<p>Do you see more university's utelizing merit or need based aid for admissions? I understand that the answer depends on the school, but what is the general trend? Personally as a high-merit, low-financial-need student, I have had almost no luck in gaining merit aid. The few local scholarships I applied to I lost--probably because financial need was considered as well(no local scholarships I could find were solely merit based). And in searching for aid, I was continuousely shut out by the exclusiveness of scholarships(must be a women, minority, pursuing a specific major, member of a certain organization, ect.)</p>
<p>To give a little more detail, I had a 35act, 4.0gpa, 3 perfect sat 2s, took all ten 10ap's at my high school, had lab experience, and won several local math and chemistry exams. My family makes over 400,000 a year though.</p>
<p>I received no merit-aid offers from UW-Madison or Carleton College either. I suppose I am upset about this as I was always told that working hard in high school would net me merit aid, which is not coming through for me nor my friends with similar situations.</p>
<p>Working hard in high school only nets you merit aid from schools that tend to give it. There are plenty of schools that give a lot of merit aid, but, with some exceptions, they don’t tend to be highly selective schools. Merit aid is often used by schools as an enrollment management tool, to attract high stats students who might not otherwise choose that particular school. Schools that are overwhelmed with applications from top students (such as the Ivies) don’t have to (and don’t) give any merit aid at all. Other schools only give a few merit awards and there is a lot of competition for them. With your stats, there are plenty of colleges that would have offered you significant merit awards; apparently you didn’t apply to those schools. My D (whose stats were not as good as yours) didn’t get any merit-aid offers from UW-Madison or UIUC, but she was offered merit aid by 3 other state flagships, including one that covered full tuition plus over half of her room cost. The local scholarships in our area, even those that were largely merit driven, generally had a need component, so my D didn’t bother applying.</p>
<p>Are you a national merit finalist? if so, then there are schools that will still award to you.</p>
<p>carleton doesn’t give merit, as I remember</p>
<p>You should have applied to the schools that give merit for stats.</p>
<p>what are your parents saying? if they’ll pay for Uw, then you are fine.</p>
<p>With OP’s credential, there should be plenty of schools that would offer scholarships. If he is admitted to a competitive private school or a very top out of state public, then merit based scholarships are either not available or extremely competitive. Working hard granted you the admission to great schools and a chance for merit aid, but neither one is guaranteed. You should be very happy that your family income should be able to support you to any schools, while most students cannot even apply to many schools due to financial reason disregarding their credential.</p>
<p>Most merit scholarships come from the colleges themselves. Carleton doesn’t give merit to anyone (which you can see by looking at their financial aid website). So if you wanted merit aid, you probably should have done more research. Are you from Wisconsin? In-state students are more likely to get merit aid from a state university. I am certain that if you added up the dollars, need based aid far outweighs merit aid in the US college system.</p>
<p>One of my kids had similar stats to you (2380 SAT, 35 ACT, 800 SAT Subject Lit, 800 SAT Subject Math II, strong ECs). She got decent merit aid last year from Macalester, Kenyon, Lawrence, and Mount Holyoke, and a smaller amount of merit from U of Chicago. If you want merit aid, you have to plan your college search accordingly, which it sounds like you did not do.</p>
<p>Now… you really aren’t going to get a ton of sympathy out here if your family makes over $400K/year. You really don’t need aid compared to 99.9% of the students out there.</p>
<p>Just because his/her parents make that much money, doesn’t mean they are helping pay for college. I know of several high earning families who are leaving college tuition to the kids to pay. Also, while that is a lot of money, maybe they have three kids in college at once, or other circumstances we don’t know of.</p>
<p>How much are your parents willing to pay?
What is the gap between that and cost of attendance at your accepted schools?
