urm merit scholarships at small college or university

<p>My son is of latino heritage, has a 93 unweighted average and 2140 on the SAT (CR 770, Math 690, Writing 680). We are barely middle class, but won't qualify for financial aid. We know that Wash U gives a lot of aid, and also Vanderbilt and Emory. Are there other mid to small selective schools that might offer aid? I checked out the thread about merit aid but had trouble finding info on small schools, preferably East Coast. Thanks.</p>

<p>Hi chamom,
My daughter his Latina and we are middle class and don't expect much, if any, financial aid. I have a list of colleges with URM merit aid, but none exactly fit your criteria as they are either not on the east coast or are larger schools. Anyway, here's what I have:
Rice - Trustee Diversity Scholarship (9-12K/yr)
Macalester - Lealtad scholarship (3-5k/yr
Kenyon - Trustee Opportunity (up to half of comprehensive cost)
BU - NHRP scholarship (half tuition)
UMichigan - Michigan scholar award (5k/yr)
GWU - Presidential Academic (I think half tuition, but the website is vague)</p>

<p>Less selective colleges with URM merit scholarships are:
UWisconsin, UIowa, Northeastern, Goucher, UArizona, Indiana U-Bloomington, UVM, Clemson, Drew & CU.</p>

<p>Colleges with non-URM merit that might be of interest as they are seeking diversity:
Hamilton, Bard, Brandies, Grinnell, Tulane</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>thanks. I wish I started this sooner. I only started considering the possibility of merit aid when he got his new SAT results. Now it is very late to start visiting schools, etc. Oh well... Good luck to your daughter as well!</p>

<p>davidson in north carolina; clemson and u. s. car.; case western; carnegie mellon</p>

<p>thanks jazyurm Are you familiar with Davidson or Carnegie Mellon?</p>

<p>Thanks! My daughter is a junior, so I have only her grades and sophomore year PSAT to evaluate; thus I'm looking at a broad range of selectivity at this point. I forgot about CMU and JHU, they both have general merit scholarships, and I hear they sometimes offer them to high scoring URM's. We took a brief visit to Boston in October and visited Brandeis, Northeastern and BU. Unfortunately, none of them passed her test for one reason or another. Back to the drawing board.</p>

<p>My advice is to take a look at something like the US News college guide or the various theads on CC describing small colleges. Find some that seem like good matches for your student. Go to their web sites, and check out their merit aid.</p>

<p>I've found that many colleges -- particularly LACs -- have excellent merit aid for URMs because they have a very hard time recruiting them. My impression is that URMs with good grades, scores also will be at an advantage for regular merit aid at such colleges.</p>

<p>Also e-mail the adcoms, tell them about your student and ask them about aid possibilities. This also can lead to fly-ins.</p>

<p>Among colleges that I know offer merit aid: Rhodes (Memphis), Wofford (s. Carolina), American, Goucher, Lafayette, St. Lawrence, and probably places like Allegheny and Franklin and Marshall.</p>

<p>Dennison is in Ohio, but seems very eager to recruit URMS as S has gotten lots of mailings from them that also emphasize their excellent scholarships.</p>