@twoinanddone - You are correct. My original post didn’t clearly communicate the target of my frustration… it is with the scholarships at private colleges, when the scholarship amount does not exceed need-based aid. I never meant to imply that this is the case for all merit scholarships. But that’s what I wrote, in haste.
Many schools replace loans and/or work-study first when scholarships are received by a student who can receive financial aid. Examples:
Oregon State: http://financialaid.oregonstate.edu/faqs#faq17
Oregon: https://financialaid.uoregon.edu/scholarships_faq#10
Lehigh: http://www1.lehigh.edu/financialaid/faq
Boston University: http://www.bu.edu/finaid/aid-basics/faqs/
Vanderbilt: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/scholarships/faq.php
Wake Forest: http://financialaid.wfu.edu/frequently-asked-questions/general-questions/
Harvard: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/types-aid/outside-awards
Princeton: https://www.princeton.edu/pr/aid/08/qa/
However, all of the above refer only to outside scholarships (Harvard and Princeton do not offer their own merit scholarships); the schools do not mention how their own scholarships affect financial aid packages, unlike this example on a page that refers to scholarships from both the school and outside givers: https://students.ucsd.edu/finances/financial-aid/types/scholarships/
Here are some lists of large scholarships:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
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Thank you, novafan1225 and others, for understanding what I mean. I mean that when you have a school that meets “need” (their definition of need), or comes close to it, the merit award does not affect the net price.
As nova1fan said: “it was a little frustrating after working my butt off in HS only to find out I could’ve worked much less hard and paid close to a similar price.” We are finding that frustration now, just running the numbers.
She would have the same price if she had a 3.0 gpa and a 24 ACT.
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Thank you for clarifying that you meant at “full need” schools. That wasn’t mentioned in your opening post.
However, both you and @novatan1225 are missing an important point. At schools that meet need, admissions are very competitve, so if the student “didn’t work their butt off,” they may have been REJECTED. Who cares what the NPC results are…NPC results don’t predict your chance of ACCEPTANCE. A low stats student may have a print-out of wonderful NPC results…sitting alongside his rejection letter.
It’s almost near certantly, someone who had (your example) a 3.0 24 ACT would NOT be admitted to a “full need” school so who cares what a NPC result might show? That student would likely never see an aid pkg. (This is why your OP was confusing. Using a low stats student as an example, when you intended on talking about “full need” schools.)
And, both you and @novatan1225 are also overlooking the fact that since schools that meet need get to define what your need is, they also can give a preferential pkg to a student with better stats.
It is NEVER a waste to “work ones butt off” to get top grades. The student with top stats will usually have more options. Your DD will more options for very large scholarships than students with lesser stats.
@Lilliana330 is right about some schools and stacking scholarships. However, there ARE some schools (some privates) that will reduce THEIR merit if outside scholarships are awarded. Usually something is stated on their scholarship pages…something like, “the maximum in scholarships a student can receive is up to tuition.” Some schools have this policy so that they can “spread around” more scholarships to more students.
The point of a merit scholarship…it will NOT fluctuate if your income goes up. It will remain the same. That wouldn’t be the case for need based aid. If your income goes up, your aid goes down.
Merit scholarships that are solely merit are not tied to family income…at all.
Your daughter would likely get at least $18,000 from the honors program at Ohio State. That would bring the cost down to the cost you are aiming for, and it’s a great school. Schools that meet full need are very competitive, and getting merit from these schools is even more competitive.
A student with a 24 and a 3.0 will not have the same opportunities as your daughter. Not even close.
You and your daughter should be looking at schools where she could get very large merit awards. There are plenty out there. Do not count on getting the large award from schools such as Vanderbilt, where simply getting in is hyper-competitive. Certainly apply, but have a back up plan. You are experiencing what many experience- a high stats kid without a deep pocketbook.
Long time reader, first time poster. @kittencrash I am a bit confused. Those stats guarantee a full tuition merit scholarship at places like University Of Alabama. Am I correct that your DD is also NMF? You should be looking at scholarship pages before the NPC, in my opinion.
http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html
Presidential Scholar
A first-time freshman student who meets the December 15 scholarship priority deadline, has a 32–36 ACT or 1400–1600 SAT score (critical reading and math scores only) and at least a 3.5 cumulative GPA will be selected as a Presidential Scholar and will receive the value of tuition or $103,800 over four years ($25,950 per year) to be used towards undergraduate or graduate/law studies.**
Don’t just look at the overall school’s ACT/SAT ranges. Look more specifically at the honors programs within schools, especially big state schools. The ACT and SAT scores are higher for students in those programs and often for students in STEM programs. I would t outright rule out schools that appear less selective without seeing if there is more than the obvious there.