You may need to take a gap year and come up with a more affordable list.</p>
<p>UW-Madison is not known for giving merit aid in general. They do have very nice merit aid for URMs. Some small departmental and other such specific scholarships for anyone, no hooks needed, but not generally big money. For in-state NMFs there is a large first year-only award of about $7000. You can compete at their residential summer music clinic to get 4 year full tuition. There are 10 of those. But they have very little general merit for good students. There is something tiny called Vilas, maybe $400(?). If you are very very special and they really want you, they can patch together funds from somewhere, but that is rare.</p>
<p>Also, if you are in-state for WI, a couple of kids(Number depends on size of HS. Big schools get 4-5) get the WI Academic Excellence scholarship. It’s based on highest GPA and if needed school does tiebreakers using test scores or something. It’s $2250/yr. Can use it anywhere in WI, but not take OOS. They do run a waiting list. At D’s school she and other winners all went OOS so others got it. She didn’t find out about this until honors convocation late in school year. Ask your GC.</p>
<p>Also, people with high stats kids I know at UW say that UW tends to wait to award some scholarship money after kids are enrolled and more given in subsequent years. This is hearsay, not personal experience.</p>
<p>"“I received no merit-aid offers from UW-Madison or Carleton College either. I suppose I am upset about this as I was always told that working hard in high school would net me merit aid, which is not coming through for me nor my friends with similar situations.”"</p>
<p>I know that this is commonly said amongst people who dont know any better, but truthfully, merit is rarely awarded for “working hard in high school.” Yes, a strong GPA is needed, but with so much grade inflation out there (tons of kids with high GPAs), that isnt used for merit awards…test scores are.</p>
<p>That said, many top schools have no need to award merit for top scores because nearly all of their students have top scores…so everyone is deserving. lol</p>
<p>If you wanted merit than you needed to apply to the schools that give merit for your stats.</p>
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<p>You did not have a good strategy for merit aid. These schools both award very little merit aid, and only to a small fraction of freshmen. Usually a good strategy is required to win substantial merit awards.</p>
<p>Carleton gives $2000/yr to NMFs. That is pretty much their only merit based scholarship.</p>
<p>UW@ gives free tuition to URMs in the PEOPLE program. Need not be low income and I know some getting that who are high EFC. Most of that $3840 is either PEOPLE and other URM aid, the 10 music scholarships, and the NMFs. Throw in some kids who got small scholarships and average it to get $3840.</p>
<p>Just occurred to me that the 408 UW students include kids who passed music audition into performance. Everyone gets at least a couple thousand $ /yr, not just stars. Don’t know how many have need. That could be 50 of the 408 if half have need.</p>
<p>I think it is awesome that your family earns $400K a year, and what is really awesome is that you, obviously, have not rested on their laurels. Your stats indicate that you are a hard worker, yourself, and, if you stay on your current path, you are going to be a success in life (which, of course, does not mean you have to end up earning $400K to be a success.)</p>
<p>As far as merit aid, yes the trend has been towards need-based aid forever - the whole intent of “financial aid” was to open access to college to poor students. Now, everybody is looking for their piece of the financial aid pie, and only some people get a slice. If your parents earned 25% of what they do, you would be in the same boat - only eligible for merit aid. Your parents’ taxes go to fund need-based for other families’ kids.</p>
<p>Anyway, I hope you can pursue additional opportunities given your stats. And don’t let yourself get discouraged by people who may think you don’t deserve any aid, whether merit or need-based, just because of your family’s income. Envy is the other great American pursuit. We just cannot let everyone pursue their own happiness without focusing on whether one person is getting more happiness (defined as money, in this society) than somebody else. Just leave all that in the noise, and focus on your own pursuits. Congratulations and best wishes.</p>
<p>If you make 400,00 and ur parents r willing to pay for you, it shouldn’t be a problem. Even most merit awards have a need componet, so it’s def. practicly all financial need nowadays.</p>
<p>The general trend should not matter a whit to to you. If you are eyeing the Ivy league schools, for example, or some of those little Ivies as so called, you can forget merit aid. They don’t give it. You don’t fish where there aren’t any. By looking at the collegedata on each school, and running specific NPCs from what your list, you can get a good idea what kind of aid you might get from given schools. You picked two schools, Carlton, and UW where the merit money "fishing’ is lean. You look at Tulane, Fordham, some of the private midwest schools of church beginnigns, and the picture starts looking rosier, especially if your stats are up there in relation to the rest of the student body. </p>
<p>I remember my SIL’s father who is paying for his granddaughter’s college was quite upset that this outstanding young woman barely got $5K a year in merit money from any college. The list of the schools she picked including Penn State just did not give out much even if she were the top of the top of the class. </p>
<p>So what those who want merit aid should do is seek those schools that are more likely to give them merit aid and those who want need based aid should look at schools that are more likely to give them financial aid. </p>
<p>The good news is you don’t need merit aid. Enjoy your college years and be happy with what you have.</p>
<p>"“If you make 400,00 and ur parents r willing to pay for you, it shouldn’t be a problem. Even most merit awards have a need componet, so it’s def. practicly all financial need nowadays.”"</p>
<p>Not true…at all.</p>
<p>There are merit based scholarships without need component at all. My D got scholarship offers from several schools way before we submitted FAFSA.</p>
<p>I understand your frustration. My D encountered the same issues with respect to outside scholarships. She was able to get merit aid at several schools by applying to what I think are great, but not as highly ranked, colleges where she was in the top 25% or better of the applicant pool. It was a necessity for us because we are full pay without that 400k income and I don’t want D to incur too much debt. A college’s common data set is a good way to find out how much merit aid (w/o need) a school awards. Some schools award large sums to very few students (ie Duke) while other schools award merit to a large percentage of students (ie Centre). </p>