<p>Not sure where she saw it, but my wife thinks 'everyone' gets merit aid at tulane (maybe she misheard something on a tour, or people that don't qualify for need based aid get a merit aid offer?). our child was accepted a few weeks ago. How accurate is my wife's perception and when would we hear if merit aid was coming? We didn't apply for need based aid / didn't complete the fafsa. </p>
<p>The merit aid amount and designation comes in the snail mail acceptance letter which comes a week or two after the acceptance is noted online on the Gibson account.
While it may seem like “everyone” gets merit aid from reading posts here on CC, this is not the case. Not everyone at Tulane gets merit aid. </p>
<p>babaganoosh00 - If you already received the physical letter that says your child was accepted and there was no mention of a scholarship in there, then she did not receive one. Jozuko is quite correct that not everyone gets merit aid, in fact the majority do not. It only seems like it here on CC because the people that use this site skew heavily towards the highest achievers.</p>
<p>Would love to see some stats of those who did, and did not, receive merit aid. Feel free to post your results.</p>
<p>The Class of 2018 Decision thread has a lot of that information- parents and students were posting their stats when they got their decisions.</p>
<p>I haven’t done it for Tulane, but for most colleges you can Google “Common Data Set <college name=”">" and find a standard set of data that includes percentage of students who receive merit aid and the average amount. The Financial Aid web page for Tulane also should have a section on merit aid, but that probably won’t tell you what percent of students get it. Common Data Set is the most objective and accurate way to determine this.</college></p>
<p>From collegedata about Tulane…</p>
<p>Merit-Based Gift
Received by 205 (31.3%) of aid recipients
Merit-Based Gift 566 (34.5%) of freshmen had no financial need and received merit aid, average amount $19,847</p>