What Top 50 Schools Give Good Merit Aid?

<p>All of my stats are on this link:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com...ead.php?t=35284%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com...ead.php?t=35284&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>But if you dont have time, here it is in short:
-Top 5% in class (barely) -- ranked about 35/730...4.25 W / 3.85 UW
-SAT I: should be, hopefully, 2170-2250 (760-790M, 650-690R, 750-800W)
-Sat IIs: predicted 750+ math iic, 700+ us hist, 700+ lit
-started a small business, am writing a book, couple clubs...xc/track 3 years</p>

<p>I am interested in business or econ...any top 50 programs that would give merit aid for these kind of stats?</p>

<p>Most schools ranked 25-50 would offer you substantial aid. Some more "prestigious" schools where you have a shot at getting significant merit aid are USC, Case Western, Vanderbilt, and Emory.</p>

<p>of schools in the 'top 50' that give merit aid. First let me assume that you mean academic merit aid, not athletic merit. Here is an incomplete list of the top 50 'National Universities':</p>

<p>Duke, UChicago, Caltech,, WUStL, JHU, Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory, Cal (for in-state), UMich, UVa, UNC, USC, Case Western, Boston College, Tulane, RPI and UT - Austin. </p>

<p>Note that some schools give more than others. For example, BC gives 15 merit scholarships for thier Presidential Scholars Program, USC gives over 350 1/4 tuition scholariships and up.</p>

<p>Check each schools web-site and do a search for 'scholarships' or 'merit aid'. Good luck.</p>

<p>Further, do not ignore the Ivy league schools, I understand that they provide significant need based aid. The best place to start there is to run the finaid calculator on the Princeton web-site.</p>

<p>TULANE-#1 in my book for merit aid</p>

<p>it's easier to try to list the top schools that DON'T give merit aid. They include all of the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Northwestern. Most or all other top schools do.</p>

<p>You are only in the running for merit aid if a particular school would not normally be able to attract a student of your caliber, so concentrate on schools a tier below where you would normally want to go. Look for schools where you would be in the top 5% or so of applicants. If you are a NM finalist, that's also worth generous merit aid at quite a few schools.</p>

<p>Case Western and Tulane would probably give you a lot of money. I wouldn't expect anything from any top-25 school, however.</p>

<p>It is worth it to buy the US News Ultimate College Guide because it lists the average merit aid offers at each college, and it lists what percentage of students gets merit aid.</p>

<p>get the premium version of US News and look up any school you are investigating to see what type of financial aid they provide. Here is an example:</p>

<p>Tulane: Average Merit Aid $16,402 is awarded to 28% of the students.
Average Athletic Scholarship $24,738 is awarded to 3% of the students.</p>

<p>Duke: Average Merit Aid $7,033 is awarded to 13% of the students.
Average Athletic Scholarship $24,938 is awarded to 4% of the students.</p>

<p>They do not list it in US News but many of the schools provide alumni scholarships. For example Notre Dame will provide the names of the 'Notre Dame scholars' to their regional alumni associations. These students may then get scholarships sponsored by the local ND alumni association. I would imagine the Ivy league and some of the other non-merit aid schools may do this also but I do not know for certain.</p>

<p>With all that said, I would encourage you to find a number of schools that offer what you are looking for before looking at the scholarships dollars available. No amount of money can make up for a bad fit.</p>

<p>What we found a little discouraging last year is that all "merit" awards are not issued strictly on academic merit alone, particularly at the top 25 schools. We learned that sometimes the top colleges use this type of financial incentive to attract students based on a multitude on non-academic considerations. Such considerations include, ethnic background, the financial situation of applicant (even if the award is supposedly non-need based), gender, residence, etc. Sometimes they tell you and sometimes they don't.</p>

<p>From experience, we found that the amount of merit aid awarded to middle class caucasian males from the NE last year was very dismal. Actually in our case, it was more than dismal. It was somewhat disheartening for my son to see how these awards were distributed. His credentials far surpassed many of those who received such awards. He was clearly a distinguished applicant. He was offered the "Echols" scholar program at UVA, unfortunately it had no money associated with it. He was nominated for the Morehead, etc, etc.</p>

<p>We were actually told by an administrator from our local school administration that he could apply for some of the local "merit" awards, but probaly would not get them "since he could afford to go to a private school"......Huh?</p>

<p>"What we found a little discouraging last year is that all "merit" awards are not issued strictly on academic merit alone, particularly at the top 25 schools. We learned that sometimes the top colleges use this type of financial incentive to attract students based on a multitude on non-academic considerations. Such considerations include, ethnic background, the financial situation of applicant (even if the award is supposedly non-need based), gender, residence, etc. Sometimes they tell you and sometimes they don't."</p>

