Great merit stories

[Anonymous]

Where did a kid you know (does not have to be your child!) get a TON of merit? By ton I don't mean just 20, 30k (like 80k to 60k...still very expensive), but so much that it made cost go down to in-state, truly affordable. And what school was it?

[Anonymous]

U of South Carolina

[Anonymous]

Marquette. Offered merit which brought it down to compare to our in state levels for the state flagship. Yes good marketing but she loves the school ( now a sophomore) and I love that they wanted her. She is a good but not fantastic student. And she got a huge frozen pretzel in the mail with the acceptance.

[Anonymous]

Mizzou

[Anonymous]

UMN resulting in OOS COA of less than $30k. Chose UMD OOS for $45k

[Anonymous]

Maryland.

Full ride for a really smart STEM kid from an MCPS school.

[Anonymous]

Full tuition Georgia Tech and UGA (Zell Miller) and full tuition Tulane

[Anonymous]

My older kid was offered $27K per year from Grinnell (decided to go in-state to William and Mary). He was a high GPA TJHSST student and a National Merit Scholarship finalist. My younger one gets $32K per year from Northeastern, which makes it only a somewhat more expensive ($15k per year?) than some of the in-state options he was considering

[Anonymous]

Full ride at Lafayette College

[Anonymous]

St. Joe's Presidential Scholarship

High Point (we can discuss the merits of High Point separately)

Hobart

[Anonymous]

UVM, total COA ~$34k for OOS student with the merit award.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Marquette. Offered merit which brought it down to compare to our in state levels for the state flagship. Yes good marketing but she loves the school ( now a sophomore) and I love that they wanted her. She is a good but not fantastic student. And she got a huge frozen pretzel in the mail with the acceptance.

my anec-data on Marquette - I know alum in DC in their 50s who really love their Marquette college friends and get together in big, fun ways a few times year. As in, "I'm hanging out with old college friends next weekend, we rented out a weird little bar and bowling alley for the night" - or - "we rented six houses out on the beach for the long weekend. and my chore is to buy coffee, tea, 16 boxes of cereal and four kinds of milk" They always seem super funny/fun.

[Anonymous]

University of Connecticut

[Anonymous]

It's hard to measure since Test Optional wrecked the statistics reporting (separate issue from other concerns about TO), but at most places you get huge merit if you are above 75%ile on the school's SAT/GPA stats. Look back to 2019 stats to estimate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Marquette. Offered merit which brought it down to compare to our in state levels for the state flagship. Yes good marketing but she loves the school ( now a sophomore) and I love that they wanted her. She is a good but not fantastic student. And she got a huge frozen pretzel in the mail with the acceptance.

+1

Marquette offers good merit. My "at 50% for MU students" got 40% of tuition. I'd have to imagine if they were at 75%+, they would have gotten much more.
Great school--your kid will love it there