Good ideas.
As far as filtering out schools, clearly CDS will indicate who gives need based only- this is useful and easy. The “buyers” and “sellers” list spoken about in this forum is useful in doing this quickly without going to individual CDSs.
Understanding and agreeing with your comment about tiers- average award probably is a terrible data point- and in my reading, matches up roughly with some of the actual awards I have read about in here.
Hofstra. Bradley. MS ST.”, ASU
Schools that Post auto merit tables that include GPA / ACT include Alabama. Murray State, Ms state Arizona. UAH, MIZZOU so you can easily figure. Some schools…W&L, UNC, UVA have special big scholarships. Some have national merit money.
Obviously a ton more in all these categories.
If you want merit you are much better off letting us know what you seek and use the collective wisdom of the community to point you in the right place. You’ll find the schools to target vs trying to figure out schools one by one on your own.
Btw I disagree with your last sentence. You’d eliminate most schools.
UMiami, WPI, AND RIT, are the privates with merit that showed up in the NPC based on what I remember.
Although it would be an interesting list, I think it would be a bad criteria to select where to apply.
It might be a bad criteria- but would be helpful in bucketing things for me.
If a merit granting schools NPC spits out 30k in merit, I might be more likely to have my kid apply to it over a school that shows no merit aid because it is not part of the NPC.
Maybe not an eliminating factor per se, but another data point.
It’s nuts that you need to go through the process of applying and getting an acceptance before you even know what a school will cost you. I can’t think of another financial decision of this size where price is so murky and at the end of the purchasing process. But that is a topic for another post.
If anyone can recommend privates in the northeast, CA and FL that have reputable engineering programs and a NPC that largely lined up with what was offered to you post acceptance, it would be great.
This will likely cause you to overlook some good schools that may offer sizable discounts, and that’s what many schools are doing…discounting. I’m not talking about the ones that have merit grids based on GPA/test scores because those are the ones where merit is more likely to be on the NPC.
Schools that are discounting often don’t show this on the NPC because it can vary dramatically from year to year…schools offer bigger discounts to students they most want and that can be relative to that year’s applicant pool. Sometimes a larger merit/discount is based on stats, sometimes not.
The CDS are your best source to research non-need based aid at each school. This is a good resource that attempts to aggregate this CDS info and you can sort how you want: Release Domestic Financial Aid 2021 - Google Sheets
That is a really great distinction and I really appreciate you pointing it out.
By the way, the spreadsheet you attached is AWESOME and saves a ton of time!
Where is it from?
It is from some people who work as private college counselors, but make this data public. It’s a great service, and they are generous to put it out there. Their names are on that doc, you can google them to learn more.
Lawrence university and Oberlin used to. I don’t know if they still do.
I think Ohio Wesleyan might.
It would be nice to know in advance, but as has been previously stated, it’s a relatively opaque process, and your methodology will miss potential opportunities.
The alternative is to post your student’s stats, your top line budget number, what they want their experience to be like and have posters give some idea of where your student might be able to meet those requirements.
The other thing to pay attention to are the other schools an institution lists as their peers. Linked below are WPI’s benchmark institutions. You’ll find similar pages for other schools. Our son was awarded $60K at RPI, $80K at WPI, and $100K at Case. Had he ultimately selected WPI, which he almost did, we could have used his peer institution award to at least ask for more merit aid.
https://www.wpi.edu/offices/institutional-research/benchmarking
I disagree. We applied to 21 schools. From reading threads on here to reading college merit sites you can see…for example, where my daughter attends said at the time $8-12k.
U of SC gives examples. Miami of Ohio has a table with variable amounts.
Denver gives up to $30k. Miami Florida mostly $25k. CU Boulder mostly $6250.
Most of that is not from NPCs and maybe not even their websites.
So what is the harm in laying out stats, desires ( size, geography, weather, major etc and seek ideas? There’s likely many schools you are unaware of.
Your choice but you have great resources here.
I am like you. Full pay - EFC of 100k+. My daughter applied to 21 schools, varying levels of merit and we knew up front. But all offered merit. We eliminated need based only.
I gleaned a lot of info from here. Didn’t always match. Sometimes better. Sometimes worse. Some have no merit even though it’s offered.
But to try and do this via NPC you will simply eliminate so many and one may end up a great and affordable choice for your student.
If you want the ‘best’ merit for top students start with Alabama, Arizona, MS State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, UAH, Mizzou, Murray State, U of SC, FSU and more.
But that’s a list with no basis for what might interest your student from a geographical, size, sports, major and other criteria and that’s the problem.
