schools w/ no merit aid

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I get this is not everyone, but if you’ve done a major kitchen and bathroom remodel when those rooms were totally functional but just outdated, and you are driving two fully loaded 50k vehicles and you have a lawn service and cleaning service and your average athlete kids play travel hockey etc etc, you threw yourself right into that donut hole yourself.

In a high COL area, the donut hole hits families who could never afford a 50k car or major renovations. Around here, a teacher married to a cop can earn enough to hit donut hole status

This is true. Our closest friends are a teacher and a non-profit grants manager with a HHI of <180k. They live in a tiny, dated, starter house in Silver Spring, drive 10 year old cars (which they bought used) and have only been on one long-weekend trip to Europe, paid for by her parents. All other years they spend a week in Ocean City. They qualified for zero financial aid.

So - an AGI of 150k or less let’s you attend Columbia at no cost. Most top schools (the ones OP is complaining about) do give financial aid at that income level absent significant non-retirement assets. At a state school perhaps no financial aid but at private schools yes financial aid at a HHI of 180K (with an obviously lower AGI).

I just rank 180k with no savings, a 400k house with a 100k remaining mortgage balance through Wellesley's calculator and the expected parent contribution was 43k a year in addition to a loan. To me that's a fairly crushing amount of money for a 180k hhi.

Agree. However, colleges seem to expect you to have saved for the kid's education over the past 18 years.

It's funny how they all act charitable with their 'we meet your full "demonstrated need"' BS when they get to define what that "demonstrated need" is, regardless of where you live! And we, the people, fund their huge tax breaks! Pathetic.

Amazing how that works. Colleges expect you to save for your kid's education, or at least top ones do. If it's so important for your family and you make $180K, then perhaps you should save. Maybe you wont get to 80K/year, but you might save $160K, which means you could take loans/cash flow the rest if it's truly that important to you. Or better yet, you now can attend a school just below T25 with minimal to no debt

The assume that you've had those salaries long enough to save. A teacher married to a cop may have a 180k HHI, but that's once both of them accrue years of service. Starting out they'll make half that which makes saving much in somewhere like DC impossible.

Top schools take assets into account too when making these determinations.

I ran the calculator using 0 for savings

They are talking about FAFSA or the CSS not online calculators which mean zero

The school's own calculator is the most accurate and the one that matters for ED.

DP but, wait, which school?

Never mind saw it was Wellesley. I just ran the same facts for Emory and there was big aid according to their calculator.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:"I went to a T10 university, and if I was hiring, would not give an advantage to a kid who went to a slac over a state school. Particularly a seven sister school, because very few kids are even willing to attend them these days. But thanks for your efforts to be condescending."

I went to HSYP and unlike you, I paid attention to things like where my professors and their kids went to college. That's why I know what Bryn Mawr is about.

Do you even realize that the average SAT at Bryn Mawr is 1410 while it's 1265 at Penn State?

+1. The OP of this comment is beyond misinformed. And misogonystic as well? What do you have against a seven sisters school? Who said few kids are willing to attend Their acceptance rates show that isn't true.

Penn State acceptance rate: 57%
Virginia Tech: 56%

Seven Sisters

Barnard acceptance rate:8%

Wellesley: 16%

Vassar: 22%

Smith: 26%

Bryn Mawr:: 31%

Mt Holyoke: 40%


Anyhow, why would you NOT use an alumni network? It's not something very helpful in my field, but my spouse went to a very selective SLAC undergrad and then ivy league for grad school. The alumni network has helped him exponentially. And that's one of the reasons he went to these schools.

You seem to have some sort of chip on your shoulder.

Barnard is popular as a back door to Columbia and Vassar saved itself by going coed. But the others lost most of shine after the Ivies went coed.

Yes. People like to say their daughter is at an Ivy. Barnard gives you a kid at Columbia.This makes Barnard infinitely more attractive than the other 7 Sister Colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Based on our experience with our first child, we are ruling out a handful of matches for my son that we think would be great for him but aren't known to give merit. Jeff Selingo has an excellent list of what he calls Buyers & Sellers that is very helpful as a guide in figuring this out:

https://jeffselingo.com/which-colleges-are-really-buyers-and-which-are-sellers/

I am missing something and am hoping someone can help me understand. When I check out this website, I see that for say University of Richmond that it is a buyer and that households with incomes 110K+ spend about $40. How do you know what is merit aid vs financial aid? We will not qualify for financial aid so are trying to focus on schools that provide merit aid. How does one understand if the institutional aid is financial or merit? Is there something in the Common Data set? Is there some other website that has compiled state schools with merit aid and the requirements? Or does each person just research this info themselves? I don't mean to sound as dense as I think I am - I think somehow though I'm not doing this research correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on our experience with our first child, we are ruling out a handful of matches for my son that we think would be great for him but aren't known to give merit. Jeff Selingo has an excellent list of what he calls Buyers & Sellers that is very helpful as a guide in figuring this out:

https://jeffselingo.com/which-colleges-are-really-buyers-and-which-are-sellers/

I am missing something and am hoping someone can help me understand. When I check out this website, I see that for say University of Richmond that it is a buyer and that households with incomes 110K+ spend about $40. How do you know what is merit aid vs financial aid? We will not qualify for financial aid so are trying to focus on schools that provide merit aid. How does one understand if the institutional aid is financial or merit? Is there something in the Common Data set? Is there some other website that has compiled state schools with merit aid and the requirements? Or does each person just research this info themselves? I don't mean to sound as dense as I think I am - I think somehow though I'm not doing this research correctly.

