<p>In an effort to get an accurate list in front of y'all here's the U.S. News Top 100 Research U's who do not grant any merit aid scholarships based solely on academic merit for the Class of 2010. </p>
<p>1 Harvard
1 Princeton University
3 Yale University
4 University of Pennsylvania<br>
5 Stanford University
7 Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
9 Columbia University
9 Dartmouth College
12 Northwestern University<br>
13 Cornell University<br>
15 Brown University<br>
18 University of Notre Dame<br>
23 Georgetown University
27 Tufts University </p>
<p>Using my criteria only (you may have different criteria) the following schools have severely limited merit aid in either numbers, amounts, or both. % applied is % of students receiving institutional merit/non-athletic. Of course, if your kid is Lucky Lou the Lotto Boy, well...</p>
<p>5 Duke 1%
7 Cal Tech 4%
13 Hopkins 5%
31 Wm and Mary 3%
40 Boston College 1%</p>
<p>I am sure there are more in the severely limited category. I'll try to flesh it out. Lehigh is at 7%. I used 5% as a cutoff myself, and then only posted the schools I knew from our search had 5% or less (and then I double checked those ;)).</p>
<p>These are twenty good reseach uni's to start with on your merit search. </p>
<p>17 Rice
18 Vandy
20 Emory
22 CMU
34 USC
34 Brandeis
37 U of Rochester
37 Case
43 RPI
43 Tulane
55 UMCP
55 UMiami
58 Pittsburgh
60 Boston U
66 Miami of Ohio
71 SMU
78 Baylor
78 SLU
78 Clemson
97 TCU</p>
<p>Certainly there are others that you might prefer. These were selected solely based on my knowledge of their merit aid pattern. Enjoy the hunt. There are varying degrees of selectivity and some schools that are pretty transparent in their policies. </p>
<p>There are some schools that have traditionally been kind to NMF's. Since I didn't have one of those, our search didn't pay a great deal of attention to those. They should be easy to google. Good luck.</p>
<p>This thread brings back memories for me. Back in the day (Summer 2002), when I was just beginning my college search, my dad told me to look for a school that might give me merit aid. I was interested in the smaller research universities and larger LACs, and I in fact went right down the US News list looking for which ones gave merit aid. Rice was the highest ranked school that gave merit aid (and happily, it fit with most of what I was looking for), so I visited. After visiting, I was really impressed, applied, and the rest, as they say is history!</p>
<p>Now, I'm studying abroad in Australia, as a junior from Rice, and I did, in fact recieve some pretty generous merit aid. Also, the amount of merit aid Rice gives has increased quite substantially in the past several years.</p>
<p>Edit: I really did a lot of my college search like this, I'm realizing. I visited 5 of Curmudge's top ten merit aid - research schools, and applied to three of them (Rice, Emory, and Rochester). Whether or not this is a reasonable way to do a college search is debatable, but it worked for me - so thanks go to curmudgeon for putting it out there.</p>
<p>Worked for you, worked for my kid. Worked for the students I helped here last year, too. I wasn't wedded to USNWR. It was just easy to do the list this way fast so I could get it out there. I actually have Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina and many others on my list (or should I say "lists") as fantastic merit schools, they just didn't make the Top 100 Uni list at USNWR.</p>
<p>Very reasonable, jenskate. My family will be approaching college choices in the same way. And thank you, thank you, thank you, curmudgeon. There's only one no-merit university on your list that I'd be prepared to pay full price for. And your LAC list of merit schools had many that I've never heard of. A great start for a newbie.</p>
<p>I'm making the assumption that some families will only be looking at Research Schols and not LAC's so I'm going to copy a post I made on the LAC list that is apropos here - </p>
<p>When you are applying for merit aid at some of our finest academic schools (top 100 LAC's and Uni's) , you have to really know not just your finances but where you stand in the admit pool . It's kind of like doing a ballet, while on a tightrope. :eek: Sometimes we are willing to pay more for a Rice than we are for a TCU, and in my opinion - that's just common sense. But sometimes TCU is willing to pay more for you, and that's common sense , too. LOL. </p>
