Thanks @Yocco1 . I stand corrected. 
Villanova does offer some merit money in the form of a Villanova Scholarship. For that too, you need to do an interview. I guess they only want students who are truly interested in the school and are willing to put in the time to try to secure some merit funds. So many schools throw easy merit money out there to lure students and this does put Nova at a disadvantage. But, by and large, those school are typically not as good. I will say that the process for the presidential scholarships is cumbersome, but if you want the big scholarship to the good university, you can’t expect that it will not take time, energy and some writing. Also, the process will be competitive. Lots of great kids out there!!
Umm. Your numbers are way off. I know what it says about the Villanova Scholarship, but the Commondata sets say that only 85 freshman with no financial need got merit money averaging $10K. That includes those Presidential awards which are the big bucks, averaging in the smaller $5K awards. In addition 141 students with financial aid got merit money which was integrated into their aid packages.
So where does Villanova get the 1200 kids getting the awards? Well, what it means is that 1200 were OFFERED the awards. Given that Villanova accepts about 7500 freshmen, in order to get their class of 1670 students, they offer 1200 of them, the very top 1200 students these awards, and most of those students turn down both Villanova and the awards for other schools, some of them being the Ivies and other highly selective schools.
My son was accepted EA for Villanova, honors program, and was up for the awards too, but withdrew his application when accepted ED to his first choice schools, before any awards were announced. But looking at who got these awards in the past from his school, I doubt very much if he would have gotten one of the large awards and even the smaller ones were up in the air, as he is a dime a dozen. About 20 kids from his school apply to Villanove, so the kids getting the awards are the very top of the top and I don’t know a single one who ended up there with the award. School lists awards in the grad programs and I have them for the last 7 years and not a one going there got the awards,with the ones getting them, going to HPY, or are URMs. I checked it out since both my last two kids applied to Villanova, and this last one, I felt had a reasonable chance of getting the award being in the upper 5% of his class and having high SATs. My conclusion, in looking at the info was that his chances were very slim, though better than getting one of the BC tuition awards.
I have a feeling that the kids offered the smaller VS awards overlap with the kids who were nominated by their HS for Presidential but did not make the cut.
Villanova does not have that big an endowment, so I do understand their constraints.
@scholarme For whats it’s worth, I am a finalist for both the presidential scholarship and the VS.
Good luck to you, @Breezy9! I hope you snag the Presidential, but if knock on wood you don’t, I bet they offer you a VS.
@cptofthehouse - Yes, of course, thanks the explanation. VU offers scholarships to students who are in the top 1% of their classes but will likely end up going to one of the top ivies or even a second-tier school like BC. Congrats to @Breezy9!
My son just had his interview for VS. He also got in to BC CSOM but is actually choosing to go to VSB. So I don’t think they all necessarily go to the higher tier school. He felt more at home at nova. It was clear when he stepped foot on both campuses. Anyway, does he have a better chance of getting VS if he commits early? So this way they know he’s not choosing a “higher tier” school? Thought?
No. Not from what I have seen in the last 7 years of the way it works.
Thanks. I know a student from last year who received 12,500. My sons stats are a tad higher, but this boy came from a more competitive high school. My son said his interview was very casual. Basically the alum just told him all about how great the school is. So he’s not even sure if he interviewed well. Although any amount will be higher than the 0 that BC was giving him.
@yankees92 It was stated somewhere on this website that if you get an interview, you will receive a VS, it’s just a matter of how much ($2k - $12,5k). I hope it’s true for your son’s sake. We’ll be touring VU again. The day we went, there was a huge wild party with lots of inebriated students outside and guys lifting up girls…It was not a college-scheduled tour day- lol. Obviously my child liked it enough to apply.
@cptofthehouse - I beg to differ with you, but per Nova’s website on the Villanova Scholarship (separate from the Presidential Scholarship):
“For the 2014-15 academic year, scholarships (ranging between $3,000 to $12,500) were distributed to 1,241 admitted students for a total of $6.5 million. The average, non-negotiable scholarship amount was valued at $5,200, per year.” The operative word here is “distributed” - not “offered”. Avg $5200 times 1241 admitted students is, in fact, almost $6.5M. They don’t state whether this is paid to 1241 students total over 4 years (which would mean approximately 300 incoming freshman/year receive the scholarship), or to 1241 students in each incoming class, but the wording implies it is the incoming class, intentional or not. However, even if the scholarship is given to 300 incoming students/year on average, it still represents almost 20% of each matriculating class, which is substantial. If the actual numbers don’t bear out Villanova’s claims, as you claim, then they are guilty of false advertising. At the very least, their website explanation should be made more concise, and if applying for the Presidential Scholarship is truly considered a prerequisite to be considered for the Villanova Scholarship (just conjecture at this point), that should also be stated.