You can look at the individual school's common data set and search for "non-need aid" to see the merit aid. So, for example, Table H2A shows non-need aid for those without financial need. For University of Richmond, 2021-22, 93 freshman received an average of $42,538 each in non-need aid.

In terms of what it takes to get merit aid, higher stats are better. Students are more likely to get merit aid if that they're at the 75th percentile and above for that school. But it differs by school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on our experience with our first child, we are ruling out a handful of matches for my son that we think would be great for him but aren't known to give merit. Jeff Selingo has an excellent list of what he calls Buyers & Sellers that is very helpful as a guide in figuring this out:

https://jeffselingo.com/which-colleges-are-really-buyers-and-which-are-sellers/

I am missing something and am hoping someone can help me understand. When I check out this website, I see that for say University of Richmond that it is a buyer and that households with incomes 110K+ spend about $40. How do you know what is merit aid vs financial aid? We will not qualify for financial aid so are trying to focus on schools that provide merit aid. How does one understand if the institutional aid is financial or merit? Is there something in the Common Data set? Is there some other website that has compiled state schools with merit aid and the requirements? Or does each person just research this info themselves? I don't mean to sound as dense as I think I am - I think somehow though I'm not doing this research correctly.

In the CDS go to section "H Financial Aid". Then look for section "H2A Number of Enrolled Students Awarded Non-need-based scholarships and grants". That will show you the number of students without financial need who got a merit award and what that average award is. This can provide a gauge of what you might expect in merit. The net price calc tends to be more a need based estimate.

You can also look at the average merit award for freshman vs. the average for all undergrads. If the all undergrads number is a lot lower that would be a red flag that most freshman don't keep their merit awards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on our experience with our first child, we are ruling out a handful of matches for my son that we think would be great for him but aren't known to give merit. Jeff Selingo has an excellent list of what he calls Buyers & Sellers that is very helpful as a guide in figuring this out:

https://jeffselingo.com/which-colleges-are-really-buyers-and-which-are-sellers/

I am missing something and am hoping someone can help me understand. When I check out this website, I see that for say University of Richmond that it is a buyer and that households with incomes 110K+ spend about $40. How do you know what is merit aid vs financial aid? We will not qualify for financial aid so are trying to focus on schools that provide merit aid. How does one understand if the institutional aid is financial or merit? Is there something in the Common Data set? Is there some other website that has compiled state schools with merit aid and the requirements? Or does each person just research this info themselves? I don't mean to sound as dense as I think I am - I think somehow though I'm not doing this research correctly.

When you have a buyer, you also have to consider what they are buying. They buy students who will pay 40K like it's a steal, and who will tell similarly situated families about the deal they got. Should more of those students begin to apply, the coupon will be phased out. So with these schools, you want to be at a HS they are actively targeting, which will be privates and publics in wealthy zip codes. People love to talk about how merit is used to buy high test scores and achievement, but much more common it's used to buy word of mouth a the right school, or country club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on our experience with our first child, we are ruling out a handful of matches for my son that we think would be great for him but aren't known to give merit. Jeff Selingo has an excellent list of what he calls Buyers & Sellers that is very helpful as a guide in figuring this out:

https://jeffselingo.com/which-colleges-are-really-buyers-and-which-are-sellers/

I am missing something and am hoping someone can help me understand. When I check out this website, I see that for say University of Richmond that it is a buyer and that households with incomes 110K+ spend about $40. How do you know what is merit aid vs financial aid? We will not qualify for financial aid so are trying to focus on schools that provide merit aid. How does one understand if the institutional aid is financial or merit? Is there something in the Common Data set? Is there some other website that has compiled state schools with merit aid and the requirements? Or does each person just research this info themselves? I don't mean to sound as dense as I think I am - I think somehow though I'm not doing this research correctly.

I posted this. Thanks so much for these helpful responses!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I second the idea to look at other Seven Sisters colleges like Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Bryn Mawr that offer merit. I know kids at MoHo and BMC who are athletes, likely with merit aid. My kid at Oberlin has several athlete friends who got discounts through academic scholarships, as many non-athletes also receive. Her friend is on the cross-country team at Wooster and is truly a brilliant student (prospective physics major) and as the oldest of 3, was only able to attend a LAC due to generous merit aid. Check out some of those! Gettysburg, Dickinson, Allegheny, Kalamazoo, are also good suggestions. Otherwise, she might have to make a decision, like many of DD's friends have, to forgo the D3 varsity sports experience and play at the club level at a public flagship.

Thanks. Many of these are on her list.

HOLLINS is a women’s college with very generous financial aid including merit aid