What colleges give really good merit aid?

[Anonymous]

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

[Anonymous]

Dickinson, Mount Holyoke, Connecticut College.

Mind you, some of those might have been financial aid (vs merit). I can't recall at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dickinson, Mount Holyoke, Connecticut College.

Mind you, some of those might have been financial aid (vs merit). I can't recall at this point.

The title of the thread is about merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

I think the pp meant merit "aid" not that she thought her child could get financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

PP, we too are a donut hole family. DS received no offers of merit aid (high GPA; high ACT; high ECs). However he did receive two unsolicited offers from small privates in Virginia. These are schools that buy the sheets of high scoring ACT students. I received the call from (guessing: Trinity and Something Wesleyan in Virginia) the admissions office. They were willing to offer him something like $22,000 a year "governor's scholarship" but when I said he had a 36 on retry instead of something like a 32, i heard a rustle of paper and the representative said "Oh we can then offer him the "president's scholarship" of $26K a year. That was all well and good but the LACs didn't offer th emajor DS wanted and when we did the calculations, UVA was a much better financial deal than the LACs with even $26 deleted from the $75K start fee. I believe someone recently posted some of these schools that do this. You'll find they tend to be smaller LACs or southern schools that want the high SAT and ACT nos. in order to report to USN&WR to up their allover ranking. Good luck. Remember also that you are paying the difference between $75K and whatever in-state fees are (both of my kids went in-state) in after-tax dollars so if you don't have a529, savings, trust fund or wealthy grandparents youu have to factor in the cost of what you have to make minus taxes to arrive at the figure you will be "out" every year. Also, more than 60% of our nation's kids now take 5 and 6 years to graduate (I have one) so bear that in mind when making your decision. Good luck. Collegeconfidential.com is the best site to start working on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

I think the pp meant merit "aid" not that she thought her child could get financial aid.

No, she wrote, "I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run."

She meant financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

What do you mean? Even at $200+ thousand a year (I'm guessing Gross pay before mortgage, saving for retirement, health insurance, etc.), a family cannot be expected to soundly pay $70K/year times 4 years for college. So, yes, I would expect some financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

I think the pp meant merit "aid" not that she thought her child could get financial aid.

No, she wrote, "I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run."

She meant financial aid.

And why shouldn't she? Should she be expected to go to the poor house over college? While some other child goes to the SAME institution for less? Sorry, no.

Unless you're damn near a millionaire, a $70K tab/year is still a LOT of money once you figure other debts (mortgage, car), paying for health care (and that's just for healthy people), saving for retirement, etc. We make nearly $300K and could in no way swing that. And we don't live extravagantly by any means (drive cars till they collapse, modest home, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

What do you mean? Even at $200+ thousand a year (I'm guessing Gross pay before mortgage, saving for retirement, health insurance, etc.), a family cannot be expected to soundly pay $70K/year times 4 years for college. So, yes, I would expect some financial aid.

You aren’t expected to pay tuition just out of your earnings for the 4 years your child attends. They expect and assume you are saving significantly since birth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

What do you mean? Even at $200+ thousand a year (I'm guessing Gross pay before mortgage, saving for retirement, health insurance, etc.), a family cannot be expected to soundly pay $70K/year times 4 years for college. So, yes, I would expect some financial aid.

You can expect whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you'll get it, LOL.

With a gross income over $200K, absent certain circumstances (multiple kids in college at the same time, Ivy League or similar schools), you will not get need-based financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

What do you mean? Even at $200+ thousand a year (I'm guessing Gross pay before mortgage, saving for retirement, health insurance, etc.), a family cannot be expected to soundly pay $70K/year times 4 years for college. So, yes, I would expect some financial aid.

Oh dear. Welcome to the donut hole. We are the families who do not qualify for financial aid but whose kids have stats that qualify them for Ivies + (in other words no merit aid). I thank the Lord every morning that Va in-state options exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

I think the pp meant merit "aid" not that she thought her child could get financial aid.

