<p>My daughter is seriously considering Rice and has visited and toured engineering. We used the price calculator and from that estimate it looks like we cannot easily afford Rice. We have not actually done FAFSA or CSS yet. We were wondering what type of student gets merit aid/scholarships at Rice? Daughter is also an athlete and has stellar grades and very good test scores but not a perfect 2400 SAT. What are they looking for? Do you have to be a big science fair winner or national prize winner? Do smart kids with average activities garner merit aid?</p>
<p>Rice is more interested in top caliber students who are unique and bring something special to Rice than someone with strictly perfect scores; your daughter will not be out of the running for merit aid because she doesn’t have a perfect 2400.</p>
<p>Athlete + good grades + good rank will put you in range to get a scholarship. Rice is competitive, so it really depends on the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Here is a list of the merit scholarships and their definitions. This should help answer the “who” and “why”
<a href=“http://financialaid.rice.edu/scholarships.aspx”>http://financialaid.rice.edu/scholarships.aspx</a></p>
<p>As always, best of luck to your daughter</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the good vibes sent our way! Rice is really her first pick ever since we visited last spring. It really has the best of all worlds. She has wanted to go to Rice since her freshman year and she has a friend there right now who is also in her sport. When we attended the information session, we got the impression we should consider ED but we feel we cannot commit without knowing about financial aid or merit so she will have to wait for RD. </p>
<p>You can get an idea of how many students get merit aid and their stats by looking at the Common Data Set (should be able to Google “Rice Common Data Set”). If you haven’t looked at it, there is a section with info on that. Compare your daughter’s test scores to the applicant pool to see if percentage-wise she seems to fall in the tier that gets aid.</p>
<p>Thanks. </p>
<p>There is lots of other good data in the Common Data Set, and pretty much every school has it. 
You should be able to do a similar search for all colleges your D is interested in.</p>
<p>I did not see where you can actually do that for merit aid. It also did not specify the stats for the students receiving aid.</p>
<p>Look at section H2A. You can see how many incoming freshman got merit aid (non-athletic scholarships, 82 for the fall of 2013 incoming class). Average dollar about was about $20,000. You can’t tell exact stats of those who got them, but I generally assume it is the kids with the highest test scores. There were 976 students in the freshman class. So you can assume your kid probably needs to be in the top 10% of the test score pool to score a merit scholarship, unless they have specific departmental scholarships (like art or music) for which she might be eligible. There might be a few exceptions outside that top 10%, but generally merit is use to attract high stats kids, especially those who will help improve the school’s average standardized test scores.</p>
<p>Looking in section C9, you can see some info on test scores. You can see that the 75% scores (just taking SAT for this example) are CR 760, M 790, WR 770. If your kid does not fall somewhere above those scores (to get to that 10% point), her odds of merit aid go down. </p>
<p>Again… there may be specific scholarships that have different criteria, so read the scholarship pages carefully. A school one of my kids applied to had a couple of scholarships for students who came from certain nearby counties, for example. But most merit aid is intended to tempt students who have higher ranked acceptances into following the money.</p>
<p>Well…looks like she made a good decision to re-take the SAT. She has a top ACT but felt Rice liked SAT better?</p>
<p>I don’t think you can really tell. But it looks like a lot of students submit both ACT and SAT scores. 80% submit SATs, 53% submit ACTs. This sounds like an urban legend to me, though, that Rice prefers one over the other. :)</p>
<p>Rice does not distribute merit aid based on test scores alone. Just like the application process, it is a holistic process, so good test scores will help, but not get you the scholarship on their own. I strongly suggest reading the merit scholarship descriptions – many of them are specific (research, bridging cultural gaps, etc) but some are described in more general terms. These still require students to show why they are really special, though </p>
<p>It’s a very competitive pool of applicants, and all admitted students are considered. I do suggest filling out the FAFSA, as It will give you a good idea of what you can expect to receive regardless of merit aid, since Rice covers 100% of demonstrated need. I had a 2360 SAT and 35 ACT and did not receive merit scholarship if that’s helps! </p>
<p>Don’t spend the effort taking the SAT again if your daughter has a great ACT score. It won’t help.</p>
<p>@OP, have a look at this list of private schools that offer merit aid:
<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php</a></p>
<p>You can sort the columns by clicking on the column headers. </p>
<p>This is how I estimate what kind of stats a kid needs to get merit aid-- emphasis on the word ESTIMATE.
Rice gives merit aid to 26% of the non-need students. Since 42% of the students receive FA, then that leaves 58% in the non-need category (in actuality there’s probably overlap in the FA & non-need pools). </p>
<p>26% x 58% = 15% </p>
<p>So I estimate ~15% of total students receive merit aid. As a really rough guide, I then assume the merit kids have the top 15% of stats. But like previous poster mentioned, the awards are not just based on stats. </p>
<p>Since Rice gives on average a middling amt of merit aid $12k to such a small % of students, it’s not a particularly appealing school to be chasing merit aid, as compared to, say Tulane.</p>
<p>As an even quicker/dirtier guide, we have been targeting schools were DS’s scores are squarely in the top quartile.</p>
<p>DS14 received Trustee Distinguished Scholarship but chose another college. He loves Rice and it was one of his top options. Best of luck to your daughter.
To answer your question, this is his stats. WGPA:5.0, GPA: 4.0, ACT 36. NMF. Eagle Scout. Science research and awards. Paid summer internship. Summer study abroad program.
DS did not submit his SAT score.I agree with above that if your daughter has a great ACT score than you don’t need to spend the effort to retake SAT unless you think her SAT would be better than ACT. </p>
<p>Oh well! From the description of your accomplished son @4beardolls I don’t think my kiddo will cut it. The more i come on CC the more depressed I get…I have tried to get my D interested in schools where she rests at the top 75% or higher but they aren’t Rice!</p>
<p>I don’t think one has to have perfect scores to receive scholarships from Rice although it’s highly competitive. Perhaps other merit scholarship recipients could also provide their stats so you can have additional perspective. My son has had rejections from his other merit applications. So definitely cast a wide net if you want to go after merit $.</p>
<p>Look at the Rice University Common Data Set 2013-14. First time freshman enrolled is 976. Number of students in line who had no financial need and who were awarded institutional non-need-based scholarship or grant aid (exclude those who were awarded athletic awards and tuition benefits) is 82 (or 8.4%). Average dollar amount of institutional non-need-based scholarship and grant aid awarded to students is $20,132. Again, this is for first time freshman enrollees that are NOT receiving athletic scholarships.</p>