<p>You can't have too many WashU's and not enough Denison's. Nobody should count on Emory scholars but you can pretty much calculate that you'll get something from Case AT CERTAIN STAT LEVELS. The breadth of the merit program at a Rhodes or a Centre make some merit a given at certain standards. That can't be said as clearly at Davidson or certainly not at Johns Hopkins. But yes at UMiami. </p>
<p>For a high stat kid , it's not a question of "can she get merit aid ?" But really , how much merit does she have to have to be able to attend? The strange concepts of "merit match" and "merit safety" and "merit reach" come into play. For us we calculated that as follows: find a school she'd like to attend that offered sufficient merit to attend to X %-age of their kids, where she was in the top X %. In other words, if Centre gave out 50 awards that would make attendance possible for her, was she likely to be one of those 50 kids? If so, it was a merit match. But if Hanover gave her a guaranteed $16K for being a val or sal with certain other requirements - that was a merit safety. It would have also been a safety because of her place in the overall pool of applicants and the fact that Hanover was $15K less than some other schools from the start. </p>
<p>So, just like with admission's, you need merit safeties, matches, and reaches. Maybe some of you are seeing now how we ended up with 11 apps to merit schools, and 3 to need only schools. Overkill? Well, yeah. Probably so, but my kid was going to have an affordable chair when the music stopped. We were just a wee little bit conservative and ended up with 10 merit chairs (one waitlist that she didn't stay on). We had too many merit safeties and matches. We needed maybe 5. We had 8. LOL. We should have had 6 merit reaches on the list. We had 3. Hey, like I said - she was going to have an affordable chair that she liked. I had promised her. ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
...find a school she'd like to attend that offered sufficient merit to attend to X %-age of their kids, where she was in the top X %.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Although it's not always this clear cut (sometimes a school just needs a basoonist - and if you are a basoonist....), I think it often comes pretty close. Unfortunately, I've never seen the merit aid game described so clearly. I feel like a lot of people overlook that this is pretty much exactly how merit aid works, in many cases.</p>
<p>jenskate, as you know we are just scratching the surface. I spent 100's of hours searching CDS records, comparing online sources, to determine just how many kids scored 700+ on sections of the SAT at each school under consideration, googling past individual recipients of major awards at schools she liked (actually looking up individual kids from year's past) , so many things that can't be adequately addressed on a BB. But creative folks maybe can use the basic system that worked for both our families and source out their own particular parameters based on their particular or in our case peculiar situation. </p>
<p>It's entirely different between my family (we were looking for a school that she liked that would cost us no more than UTexas Plan II, a wonderful program the urchin wouldn't apply to as it was in....uhhh.. Texas) and another family that just needs $20k off of $45K. Everything changes when you move the bar. Nothing stays static. OOch this and that moves. It'll drive you bug eating nuts. But in it's simple form - this is how to do it.</p>
<p>I would like to emphasize Rice's generousity! Rice gave me $13,500/year(which is more than 1/3 of the cost of tuition, room and board). They also offered a reimbursement of $400 to get me to Houston from where I live. I would definitely suggest applying there if you're looking for merit aid!</p>
<p>To OP, I know for a fact that at Caltech you don't get merit awards by being "Lucky Lou the Lottery Boy," you get them by busting your ass studying, getting a 4+ GPA, and doing good research. Really very little luck there. As a merit award winner I object to the award being written off due to luck.</p>
<p>Object all you want to. The reality is there were 5 (or 15) other kids who didn't get it , with stats objectively as good. Maybe you'd prefer Fortunate Frank to Lucky Lou the Lotto Boy? Remember my Kid is Lucky Louise and I'm not slamming her, am I? </p>