No, she wrote, "I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run."

She meant financial aid.

And why shouldn't she? Should she be expected to go to the poor house over college? While some other child goes to the SAME institution for less? Sorry, no.

Unless you're damn near a millionaire, a $70K tab/year is still a LOT of money once you figure other debts (mortgage, car), paying for health care (and that's just for healthy people), saving for retirement, etc. We make nearly $300K and could in no way swing that. And we don't live extravagantly by any means (drive cars till they collapse, modest home, etc.)

I don't disagree that it is a crazy sum of money. That's why so many students in the DMV go to in-state publics and not private colleges and universities.

We make $240K and cannot swing it, yet do not qualify for need-based aid. Our kids go to private LACs with large merit scholarships. Our older DC's costs this coming year will be $42K and DC#2's will be $44K. Both chose their schools over UMD-CP for reasons we agree with.

Colleges expect you to be saving for two decades before enrolling. Tuition, room, and board should come, in schools' view, from past earnings, current earnings, and future earnings (loans). If you are short in one category, you'll need to make up for it from another.

We have saved aggressively since our kids were born, so don't need to make use of "future earnings," and hence they will graduate without loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

I think the pp meant merit "aid" not that she thought her child could get financial aid.

No, she wrote, "I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run."

She meant financial aid.

And why shouldn't she? Should she be expected to go to the poor house over college? While some other child goes to the SAME institution for less? Sorry, no.

Unless you're damn near a millionaire, a $70K tab/year is still a LOT of money once you figure other debts (mortgage, car), paying for health care (and that's just for healthy people), saving for retirement, etc. We make nearly $300K and could in no way swing that. And we don't live extravagantly by any means (drive cars till they collapse, modest home, etc.)

Well, welcome to the real world!! This out of control college cost is news to you??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wooster and Juniata both gave my child approximately 25K in merit aid (per year, for four years). She had a 3.7 UW GPA, very average SAT scores and just a handful of AP's.

She also go aid offers from other, more highly ranked schools.

This is helpful! I am still in shock as I realize that our HHI of $210k (which only recently got that high) means no financial aid on all the net price calculators I run. I can't imagine actually paying $70k/year (!) so we're scrambling to think about options. PP, could you mention the other, more highly ranked schools that also offered aid?

You will not qualify for financial aid. (I'm kind of surprised you would think that you would.)

Higher-ranked schools that award merit aid include e.g. Dickinson, Denison, Grinnell, Oberlin, U. Rochester. Some elite schools, e.g. Johns Hopkins and Washington U. in St. Louis, as well as e.g. Boston College, give a tiny number of merit scholarships to super high-performers.

If your child is a good but not stellar student, you will need to look at schools ranked 40 and above by USNWR. Or, send your child to an in-state public.

[b]What do you mean? Even at $200+ thousand a year (I'm guessing Gross pay before mortgage, saving for retirement, health insurance, etc.), a family cannot be expected to soundly pay $70K/year times 4 years for college. So, yes, I would expect some financial aid.

[/b]

Oh dear. Welcome to the donut hole. We are the families who do not qualify for financial aid but whose kids have stats that qualify them for Ivies + (in other words no merit aid). I thank the Lord every morning that Va in-state options exist.

To PP. There was a thread earlier this year from a parent whose child had gotten into Northwestern or Northeastern and s/he posted "OMG we can't possibly pay $276K in total for four years". Go find that thread. It's full of advice from parents who've been thru this process. AT least you are discovering this before your child has sent in applications. The first thing any good college counselor should say is "figure out your budget". You need to go on the schools' calculators and figure out what is affordable. Do some work with the FAFSA and try to figure out your EFC (estimated FAmily Contribution) before you start this process. Merit aid at the good schools is long gone. Read college confidential. And don't let your child tour any schools that you cannot afford. It's not fair to your child. A lot of "donut hole" families have come to this realization too late in the process. Good luck