Yet another question about *merit aid* options for a strong student from a middle-class family...

OP - you should assume your student will advance to National Merit Finalist status. Have you been following the NM threads? http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/

Thirding Grinnell – although their maximum merit is now only $25K.yr. They are, however, generous with FA and it’s a great school!

The NMF is actually a state scholarship, not granted by the individual schools. https://finaid.ucf.edu/types-of-aid/bsp/ It is a full ride to the public schools (UF, UCF, FSU) and about $22k toward private schools (Miami).

UCF has great computer science programs, 3D printing labs, engineering. I don’t understand how anyone would want to live in Orlando, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love UCF.

In addition to Case Western, IU Bloomington may be worth a look. We know several CS students at IU Bloomington who are having excellent experience with great internships. IU does give merit to OOS students, and has Honors program, though the OOS merit may not get the cost of attendance to your target area. Purdue is (obviously) great as well, though is less generous with merit (we hear, as we are in-state in Indiana and know many kids who apply to both). Anecdotally, I’ve heard good things about OSU and out of state merit as well – Columbus is a booming midwest city and would likely offer plenty of opportunities for work/internships.

From what I have read, most colleges/universities don’t allow you to stack merit and financial aid. So any outside merit aid will just reduce your financial aid package. You still have to pay the same amount.

Thank you to all for the helpful suggestions–we’ve got lots more schools, scholarships, and strategies to consider!

We’ll definitely look into the Elks scholarship and other options, but my concern is precisely what @swimmom1922 suggests: that any scholarships we get might just reduce that offered by the college. Can someone confirm that that’s the case at most schools?

@LoveTheBard, your daughter racked up an impressive total in aid offers! Did she have a particular hook or just all-around stats? I was surprised to see WashU in that list–I got the impression that they were pretty stingy with large scholarships, and their NPC came up significantly higher than elsewhere. Couldn’t justify spending close to 35K/year there when UMich / NU / Chicago all came in around 25K.

It’s true that outside merit reduces your need, so in some cases an outside merit award doesn’t help much. BUT, some schools will allow you to use outside awards to buy a computer or pay for travel so they can still be valuable. It won’t hurt but may help.

Also remember that most schools do not meet 100% of need, so an outside award may be more than the need based aid the school is offering. My kids each got a small outside award and it did not affect their aid from the schools. Most of their aid was merit, but one daughter was allowed to stack 9 awards like cord wood. It was not until her final year that she lost part of one award from the school because she had too much aid overall (and it was a small amount that couldn’t be used for anything). Better to have the options with too much aid than not enough.

@TwoHearted - I think I’ve already confirmed what @swimmom1922 said and you suspected re: scholarships reducing aid. That said, it depends on the scholarship and depends on the schools’ FA policies. You have to check each individual school’s policy.

Yes, my D had a number of things that worked in her favor. She’s Latina and disabled and had done a ton of diversity/inclusion stuff, community service, had solid ECs with leadership, superb teacher and counselor recs and is a very strong writer with 1580 SAT / 35 ACT, NMF and high GPA.

The competitive merit scholarships at top schools are generally designed to lure students from schools like HYPSM.

Generally speaking, in order to get merit, you usually have to go down a rung or two on the prestige ladder.

(For the record, we were in a similar situation as you in that we are CA residents and had Berkeley, UCLA, etc. as our instate publics that would have come in ca. $30 t- $35K before NMF or Regents., so everything was measured against that.)

As for Wash U, they several competitive scholarships that require separate applications through their pathways:

https://admissions.wustl.edu/Financial_Aid_Scholarships/First_Year_Academic_Scholarships/Pages/First-Year-Student-Academic-Scholarship-Fellowship-Programs.aspx

IIRC, my D applied to at least 3 of them (Danforth, Annika Rodriguez, and Mylonas). I don’t remember if she applied for the Ervin or not). She was awarded both the Annika Rodriguez and the Mylonas, but not considered for the others).

She really, really liked Wash U and could have seen herself ending up there.

Bear in mind that competitive merit scholarships from top schools are probably harder to get than HYPSM acceptances, but they’re certainly worth shooting for, as long as you have other financial and academic safeties and solid matches.

And, yes, @TwoHearted, Wash U is less generous with FA than some other schools and their merit is highly competitive.

I think Rice would be more generous with FA and is certainly worth a look.

U Michigan has a great CS program and since you are in state, it’s hard to beat the price if he gets in.

Our S18 went through a similar process last year, although in our case the in-state flagship is U Washington. He got some half tuition merit aids from schools like Grinnell, Whitman, etc., but the price tag after the merit aid is till more than in-state tuition and the CS departments can not compare to U Washington’s.