<p>Look, I was NOT denigrating your effort, but right place at the right time is part of the process. Did you apply to other schools where you didn't get the top award? were those kids better qualified? I doubt it. </p>
<p>Think of it this way, "luck favors the prepared mind" (applicant in this case). You were prepared to act on your good fortune by your hard work. Does that sound better?</p>
<p>And congrats. That is outstanding work. Just outstanding. A good friend of my D was waitlisted and he had a 1570/2370 and big research and got into Princeton (our sal). He is one smart cookie doing big dog physics research and he couldn't even get in the door while they fluffed your bed and left you a cookie on the pillow. ;)</p>
<p>No, you misunderstand. I am a current student at Caltech. Getting a 4+ GPA at Caltech is no easy feat, unlike at grade-inflated places like Harvard, or shall I say the majority of high schools across the country? Maybe for Axlines and stuff which judge on HS awards (which usually are all inflated) there is significant "luck" but I'm of the opinion that for the Upper Class Merit awards there is very little luck involved. You don't get a 4+ GPA at Caltech by being lucky, you get it by being intelligent and working hard.</p>
<p>I'm surprised that UNC-Chapel Hill isn't on this list. Besides the Morehead and Robertson's scholarships which cover tuition, fees, room, board, & summer enrichment, the University itself awarded 25 scholarships this year to out-of-staters that cover tuition, fees, room, & board. They also offer other lesser scholarships and cover 100% of need. Furthermore, they have the lowest tuition & fees for non-residents of any of the top 30 schools by over $5,000 and the next-to-the-lowest cost for room & board.</p>
<p>Well then, hush my mouth compucomp. I agree with you (because I have zero data points to disagree with you). I'm talking about entering freshmen scholarships. Sorry to be so dense.</p>
<p>I agree that UNC is a great school and a wonderful bargain. Couple of points. My merit list wasn't intended to be anything but a starting point of twenty schools where I was at least passingly familiar. That's all. Secondly the thread is about need and merit aid, not COA. </p>
<p>$12,650 (30% of attending students) Case</p>
<p>$17,758 (13% " ") Vandy</p>
<p>$12,702 (19% " ") USC</p>
<p>$5,308 (15% " ") UNC</p>
<p>Entering freshmen numbers are sort of "similar" but not exact. (Actually kind of weird.)</p>
<p>The numbers are not there, by comparison , for the merit program. For the fortunate students who do get one of the awards you mention, that's great. I'm all for applying. But of 16,000 kids how many are getting those "big ones"? </p>
<p>Now, if I was putting out a list of best bigdogkinghell scholarships, UNC would be there in spades. If I was putting out best OOS school if you qualify for no aid, I think y'all are numero uno (except for Plan II at UTexas, but U wide - it's UNC hands-down for me.). Fair enough?</p>
<p>Plenty fair, Curmudgeon. I point out the cost of attendance because a dollar amount scholarship will obviously go farther at a school with a lower cost. Of the OOS freshman entering this year, nearly 10% will receive a full ride merit scholarship for all four years at UNC-CH. Several more will receive partial scholarships. </p>
<p>I appreciate your list and am also interested in top 30+ schools that give a significant number of full-ride scholarships.</p>
<p>Also, a significant percentage of the OOS students at UNC are athletes, so the percentage of students admitted because of their academic ability getting full-rides is even greater.</p>
<p>"No, you misunderstand. I am a current student at Caltech. Getting a 4+ GPA at Caltech is no easy feat, unlike at grade-inflated places like Harvard, or shall I say the majority of high schools across the country? Maybe for Axlines and stuff which judge on HS awards (which usually are all inflated) there is significant "luck" but I'm of the opinion that for the Upper Class Merit awards there is very little luck involved. You don't get a 4+ GPA at Caltech by being lucky, you get it by being intelligent and working hard."</p>
<p>Boy, you're quick to jump the gun considering the OP is clearly talking about entering scholarships...</p>