Selective schools with merit scholarships

[Anonymous]

Almost every school outside the league offers merit scholarships. As others have pointed out, the most selective schools tend to not offer very many. None of us know if your nephew will be in the running for these. Rich kid with parents going through a contentious divorce is not a sob story that is going to help with admissions (or financial aid/merit aid).

Probably best to MYOB and encourage your son (and sister) to maintain a good as relationship as possible with his dad and include his dad in college planning activities (since his dad is cash flowing college). Play the long game.

[Anonymous]

BC has a full ride. I think they give 20 of them.

[Anonymous]

Roll Tide

https://afford.ua.edu/scholarships/out-of-state-freshman/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where can I find a list of selective schools with merit scholarships?

For example, I know about:

Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
Emory
USC
UVA
Wake
UNC
Tulane

Tulane merit is much easier to get than these others, and it is not close to the same peer group. There are many other merit scholarships in Tulane’s peer group including SMU, Fordham…all give a good amount of aid for “average excellent” 1400s/32/top25% of private school(or top10% of public) .

The other schools are very rare: wake for example is extremely competitive only inviting 40-50 students to be finalists, then selecting about half for full rides after intensive interviews. The only partial merit there is talent based arts things . The other financial aid is all need based and requires fafsa, so not merit.
Emory and washU are a similar level of selectivity. Vanderbilt gives full and partials and numberswise gives slightly more merit-only awards than Wake or Emory but they are not all full and some (like washU) have demographic/background restrictions.
For all of these, the students who get them are among 2-3 dozen selected out of 20-40 thousand applicants. The unhooked winners are superstar students who are exceptional in every way.
Duke is almost impossible to get and even more rarified, given less totals and perhaps the most competitive applicant pool from all the schools listed.
USC is much easier as is Notre Dame, and UNC gives a decent amount of sizable partial merit (in addition to the more prestigious Morehead cain) making the total number of merit-only awards much higher %of applicants wise than washU/wake/emory.
Fordham and Tulane and SMU have a large portion of the incoming class who gets merit (pure merit, no fafsa). The “merit” is really more of a discount at these schools as it is given readily just by passing a couple of criteria. If you really need merit, chase the lower tier schools, or go anothet step down for more merit/discounts.

[Anonymous]

Rice has merit but really only a handful of students will get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to prioritize. You either want/need merit. Or you want prestige. Unless your DC is NMF merit and the top 1-3 students in HS, getting merit at your list of schools is a crap shoot, and even then unlikely.

Ofc. Understood. Not my first rodeo.
Unique situation.
Nephew will be a freshman.
Already scored a 36 in some gifted and talented ACT test he took this spring for a program.
Genius level kid (and I have an Ivy bound kid - he’s next level - but there’s also so much sadness in his life).

My sister is in a contentious divorce. while her ex is very wealthy & is obligated to pay for college I think he’ll just delay (like he’s doing for boarding school - kid got in - including one on scholarship and he refused to allow him to go bc he shares legal custody). Funds are not currently set aside for college bc her ex said he’d cash flow it (big law partner).

Anyway, assuming he stays at his current public school, just thinking ahead to options down the road for him as a backup. He’s submitted a bunch of published work already (short stories and poems) and he’s such an insane writer.
His teachers have already said he’s the smartest kid theyve ever seen and he needs more than what he can get there.
They currently live in a somewhat remote non-DMV area.

Don’t want to reveal too much.

They live in a remote area and the dad is a big law partner? Big law partners may have second homes in remote area, but 99% are living in or near urban areas. Does this mean the mom moved the kid away from the dad when they were divorcing? A genius level kid like this needs to be in an urban area for the educational opportunities provided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to prioritize. You either want/need merit. Or you want prestige. Unless your DC is NMF merit and the top 1-3 students in HS, getting merit at your list of schools is a crap shoot, and even then unlikely.

Ofc. Understood. Not my first rodeo.
Unique situation.
Nephew will be a freshman.
Already scored a 36 in some gifted and talented ACT test he took this spring for a program.
Genius level kid (and I have an Ivy bound kid - he’s next level - but there’s also so much sadness in his life).

My sister is in a contentious divorce. while her ex is very wealthy & is obligated to pay for college I think he’ll just delay (like he’s doing for boarding school - kid got in - including one on scholarship and he refused to allow him to go bc he shares legal custody). Funds are not currently set aside for college bc her ex said he’d cash flow it (big law partner).

Anyway, assuming he stays at his current public school, just thinking ahead to options down the road for him as a backup. He’s submitted a bunch of published work already (short stories and poems) and he’s such an insane writer.
His teachers have already said he’s the smartest kid theyve ever seen and he needs more than what he can get there.
They currently live in a somewhat remote non-DMV area.

Don’t want to reveal too much.

Maybe the kid should go down some levels and get a full ride to Bama for example, to extricate from the whole mess of sparring parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to prioritize. You either want/need merit. Or you want prestige. Unless your DC is NMF merit and the top 1-3 students in HS, getting merit at your list of schools is a crap shoot, and even then unlikely.

Ofc. Understood. Not my first rodeo.
Unique situation.
Nephew will be a freshman.
Already scored a 36 in some gifted and talented ACT test he took this spring for a program.
Genius level kid (and I have an Ivy bound kid - he’s next level - but there’s also so much sadness in his life).

My sister is in a contentious divorce. while her ex is very wealthy & is obligated to pay for college I think he’ll just delay (like he’s doing for boarding school - kid got in - including one on scholarship and he refused to allow him to go bc he shares legal custody). Funds are not currently set aside for college bc her ex said he’d cash flow it (big law partner).

Anyway, assuming he stays at his current public school, just thinking ahead to options down the road for him as a backup. He’s submitted a bunch of published work already (short stories and poems) and he’s such an insane writer.
His teachers have already said he’s the smartest kid theyve ever seen and he needs more than what he can get there.
They currently live in a somewhat remote non-DMV area.

Don’t want to reveal too much.

They live in a remote area and the dad is a big law partner? Big law partners may have second homes in remote area, but 99% are living in or near urban areas. Does this mean the mom moved the kid away from the dad when they were divorcing? A genius level kid like this needs to be in an urban area for the educational opportunities provided.

Yes, they moved to 2nd home area that is extremely remote (its rural). Agree on needing to be in urban area. It's a big part of the negotiated settlement - the ex wants them to stay there (lower cost of living for child support, no private school etc). It's a horrible divorce with a lot of bad extra-marital stuff that doesn't fall into this topic.
But yes, agree kid needs more opportunities. Working on all options for them.

Thanks for all of the lists. He's only going into 9th grade, but think they need to be prepared for any and all eventualities.

[Anonymous]

Washington & Lee University
Roanoke College

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where can I find a list of selective schools with merit scholarships?

For example, I know about:

Duke
WashU
Vanderbilt
Emory
USC
UVA
Wake
UNC
Tulane

Wake, Tulane, and USC are the only schools on this list that give merit aid to more than the tiniest percentage of students…

Wake gives very little merit , only around six percent of students receive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Washington & Lee University
Roanoke College

W&L actually a great suggestion, they give a number of full tuition merit scholarship.s

[Anonymous]

Here I thought you meant like schools like Macalester and Case Western, which has a decently low acceptance rate and gives decent merit aid to competitive applicants. Unless your kid is HYPS level, don’t expect merit from those except Tulane and maybe USC. Getting in is hard enough.

[Anonymous]

Washington & Lee

[Anonymous]

JHU does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JHU does.

Hopkins gives merit to 4 percent of students. Why do people post with no support?