<p>My junior son has a terrific resume and a great chance in getting into lots of the top schools. Not likely that he will be eligible for merit aid. have a few more kids to put through school as well and want to explore what next level schools he may be able to get a good amount of merit from. Here are his stats/resume.</p>
<p>SAT M - 770
SAT V - 780
SAT W - 680 (are most schools still not weighing this as heavily?)
GPA - 4.45 weighted & 4.0 unweighted - strong private High School
Extra Curricular - 2 Varsity sports (one for 3 years other for 2 years & captain of one Sr. Year), National Honor Society, Tutor, Peer Ministry, Community Service, Several academic awards....</p>
<p>Interested in people thoughts and ideas. Looking east coast primarily</p>
<p>How much merit are you looking for? My son receive $20k/yr from most schools, however, this just was not enough for us when the COA is hovering near $60k/yr.</p>
<p>Pitt has competitive merit that is given to many students, including up to full ride.
Drexel offers generous scholarships of full tuition, but R&B can be expense</p>
<p>If he is looking for LACs, small universities and your are willing to compromise on East Coast</p>
<p>Centre (KY) has a very competitive full ride
Rhodes (TN) - these are very competitive
Trinity U (TX) - very competitive - full
College of Charleston</p>
<p>The best advice from our search is to look at the following – </p>
<ol>
<li> Can scholarship be used for grad classes?</li>
<li> google Common Data Set for each school – be sure there is enough of a cohort of students in the same range. DS ruled out some schools if only a handful of kids were in the same stats. He felt that it limited his peer group and academic offerings may be outgrown by junior year. Don’t know if that is true, but with so many choices, it was a valid enough reason for him to move onto another school.</li>
<li> If interested in LACs, run the Net Price Calculator. Some, like Haverford, have wonderful endowments and financial aid for families earning over $100k. They also take into account high school/grade school tuition for younger siblings.</li>
<li> Regional Universities – for our area, this is schools like LaSalle U in Philly.</li>
<li> Bama and Pitt have rolling admissions. Both begin accepting applications by early August. Bama is unique in that it is not competitive and cutoffs are clearly published.</li>
<li> Not all Honors Colleges are the same. Evaluate what type of student your son is and how he learns. Then look to see if the Honors College meets his needs.</li>
<li> Keep an open mind. My son wanted a LAC <1600 students; he will be attending a U with over 30,000. The individual course size, housing, merit and peer group won him over to the larger school.</li>
<li> Schools with competitive merit often require on-campus visits. Most do not pay for the student to visit. Keep this in mind in terms of both finances to visit and time to visit.</li>
</ol>
<p>Also, take a look on the Parent Forum section. Some posts are long, but you can get a good idea of where the 2013 kids were accepted and merit amounts.</p>
<p>* Not likely that he will be eligible for merit aid*</p>
<p>Do you mean that he won’t likely get need-based aid?</p>
<p>Alabama is a mid-tier school (not low tier as Xtreme wrongly states) that would give your child free tuition.</p>
<p>What is his likely major? If it’s engineering or comp sci, then he’d get more money.</p>
<p>If he’s pre-med, then attending a good school that won’t cost too much is a good idea. My son is graduating from Bama in May with a Chemical Engineering degree, but will be going to med school in August. We paid very little for his undergrad, so that we could help with med school costs.</p>
<p>lol mom2collegekids just because son attends it doesn’t make it a mid tier. An Alabama graduate must have told you its great ? or a father whose son is at Alabama ?</p>
<p>Xtreme Power, where exactly do you break tiers in your defn? Like 1-10 is top, 11-25 is mid and all below that are low tier into the marshy lagoon??? UAlabama and UGeorgia are top 100 schools.</p>
<p>Check out Marietta College. Several students from my school have received full tuition with worse stats than him. He might have a shot at a full ride</p>
<p>Thanks agin for all the info. Responding to some of the questions</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Doubt he would qualify for need based aid</p></li>
<li><p>Thinking Tier 1 are ivy, Georgetown, duke…</p></li>
<li><p>How we he fair merit wise at a Nova, Lehigh, Gettysburg, BC or other like schools?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Sorry meant how would he fair merit scholarship wise. Confident he would be accepted at Lehigh, Lafayette, nova and BC. Just wasn’t sure how much merit base money he would get</p>
<p>Does he have leadership postions that a potential school would be interested in? What are his passions and are his ec’s showing that passion? If he shines vs the other applicants than maybe he could get merit. I also think that essays for merit at smaller schools is a big factor but that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>I don’t think BC gives merit. Either they don’t give any, or they have maybe a couple of odd ones. </p>
<p>to get merit at various schools that GIVE merit, then the stats need to be WELL-WITHIN the top 25%. At the higher ranked schools (that give merit), scores need to be within the top 1-5% of the school.</p>
<p>Ivies don’t give merit. </p>
<p>All top 100 (maybe 200) are tier 1. We are talking about the inside of tier 1 low, mid and high.</p>
<p>No, we’re not talking about “inside tier 1”. You may be, but that that’s not how most people here use the tier system.</p>
<p>Xtreme…the tier system doesn’t work that way. </p>
<p>The “old USNews way” which is the one which people still pretty much use, is that Top 50 is Tier 1, 51-120 is Mid Tier (or second tier), and so forth.</p>
<p>The “new USNews way” has a very large group as Tier 1. But there aren’t “sub tiers” within that Tier I, which what you seem to be doing. To avoid confusion, people still use the "o </p>
<p>So, when people talk about Mid-tier or Second Tier, they typically mean 51-120 (or so).</p>