Or tell us which NPCs u r looking at so we can say schools like that with merit are ……
Edit. I just saw your note about Florida. Look at Florida tech and Embry Riddle…both offered my son half. FSU for out of state waiver. UCF offers money. Other Florida publics are just cheap relative to other public schools. That includes UF. Last year Miami offered most ‘good’ students $25k. You need to go where you are the top. Merit is really a discount to = value. Miami trying to steal kids from top 30. So they pay. A top 30 may not etc.
For your best merit move up a state. Mid size UAH and Alabama have great merit. Auburn has solid merit too !! UAH, for example, is in aerospace land if that’s an interest as is Florida Tech. Both home runs. My son goes to Bama…$3k a year OOS with auto merit. His intern team last summer had two Ga tech kids. He’s been invited back. They haven’t. So engineering can be solid most anywhere
Btw many reputable engineering schools are public.
College is one of the few places that practice price discrimination.
It’s actually nuts you pay an application fee and can get rejected. On top of going in price blind.
But there’s enough intelligence out there and on here to figure it out. Apply widely and to the right schools and you’ll find a few great offers. But you have to be flexible.
In my daughters case we were really blind. We accepted and it was going to be $22k a year at Collehe of Charleston with $12k merit.
Then every few weeks she got a note of increased merit. She now has scholarships worth $1k over tuition. So that’s really blind. But In a good way. Lots of schools have ‘additional’ scholarships above the norm. Make sure to hit those too.
The merit aid landscape has 2 components. One, the guaranteed merit aid based on stats. Two, variable, discretionary aid schools use to entice students who most likely wouldn’t otherwise attend to enroll in their universities.
Once you understand that that’s what’s driving the merit bus for schools in the 2nd category, you can make a list of schools offering merit aid, and from that list, figure out if your student has something the school really wants.
Usually that’s better grades/scores than their usual accepted candidate, but sometimes there are other institutional needs that can be known (and some that can’t). An example of institutional needs other than academics would be schools that are looking to boost their diversity, or geographical reach (for a regional school hoping for a more national reputation).
But most merit is offered for academics. A basic rule of thumb is that your student will get no merit at their reach schools, some aid at target schools, maybe, and the most aid at their safeties. So – clearly you need to be focusing most of your attention on the safeties. I believe the most aid from private schools is $30,000/year (barring some named scholarship that you usually have to apply for)).
UMiami had merit in the NPC until 2019? When S20 applied it was gone. He didn’t get as much as he had hoped and was pretty disappointed.
It seemed last year $25K was the main #. Everyone posted that - with a few of the top students going to a full scholarship. I don’t recall hearing anyone getting less although there could be some - they just didn’t pop.
I imagine if you’re someone Miami really needs, that $25K is what is needed for them to pull you from an Emory, BU, Wake Forest level schools or even a Vandy or Rice, etc. If you are borderline Miami, then yeah, they have no reason to pay.
The money was still there it just wasn’t on the NPC. Before 2020 you plugged in your stats and the NPC listed your merit. It was crystal clear. It was great.
Our friend’s D just graduated this year. She’s going to PA school this fall. Her stats weren’t as high as S20 but she got max merit. He didn’t. Miami got very competitive, very fast.
Whitman and I believe Wooster will give you a full financial aid guarantee before you apply (above and beyond their NPCs).
I also think the NPC cannot capture a variety of discretionary scholarships and programs that might be available. For instance, maybe there is a ton of merit aid but only for those who apply for and get in to the Honors College. Or a department/major that is selective and offers a 3+1 Bachelor/Masters program, so a student can get a second degree for “free.” Or scholarships available only to those who apply early.
That’s why I did not find the NPC a particularly useful tool.
You mentioned it wasn’t as much as I thought - I was just wondering if it was the $25K or less - to give OP an idea.
We still (I don’t think) have a profile of OP other than now looking for engineering schools in certain areas.
The Florida publics will be cheapest followed by Florida Tech and Embry Riddle. The thing with FSU is their engineering campus is “off campus”. That, and he mentioned private which in engineering is limiting to a certain respect although many more in the NE as mentioned such as WPI, RPI, Rochester, Syracuse, etc.
In CA, it will range from USC, the jesuit/catholic (USC, LMU, etc.) to Pacific and more.
A lot depends on the OPs stats, etc.
A lot depends on “additional” scholarships not everyone applies to.
If we had an idea of stats and desired budget (but you have to be flexible geographically), we could point in a direction.
If one wants to spend $20-25K and are full pay, then one needs to target those schools that hit that price point for students with certain stats.
If the desire is to spend $50K or $60K, that opens up a lot wider set of choices.
1460 Sat, National Merit Commeneded
Female, Hispanic
All A’s but one B+ in Bio
AP comp Sci Soph,
AP Physics, Psych and Stats Junior
Anticipate AP Calc AB, Spanish and Chem Senior
Budget 65k/yr
Geography hopes for: NY, New England, FL and CA