Did your dc get merit aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you share the school and test scores? I am trying to assess whether my dc has a shot at merit aid.

DC, with non-superscored SAT above 2100 and superscored SAT just under 2300, received merit aid awards (ranging from half tuition to full tuition plus room, board & stipend) from UMD, UVA, GWU, Pitt, Duke, Wash U, NYU, and Kenyon. [Based on merit awards offered/not offered to DC's friends, it seems to me that the threshold SAT score for receiving a merit scholarship -- even if DC were to have had a 4.0 unweighted GPA -- is 2000 (although one of DC's friends who was only able to raise their SAT superscore to the 1700s, received a $10K merit award from GWU).]

[Anonymous]

DD - 32 ACT (I think). 4.2 weighted GPA. National Merit Scholar. $40,000 (what they consider a full ride) at University of Florida.

DS - 30 ACT. 3.3 GPA. $3,000 per semester plus ROTC Scholarship at Ole Miss. We only pay for food and part of housing.

[Anonymous]

It depends on which Va schools and even so, not everyone will agree re staying in Va.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you share the school and test scores? I am trying to assess whether my dc has a shot at merit aid.

DC, with non-superscored SAT above 2100 and superscored SAT just under 2300, received merit aid awards (ranging from half tuition to full tuition plus room, board & stipend) from UMD, UVA, GWU, Pitt, Duke, Wash U, NYU, and Kenyon. [Based on merit awards offered/not offered to DC's friends, it seems to me that the threshold SAT score for receiving a merit scholarship -- even if DC were to have had a 4.0 unweighted GPA -- is 2000 (although one of DC's friends who was only able to raise their SAT superscore to the 1700s, received a $10K merit award from GWU).]

So where is your DC going?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you share the school and test scores? I am trying to assess whether my dc has a shot at merit aid.

DC, with non-superscored SAT above 2100 and superscored SAT just under 2300, received merit aid awards (ranging from half tuition to full tuition plus room, board & stipend) from UMD, UVA, GWU, Pitt, Duke, Wash U, NYU, and Kenyon. [Based on merit awards offered/not offered to DC's friends, it seems to me that the threshold SAT score for receiving a merit scholarship -- even if DC were to have had a 4.0 unweighted GPA -- is 2000 (although one of DC's friends who was only able to raise their SAT superscore to the 1700s, received a $10K merit award from GWU).]

Really? My DCs scores are close to that and we don't expect any merit aid from some of those same schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a kid who just got a generous (more than 10K) merit award from Mount Ida with a 14 ACT. I think that if a family needs merit aid it's out there somewhere.

do you mean 34 ACT? It goes up to 36.

No, I mean 14, which is well below the national average. The kid did have very strong grades, and I assume the merit aid was based on that.

My point was that if a student needs merit aid to attend school, there are likely options out there somewhere that will provide it. Merit aid isn't reserved for the cream of the crop. It's a tool for schools to attract the students they want, so you need to find a school where you're part of a demographic they're looking to increase.

[Anonymous]

Anyone familiar with the range/criteria for merit awards at University of Chicago? We saw on line references to average merit awards in the range of $8-12,000, but would be interested in whether that's the range for your typical NMSF with high grades or if the numbers are higher/lower without other factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you share the school and test scores? I am trying to assess whether my dc has a shot at merit aid.

DC, with non-superscored SAT above 2100 and superscored SAT just under 2300, received merit aid awards (ranging from half tuition to full tuition plus room, board & stipend) from UMD, UVA, GWU, Pitt, Duke, Wash U, NYU, and Kenyon. [Based on merit awards offered/not offered to DC's friends, it seems to me that the threshold SAT score for receiving a merit scholarship -- even if DC were to have had a 4.0 unweighted GPA -- is 2000 (although one of DC's friends who was only able to raise their SAT superscore to the 1700s, received a $10K merit award from GWU).]

Really? My DCs scores are close to that and we don't expect any merit aid from some of those same schools.

It depends on what else the applicant had to offer regardless of similar scores. Maybe PP's DC had something that caught admissions eye(s) and awarded merit based on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a kid who just got a generous (more than 10K) merit award from Mount Ida with a 14 ACT. I think that if a family needs merit aid it's out there somewhere.

do you mean 34 ACT? It goes up to 36.

No, I mean 14, which is well below the national average. The kid did have very strong grades, and I assume the merit aid was based on that.

My point was that if a student needs merit aid to attend school, there are likely options out there somewhere that will provide it. Merit aid isn't reserved for the cream of the crop. It's a tool for schools to attract the students they want, so you need to find a school where you're part of a demographic they're looking to increase.

No student NEEDS merit aid. Merit aid is for achievement.

[Anonymous]

Well, my son "needs" substantial merit aid to justify our sending him to a 60k private institution when he can go to a state institution for much less. Some of us who "can" pay full freight don't do so painlessly. And as a WSJ article pointed out recently, some of us don't want to subsidize other people's education by paying higher and higher tuition (we have already been doing that for decades through taxes and private school tuitions).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is helpful. Thank you so far! Are any of you from VA? The reason I ask is, at least to me, none of the schools mentioned so far on this thread would be worth turning down one of the top VA schools for. I think it would be hard to justify paying any more for one of these OOS schools if DC could get into a good state school, even if DC "liked" the OOS school better. My DC is still a junior. I am just trying to figure out how to set expectations (eg, don't get your heart set on Notre Dame or Middlebury, or whatever, because you aren't likely to qualify for enough merit aid to make it worthwhile to go out of state). I am not even sure how many OOS schools to take DC to visit given our good in state options.

Yep, this. We "need" merit aid to even consider private college. No merit aid, no enrollment, it's that simple. We will qualify for some financial aid, but not enough to induce us to opt for private in the absence of additional merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is helpful. Thank you so far! Are any of you from VA? The reason I ask is, at least to me, none of the schools mentioned so far on this thread would be worth turning down one of the top VA schools for. I think it would be hard to justify paying any more for one of these OOS schools if DC could get into a good state school, even if DC "liked" the OOS school better. My DC is still a junior. I am just trying to figure out how to set expectations (eg, don't get your heart set on Notre Dame or Middlebury, or whatever, because you aren't likely to qualify for enough merit aid to make it worthwhile to go out of state). I am not even sure how many OOS schools to take DC to visit given our good in state options.

Not all private schools give merit aid; for example, I'd be surprised if Middlebury does. For the record, our kids were offered merit aid at University of Chicago; their scores were 2300+.

[Anonymous]

MIddlebury does offer merit aid. I got a full ride there. (Didn't go, more fool me!)

[Anonymous]

15:42 -- If you don't mind my asking, how much merit aid were they offered at Chicago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a kid who just got a generous (more than 10K) merit award from Mount Ida with a 14 ACT. I think that if a family needs merit aid it's out there somewhere.

do you mean 34 ACT? It goes up to 36.

No, I mean 14, which is well below the national average. The kid did have very strong grades, and I assume the merit aid was based on that.

My point was that if a student needs merit aid to attend school, there are likely options out there somewhere that will provide it. Merit aid isn't reserved for the cream of the crop. It's a tool for schools to attract the students they want, so you need to find a school where you're part of a demographic they're looking to increase.

No student NEEDS merit aid. Merit aid is for achievement.

Given that Mount Ida, and the majority of other schools do not offer sufficient financial aid to cover "need" as determined by FAFSA, many families DO need merit aid to be able to afford college for their kids. Now you can obviously argue that no one needs college, and I won't dispute that, but there are absolutely students for whom merit makes college or a particular college possible.

I'll also say that this particular kid has many achievements. The OP asked about scores, so that's what I provided.