Duke No Longer Recruiting Through Merit Scholarships

[Anonymous]

Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

Those other schools don’t offer any merit scholarships. Not sure what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

Those other schools don’t offer any merit scholarships. Not sure what you are talking about.

UPenn recruits admitted students by offering hundreds of scholarships through Ben Franklin Scholars, Joseph Wharton Scholars, University Scholars, Penn World Scholars, Civic Scholars, Rachleff Scholars, Public Policy Research Scholars, ISP Scholars, etc. not to mention all their dual degree programs like Jerome Fisher M&T, Huntsman, Vagelos LSM, VIPER, NETS, etc. These are all merit programs that come with financial incentives, personalized attention and perks, etc. while not trampling on FA.

Likewise, Cornell enrolls many hundreds of students by recruiting through its Milstein Scholars, Rawlings Scholars, Harrison Scholars, Tata Scholars, Tanner Dean Scholars, etc.

Yale lures hundreds of admitted students through Hahn Scholars, YES Scholars, etc.

Finally, Columbia recruits hundreds of admitted students through Egleston Scholars, Kluge Scholars, John Jay Scholars, Prescott Davis Scholars, etc.

All the elite schools except HPSM play the game of recruiting their top applicants through special merit programs, which are mostly on top of already great financial aid.

[TheSpanishDoctor]

Anonymous wrote:Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

First-year students only discover their merit award status after enrollment deadlines, in case others were wondering: "There is not a separate application process for merit scholarships for incoming first year students, except for the Robertson Scholars Program. Your application to Duke University is the basis on which eligibility for merit scholarships is determined. If you are selected as a finalist for a merit scholarship, you will be notified via email from this office in early May. Finalists will then interview with scholarship selection committees and merit scholarships will be awarded no later than mid June."

Perhaps the change was made in light of the Initiative for Students from the Carolinas: https://financialaid.duke.edu/initiative-students-carolinas/.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

Those other schools don’t offer any merit scholarships. Not sure what you are talking about.

UPenn recruits admitted students by offering hundreds of scholarships through Ben Franklin Scholars, Joseph Wharton Scholars, University Scholars, Penn World Scholars, Civic Scholars, Rachleff Scholars, Public Policy Research Scholars, ISP Scholars, etc. not to mention all their dual degree programs like Jerome Fisher M&T, Huntsman, Vagelos LSM, VIPER, NETS, etc. These are all merit programs that come with financial incentives, personalized attention and perks, etc. while not trampling on FA.

Likewise, Cornell enrolls many hundreds of students by recruiting through its Milstein Scholars, Rawlings Scholars, Harrison Scholars, Tata Scholars, Tanner Dean Scholars, etc.

Yale lures hundreds of admitted students through Hahn Scholars, YES Scholars, etc.

Finally, Columbia recruits hundreds of admitted students through Egleston Scholars, Kluge Scholars, John Jay Scholars, Prescott Davis Scholars, etc.

All the elite schools except HPSM play the game of recruiting their top applicants through special merit programs, which are mostly on top of already great financial aid.

Those are like nothing…$500 or so and some free meals. Nothing to move the needle to choose say Penn over Duke unless you were already leaning that way.

You are significantly overstating the “meri” aspect of these programs (at least for Penn).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

Duke isn’t in the Ivy League.

[Anonymous]

Duke accepts legacy kids first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

Source?