List of SLACs with Generous Merit Aid

[Anonymous]

Thanks.

I really appreciated the folks who broke the schools down by liberal to conservative and the ranking of aid and college rank.

If anyone wants to continue adding to the list, please do.

I cannot thank you all enough for the input. It is very much appreciated.

Hope to start some college tours in January.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just to underline the risk of conflating the presence of merit aid with the reasonable likelihood of same, Swarthmore’s latest CDS reflects exactly four first-year students earning merit aid (if I’m reading the table correctly). Swarthmore should never be listed in a thread where generous merit aid is being discussed. They have enough to be able to say they offer it but little more. Not picking on Swarthmore, which is fantastic, but they don’t really do merit aid.

Whereas a school not listed above, U. Richmond, had 74 recipients of comparable award value, nearly 10% of incoming vs. Swarthmore’s 1%. There are other schools not listed above that could be considered generous. Washington and Lee offers full ride (and then some) to top 10% of incoming via its Johnson Scholarship. Very competitive though. They don’t just hand it to the top applicants for shits and giggles. There are campus interviews and elimination rounds and lots of work to earn it.

Lots of hard work by previous posters but it should serve as a starting point only. You have to dig deeply into the CDS data of each school to truly grasp the merit (and other) aid story.

Please add your knowledge about schools with their information to the ongoing list--that's what makes it stronger for everyone--just cut and paste and put what you know in.

[Anonymous]

Why just SLACs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why just SLACs?

Because it represents a certain approach to education that some students are drawn to (personalized, small, flexible and focused on broad education than career-specific) and it makes the list manageable. But it would be great if someone who is interested in OOS public u's that provide good merit aid would start a thread with that list too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just to underline the risk of conflating the presence of merit aid with the reasonable likelihood of same, Swarthmore’s latest CDS reflects exactly four first-year students earning merit aid (if I’m reading the table correctly). Swarthmore should never be listed in a thread where generous merit aid is being discussed. They have enough to be able to say they offer it but little more. Not picking on Swarthmore, which is fantastic, but they don’t really do merit aid.

Whereas a school not listed above, U. Richmond, had 74 recipients of comparable award value, nearly 10% of incoming vs. Swarthmore’s 1%. There are other schools not listed above that could be considered generous. Washington and Lee offers full ride (and then some) to top 10% of incoming via its Johnson Scholarship. Very competitive though. They don’t just hand it to the top applicants for shits and giggles. There are campus interviews and elimination rounds and lots of work to earn it.

Lots of hard work by previous posters but it should serve as a starting point only. You have to dig deeply into the CDS data of each school to truly grasp the merit (and other) aid story.

Please add your knowledge about schools with their information to the ongoing list--that's what makes it stronger for everyone--just cut and paste and put what you know in.

But I’m lazy! Okay, fine, I’ll give it a whirl. But my approach would be to remove some (like Swarthmore, for reasons identified) and don’t want to piss anyone off.

[Anonymous]

OP, just as an FYI, we are in similar straits. DD got into state flagship so we qualified for in-state. Even though she was offered $26K a year from SLACS, that amount subtracted from the going SLAC rate was still more than state flagship, so keep your eye on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just to underline the risk of conflating the presence of merit aid with the reasonable likelihood of same, Swarthmore’s latest CDS reflects exactly four first-year students earning merit aid (if I’m reading the table correctly). Swarthmore should never be listed in a thread where generous merit aid is being discussed. They have enough to be able to say they offer it but little more. Not picking on Swarthmore, which is fantastic, but they don’t really do merit aid.

Whereas a school not listed above, U. Richmond, had 74 recipients of comparable award value, nearly 10% of incoming vs. Swarthmore’s 1%. There are other schools not listed above that could be considered generous. Washington and Lee offers full ride (and then some) to top 10% of incoming via its Johnson Scholarship. Very competitive though. They don’t just hand it to the top applicants for shits and giggles. There are campus interviews and elimination rounds and lots of work to earn it.

Lots of hard work by previous posters but it should serve as a starting point only. You have to dig deeply into the CDS data of each school to truly grasp the merit (and other) aid story.