The Raikes School at U of Nebraska is a unique honors college that attracts some really strong techy types. Has its own dorm, so students are a bit isolated from the usual Big 10 frivolity. Many classes are small with an honors-type atmosphere. Great merit aid, as well. Would be well within your budget.

https://raikes.unl.edu/applicant-information

In addition to USC that @LoveTheBard already mentioned, take a look at Boston University’s Trustee Scholarships, which are full tuition and fees.

My daughter is at UAH - Great Merit, amazing dorms, small but not too small campus, lots of internship and low cost of attendance when the tuition is granted under a merit award. Housing is very reasonable.

TCU offers a full tuition scholarship if he has a 4.0 to go along with that SAT score. That pretty much means you could pay his entire cost of living with money to spare. It’s right in the middle of Fort Worth, which means internships and job opportunities in both Dallas and Fort Worth to go with debt-free graduation. That’s the best setup for success I can think of.

Thanks to everyone for the good suggestions.

Forgive me if this newbie question is covered a million times elsewhere, but do most colleges who give merit aid inform applicants with their acceptance letter, or much later? How about more selective schools? Does the “fat envelope” include some kind of financial picture, or do you have to wait until Feb. or March for that info.?

And while I’m asking newbie questions: If my son wants to apply to (say) Northwestern but can’t do ED because we want to compare aid offers, is there any advantage to sending in a “regular decision” application by the ED deadline? Can he indicate on his application that he’s applying RD and not ED? Are such apps just set aside until the ED round is done?

(Obviously new at this…)

i will 2nd the U Pittsburgh suggestion…my kid received very generous merit aid there (though she had to choose elsewhere) and the CS community is very strong in that city.

I don’t think it matters if its early in the regular round. It will be just that the regular round. Yes they will be set aside. Though there are some merit aid schools where it does help to apply early during regular decision for best merit outcome (Grinnell is one I believe). We were a family searching for merit too. My daughter ended up with a remarkable number of early writes (basically given the decision much earlier than expected-she got some in late Jan, Feb and early March). I would think your son would have similar experience. Some of these early writes included merit and for some we had to wait until the regular decision letters came out. We waited and compared everything. My daughter ended up with the max from Case Western with similar stats if that’s useful.

My student received acceptances fairly quickly, but the merit aid was awarded primarily in the spring (mostly during February and March). His National Merit Finalist status wasn’t confirmed until February.

He also applied to university and departmental honors programs which were separate applications and offered small scholarships. Those decisions and awards trickled in.

Some college websites list merit scholarships through private donors or foundations. They may require a separate application which is by invitation only. Look for those - sometimes the requirements are listed. Have the resume, extra letter of recommendation, or whatever may be required ready to go, just in case.

We did not have all merit aid offers until the first week of April.

Schools that are considering applicants for competitive scholarships requiring visits and interviews during “scholarship weekends” will notify students in January or February (note that “scholarship weekends” can range anywhere from 1 to 4 days and they generally take place on weekdays. Some overlap, too.).

Some schools that grant automatic merit will notify students at the time of admission; others don’t. (Few schools actually send “fat envelopes” these days – mostly they notify through portals; sometimes through snail mail). Likewise, FA awards are sometimes – but not always – posted on the portals at the same time.

My D got her all of her merit offers and scholarship weekend notifications together with her admission offers. The U of Chicago kept sweetening the pot as time went on, so it’s a good idea to wait until May 1st to commit (note that schools that have priority housing with early deposits will allow you to send in a (generally mostly refundable) housing deposit before you commit).

There is no advantage to sending in an RD application by the ED date (it probably won’t get looked at until the RD round anyway), except in the case that there are rolling admissions and/or if there is limited merit aid available. Some schools (e.g., USC (California) has a December 1st deadline for merit consideration; Emory used to have an earlier deadline for their Emory Scholars program, but I think it no longer does). Other schools may require students to apply Early Action (e.g., Tulane) in order to be considered for named scholarships.

Yes it definitely varies when you get notified. For example many UCs notify Regent Scholars before anyone else even finds out if they have been admitted. But it was more common to see auto merit at or very shortly after admission, with more selective merit awards sent a few weeks later in February or March.

My D18 was waitlisted for a competitive scholarship which required an application after the initial admission and only got the final answer on April 30 (the first choices had been notified after interviews in March) though fortunately she had already decided to attend, so it was just a nice bonus by that point. Similarly S18 didn’t hear about his scholarship until a few days before admitted students day in April because interviews weren’t scheduled until after the admissions decisions had been announced.