Is your D a junior now? So applying next year to colleges?
If her ACT math and English superscore is 34+, with top class rank and GPA, she might get full tuition at University of Pittsburgh. Even if she got less than that and got $10k merit, it would come close to your affordable net price of $25k (OOS cost is about $40k, $30k instate).
The Pitt honors college had an average SAT CR&M of 1489 last year.
I also second applying to U Alabama honors college. And Ohio State (early, before Nov 1).
I was going to mention Pitt- your daughter may get full tuition if she applies early.
I think what the OP is venting about is that a $20,000 or $30,000 merit scholarship does not make many schools affordable. I’ve read posts where kids are so excited to receive a $15,000 scholarship to a $65,000 school. That still leaves $50,000 to pay which is very difficult if not impossible for many families to pay.
Looking through your posts, your DD needs a full or close to full tuition scholarship at a private school to make the school affordable for you. Most people (except for the truly rich) are under some sort of financial limits. I agree that it is frustrating. My DS couldn’t even consider most of the top 20 (or even top 30 schools) because they have very few merit awards (HYP might be affordable but really…the odds!) Receiving a very large scholarship to a place like Duke or Vanderbilt is only in the ballpark for extremely high stats and highly accomplished kids. Reading through Vanderbilt’s website, I could not determine how many large scholarships are even available. My own alma mater is unaffordable (my kids would be 3rd generation there).
Our strategy was to apply to a mix of privates and publics that offer large awards. Most of these schools have competetive awards, so we are going in blind to a great extent. So far, my DS has had good news, but I really have no idea how this will work out. I wish the process were less opaque. I appreciate the schools that advertise their guaranteed merit scholarships. But many schools are quite hedgy about how large the scholarships are and how they determine who gets what award.
This tool was helpful for us
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php
U of South Carolina has a highly rated Honors College. She would have to apply to get in and it is not strictly stats-based but she would certainly be competitive.
Separate from the Honors College admissions are Carolina’s merit scholarships. They are not truly automatic like Alabama’s, but they are not competitive in the sense that they only have a few to offer (if that makes sense). With a 34 ACT she would likely be awarded a Cooper Scholarship, which gives her in-state tuition plus $4,000. This would make your cost for tuition, fees, and R&B just under $20,000 (based on this year’s costs). If she is NMF, they would award an additional $6,000. If she applies early, she would also be considered for the McNair and Horseshoe scholarships, which are very competitive (I think they offer 20 of each) but would garner additional money.
Tulane is another great school that offers quite a bit of merit. Their “regular” merit awards top out at $32,000 which would still leave you about $30,000 to pay. But, they also offer 125 full tuition and fee scholarships. Very competitive but again, her stats are really strong.
Just my $0.02 re: Stony Brook University - it has a world class math department, and is strong across all the sciences. I think OP’s daughter would qualify for a decent sized merit scholarship there. And the ACT/SAT score ranges for math/science students there tend to be pretty high. I’s also add Temple University to your list - they seem to be awarding a lot of merit. University of Arizona and Arizona State University Barrett Honors are worth a look as well.
For a high stat, high performing math kid, with a need for merit money, I would focus on research universities/ flagships primarily because smaller public universities tend to have math department faculty that are not so active in their fields (hard to do research in math -so publishing rates for math faculty are some of the lowest of all disciplines). There are many excellent private LAC’s that do have active math faculty, but you have listed most as being unaffordable.
The OP’s point is why we are mostly looking at the top schools with substantial need based aid (Harvard, Princeton, and Yale) and state flagships that offer significant merit aid. The other Ivies and near Ivies leave us with figures around $40k per year which is not doable without substantial loans. It’s not worth the cost when you have potential grad school to go.
We’ve had serious discussions on the opportunity costs of most private schools. We can send our D to study abroad for a semester if we are only paying room and board at a state school. We can also contribute to a top grad school if we cash flow undergrad. This is a great opportunity to teach your kids wise decision making including that the answers are subjective. I believe the evolution of honors colleges at state schools have raised the bar of education and helped provide personal attention at a large school. Pick the state school of your choice and visit the honors college and you might be pleased at what you find.