Talk to them about it. According to the Common Data sets 226 freshmen who enrolled got merit money (not broken down by type),. 85 of them had got no financial aid and averaged $10K per student. THAT is per year. I do not believe that Villanova GAVE 1241 freshmen money last year. Given how many in their freshman class that means most freshmen got merit money, which is not the case. I can tell you that no one from our school got the awards who ended up going there, though some were offered the awards and did not go there. And I can track that for the last 7 years pretty accurately for about 150 students.
If you think 1241 of last year’s freshmen attending Villanova all have merit awards, that’s something you can easily verify with a phone call. I don’t think that’s the case. My guess is that about 800 students overall have school scholarships,without checking the numbers. .
The numbers I’m using are what Villanova reports to the COmmon Data set and the government. Be aware that Villanova accepts about 7500 students. They don’t know who is going to accept the offer of admissions. But they do offer their top candidates merit money, and they have until May 1 to decide. Most of them will decline, award or not, and go elsewhere. The same is likely to happen this year.
Villanova also has a policy in that they will treat those applicants they most want who do not apply EA as EA applicants for scholarship purposes which is a bit unusual. They actual address that issue directly.
The numbers show that abouat 1200 students, freshmen through seniors, received merit money which is close to what you are saying, Yocco. But I also have seen a downward trend in the merit awards-whether it continues this year or not remains to be seen.
Also bear in mind that only about 20% of Villanova students get full financial need met. This is NOT a school that guarantees to meet full need, nor do they do so. So those getting full need met is about the same number as those getting merit money. My numbers show that about 140 freshmen get some merit money money that show need.
Thanks, @cptofthehouse. I know you did your research, and thanks for the numbers. As I suspected, Villanova’s website representation of their merit aid sounds too good to be true. Probably one of the reasons their yield rate of enrolled/accepted students is so low (22.7%).
Actually, most of the kids I know who apply to Villanova (and that’s a favorite school around my kids’ peers) who turn it down, do so for more selective schools like BC and Georgetown or the ivies. It’s more selective for these kids than the overall stats indicate because they get so many kids from here. My son was accepted to the honors program, and was thrilled. Though he had applied and was recommended for the Presidential, looking at past stats for his schools, I don’t think he would have gotten it. Maybe, maybe, one of the other awards. Though who can say? His close friend who has been accepted to BC and to Villanova has stats close to his, and he’s waiting to see what he gets from Villanova. He didn’t get any money from BC, and if he gets an award from Villanova, he’ll go there instead. Another kid that I don’t know well was accepted to Notre Dame early and is awaiting word from Villanova for an award. My son was also accepted to ND but he liked Nova better, and had he gotten the Presidential and not gotten into his ED school, it would have been his second choice. He got a large merit award from second choice with an opportunity for a full ride that he gave up for ED.
Villanova is held in high regard around here. I know a lot of kids who go, went and applied there. It’s just that it has a lot of competition. It doesn’t give as much merit money as some schools that are its competition, and to get it, one has to have higher stats, and it doesn’t meet full need like some of its other competitor schools. Each year, I’m surprised who DOESN"T get accepted from Villanova from around here. My other son was turned down as well as his close friend, who ended up at NYU. It was the only denial for that son out of about 10-12 schools to which he applied.
Cptofthehouse, you seem to really know the ins and outs about VU. The cynical-side of me questions if VU–being a business that does give all these scholarships–give their scholarships to students who qualify for need anyway (and are not athletes)? I mean, it’d be a wash for them to label it “scholarship” versus “grant.” I hope the scholarships are truly need-blind, but hey, colleges are businesses after all, and expecting students who don’t qualify for need to pay in full would make good business sense. Thanks for your wisdom:)
@Learners I didn’t apply for financial aid, but still made finalist status. I know I only represent one small portion of the point you were making and you may very well still be correct, but I thought you may be interested.
@Breezy9- Good to hear - that’s very promising! We just wondered how need-blind the whole process is, given the colleges (not just VU) have most everyone’s financial information, and college education is big business.
@Learners - we are building D2’s list of schools, and since she is in the middle of 3 kids, she will mostly have a sibling in school at the same time as she is. Due to that and due to our income level, we started her school list with a list of need-blind schools and eliminated the ones that did not meet her requirements. We only added Villanova later since it met all her other requirements, but I will be surprised if she doesn’t get one of her four top choice (need-blind and full need) schools.