’s work was told they didn’t get it. After I told them about the May list and them being on it, they reached back out to the liaison and was still told they were none. I wonder if it was a mistake.

Regarding Wheaton, they are new to TE and likely undiscovered. I’m nearby and yes, it’s a great option! I was looking around their site the other day as someone from our town is headed there and noticed that they will start a nursing major next year.

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My daughter last year got accepted to Marist and to their honors program, but denied TE, not even waitlisted. My daughter also applied to Wheaton and they gave her a 40K merit scholarship instead of TE. Wheaton didn’t appeal that much to my D but I thought it looked like a great school. I am sure they will attract students with the nursing major too.

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Our TE journey had a happy ending last night, as daughter was awarded TE (from waitlist) to University of Delaware!

To help those who scour these boards (as I did) during the process: DD had 4.1 UW GPA, 3 sport athlete (captain of soccer), numerous ECs and leadership. Test optional. Her essay was strong.

Applied for TE at:
Marist (waitlist)
Quinnipiac (denied)
Delaware (waitlist, then awarded)

For her, Delaware was an early favorite and we actually paid the deposit prior to hearing from any TE schools.

She sent a letter to the TE rep at Delaware upon application letting them know why Delaware was her top choice school. She also sent a thank you when placed on the waitlist. I have no idea if this helped, as I hear Delaware uses straight stats, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt.

Congrats to all, whether awarded TE or not, and good luck to our kiddos in the fall. Anyone else now feel tremendous pressure to stay employed at your home institution for the next 4 years? :laughing:

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Congrats on University of Delaware! :grinning:

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