To the list of state schools, with the OP’s child having a 35, LSU would be full tuition for Out of State and competitive for a full ride. LSU is my alma mater and the Honors College that we have visited. I’ve read Oklahoma offers merit aid comparable to Bama but that’s not a region we are considering so I haven’t researched it seriously. As an LSU guy, Bama just isn’t a consideration for us. 
We were sure we were not getting need based FA (and sure we could not come close to our EFC), so just focused on merit. Very similar stats. My D is into 8 schools, all of which will cost us less than 30k now (with some competitions outstanding). So far, the best price (by far) is at Truman State. This is a true hidden gem. I will say know nothing about math there.
Other places we’ve had success are Kansas (automatic), Temple (automatic), Tulane (competitive), Pitt (competitive), Eckerd (competitive), and Lawrence (competitive). As you can see, my D was more focused on affordability than anything else!
I was also going to recommend Temple and ASU. So second those.
Our EFC looks to be around $30K-ish this year, and will go up next year depending on an anticipated bump up in income in 2016. Like you, we cannot swing that EFC for four years, so we have had to hunt down big merit packages to get our total COA below the EFC, for four years, for D2. In addition, we’d like to keep our parent contribution to about $10K. We have already borrowed to help D1 who is a transfer student at UIUC.
We found big merit aid! For us, that’s Fordham, U Kentucky, U Alabama. There could have been more choices, but those schools made it to the short list. D2 got merit from Tulane, but that is not going to bring the COA down enough for four years. If she gets a full tuition scholarship at Tulane, then it’s in range.
D2 wanted to apply to a selective school that says it meets 100% need. Very few (handful) of merit scholarships there. We did not veto it, but we were open with her that the scenario could be she gets accepted, then her heart is broken bc we cannot afford it. She was accepted, and when we re-visited the NPC, the first year looks barely within budget. She’d have to work her tail off over summer and then borrow. But when we run the NPC for her sophomore through senior years, with D1 out of school, with a possible increase in income, with COA increases? No. way. We are simply priced out.
==shrug== That is just how it is. No pity party here. We are so fortunate D2 is bright & worked hard in high school and has the options she does. If she chooses U Kentucky, it’s a free ride and those are rare. A kid with lower stats would not be offered that scholarship at UK. She will head off to graduate school or professional school without UG loans and we will have saved money to throw at other important things for our family & future.
@sportsman29 << aid comparable to Bama but that’s not a region we are considering so I haven’t researched it seriously. As an LSU guy, Bama just isn’t a consideration for us. >>
Ha! You’d be surprised how many LSU-grad-parents are sucking it up and sending their kids to Bama. It creates a bit of a “house divided” situation, but they’re letting their kids go where the merit is best and the school is better. Besides, your child may want to be on the winning side for awhile. 
I know that Barrett Honors at ASU was mentioned twice already, but I wanted to also put in a word for this. I am pretty sure that NMF’s are flown out to visit the school - so a trip there may be worth considering. NMF’s receive significant automatic merit scholarships. Tuition would be paid in full so you would only need to pay for housing and food (and the current scholarship my even cover some of this - idk for sure). Any outside scholarships can also be applied. My DS chose Barrett and wouldn’t change a thing. He is now attending his top choice graduate school. His friends all had similar experiences. One of his friends attends Harvard now and another UPenn (both for graduate school).
@mom2collegekids Ha! You’d be surprised how many LSU-grad-parents are sucking it up and sending their kids to Bama. It creates a bit of a “house divided” situation, but they’re letting their kids go where the merit is best and the school is better. Besides, your child may want to be on the winning side for awhile.
I know. I have a friend whose daughter opted for Bama. My wife went to Auburn so there is too much bad blood!
I don’t knock Bama academically at all. In reality, the difference is the Alabama state legislature supports Bama and at least stays out of their way. In Louisiana, there are regional schools and Tulane alumni who are antiLSU which have lobbied effectively to split limited funds in such a way that doesn’t elevate our flagship university. That would never happen in Alabama.
Look into UT Dallas, it’s a full ride (full tuition and fees plus $4000 cash stipend per semester plus $1500 housing stipend per semester for on campus housing) for NMF, we just visited and I was blown away.