<p>I don't know why this would be surprising. The reason for merit awards is to attract to the college students who are in the highest demand, and who are likely to be lured elsewhere without the merit awards.</p>

<p>Thus, students are at an advantage when they are applying outside of their home region -- preferably far outside of their home region, to a college where few stellar students from their area wish to attend. They also are at an advantage when they have skills, talents, interests, etc. that are in great demand at the college with merit aid.</p>

<p>My guess is that white males from the NE would be in great demand at colleges that have females in the majority and that aren't attractive in general to students from the NE. Thus, I would imagine that white males from the NE would have better than average chances of getting merit aid at Midwestern and Northwestern liberal arts colleges.</p>

<p>Since University of Virginia and University of North Carolina are very popular colleges that have extremely difficult to obtain merit aid, I would not count on awards from such places, no matter how stellar a student is.</p>

<p>The OP should also keep in mind when thinking about merit aid from highly ranked schools that it is not unusual for a strong student to get a four-figure scholarship, but it is much more difficult to be among the recipients of a really major award in the 75 to 100 percent of tuition range. At the top schools that give merit aid, that sort of scholarship tends to go to outstanding applicants who might otherwise attend even more elite schools. So if you are looking at highly selective expensive private schools, realize that you may very well qualify for a $5,000 sweetener, but you are less likely to be offered something that will make a major dent in the overall costs. AS NSM points out, merit aid is given to attract the strongest possible students who might not otherwise attend, so if merit aid is playing a big part in your thinking, you either have to think in terms of partial merit aid or go farther afield or farther down the rankings.</p>

<p>"I don't know why this would be surprising."</p>

<p>We were college newbies. My point is that even if prospective applicants think they are well qualified for a merit award at a particular school based on published requirements (or stats/credentials from past recipients), there may be some hidden criteria that are not published that may override some of the published criteria. (such as ethnic background, gender, etc)</p>

<p>Yes, it was surprising to us. In our case, the college counselors encouraged him to apply with no hesitation or suggestion that he wouldn't receive some merit award somewhere. </p>

<p>The real problem is that we didn't find this CC site in time to educate ourselves I guess.</p>

<p>If you click on the College Discussion Archive and search for Best Merit Awards from Where in the Parents Forum, you will find lists of colleges that have given merit aid to CC students.</p>

<p>Some of the colleges in the archive include: Boston University, Lawrence, USC, GWU, Emory, Rice, Kenyon, Tulane, Macalester, Michigan, NYU, Goucher, Vanderbilt, Chicago, Hopkins, Trinity, Grinnell, Duke, UNC, Carnegie Mellon, RPI, Beloit, Wheaton, Juniata, Ithaca, Dennison, and Wittenberg. They are not all top 50, but they are all very respectable schools.</p>

<p>Univ. of Florida gives very attractive pacakages to National Merit Finalists (in-state or out). Additionally, almost all in-state UF students are on Bright Futures scholarships.</p>

<p>1sokkermom, I know it can be a bit discouraging. However, there is quite a bit out there if you look around. As one of the other posters noted, perhaps you needed to look outside your region or you may need to find your hook.</p>

<p>Here are a few observations from our effort last year, without the benefit of CC. We just used US News (Premium Edition), college visits and word of mouth.</p>

<ul>
<li>The private schools offered the most aid.</li>
<li>The state schools, though they said they offered merit aid, rarely did so for out of state students.</li>
<li>In region and out of region may not matter depending upon the institution.</li>
</ul>

<p>Look a bit outside the top 50 and you can find some special things. For example, Villanova University has an honors program and a merit aid scholarship program. It is very highly rated as a regional school. The honors students are provided with other opportunities that may not be available to them at other schools.</p>

<p>1 sokkermom is correct with respect to the notion that "merit" is not really merit. A given institution wants a given kid for whatever reason and the award is called merit.</p>

<p>Eagle, Thanks for the suggestions. Maybe we will try those for kid #2. LOL</p>

<p>Kid #1 had his heart set on a top school. He applied for merit money at the schools he was accepted to (if available) and got none. He does not regret his decision, and he is at a wonderful school that seems thus far to be a good fit. He was a desired candidate (got some likely letters prior to acceptance at some of his choices), but I really feel that the fact that he didn't qualify for financial aid was a detriment to his sucess in applying for merit aid as well. The schools probably figured that if he could afford it, and really wanted to go there, he'd find a way to pay for it without them enticing him further with any merit money. I guess they were right. He also does not add much to the diversity of some of the schools that appealed to him because of his demographic or ethnic background. I guess that's life.</p>

<p>He really had no interest in attending a liberal arts school in the midwest.</p>

<p>The Ohio Five schools do: Oberlin, Kenyon, Ohio Wesleyan, Wooster and Denison.</p>