Please add your knowledge about schools with their information to the ongoing list--that's what makes it stronger for everyone--just cut and paste and put what you know in.

But I’m lazy! Okay, fine, I’ll give it a whirl. But my approach would be to remove some (like Swarthmore, for reasons identified) and don’t want to piss anyone off.

Maybe bracket or denote limitations in some way? e.g. * = merit aid limited to a tiny percentage of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just to underline the risk of conflating the presence of merit aid with the reasonable likelihood of same, Swarthmore’s latest CDS reflects exactly four first-year students earning merit aid (if I’m reading the table correctly). Swarthmore should never be listed in a thread where generous merit aid is being discussed. They have enough to be able to say they offer it but little more. Not picking on Swarthmore, which is fantastic, but they don’t really do merit aid.

Whereas a school not listed above, U. Richmond, had 74 recipients of comparable award value, nearly 10% of incoming vs. Swarthmore’s 1%. There are other schools not listed above that could be considered generous. Washington and Lee offers full ride (and then some) to top 10% of incoming via its Johnson Scholarship. Very competitive though. They don’t just hand it to the top applicants for shits and giggles. There are campus interviews and elimination rounds and lots of work to earn it.

Lots of hard work by previous posters but it should serve as a starting point only. You have to dig deeply into the CDS data of each school to truly grasp the merit (and other) aid story.

Please add your knowledge about schools with their information to the ongoing list--that's what makes it stronger for everyone--just cut and paste and put what you know in.

No need to remove any schools but feel free to add.

But I’m lazy! Okay, fine, I’ll give it a whirl. But my approach would be to remove some (like Swarthmore, for reasons identified) and don’t want to piss anyone off.

[Anonymous]

OP, just as an FYI, we are in similar straits. DD got into state flagship so we qualified for in-state. Even though she was offered $26K a year from SLACS, that amount subtracted from the going SLAC rate was still more than state flagship, so keep your eye on that.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I think we will only look at the liberalish and middle of the road schools from this list. Not going to go past Ohio or south of VA. Will also look into the seven sisters. Looking into W and M since DC doesn’t want to look at UVA or VT.

Thank you all for the insight and help. I’m leaving St Mary’s of MD on even though it’s public and we are VA residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks! I think we will only look at the liberalish and middle of the road schools from this list. Not going to go past Ohio or south of VA. Will also look into the seven sisters. Looking into W and M since DC doesn’t want to look at UVA or VT.

Thank you all for the insight and help. I’m leaving St Mary’s of MD on even though it’s public and we are VA residents.

Consider University of Mary Washington. My DC, who is at a SLAC in Ohio, liked it very much when we visited.

[Anonymous]

Roanoke College in Salem VA (adorable college town!) was VERY generous with merit awards for my very middle-of-the-road student. They awarded him $28k per YEAR for 4 years, with the chance to qualify for more. It is a great, low-stress, fun school. Highly recommend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks! I think we will only look at the liberalish and middle of the road schools from this list. Not going to go past Ohio or south of VA. Will also look into the seven sisters. Looking into W and M since DC doesn’t want to look at UVA or VT.

Thank you all for the insight and help. I’m leaving St Mary’s of MD on even though it’s public and we are VA residents.

So you are eliminating schools from consideration because an anonymous poster said certain skew “conservative-ish”? Silly. I have firsthand knowledge of two colleges listed in that category, one I attended and one my spouse did, and we are both very liberal. I’d say my college had a higher proportion of Republicans than a lot of colleges but still skewed Democrat - I bet you could say the same at Penn and Princeton where lots of students go on to work in finance. I only knew one student who I would say was capital C conservative, and he was an outlier (Republican does not equal conservative, by the way).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks! I think we will only look at the liberalish and middle of the road schools from this list. Not going to go past Ohio or south of VA. Will also look into the seven sisters. Looking into W and M since DC doesn’t want to look at UVA or VT.

Thank you all for the insight and help. I’m leaving St Mary’s of MD on even though it’s public and we are VA residents.

So you are eliminating schools from consideration because an anonymous poster said certain skew “conservative-ish”? Silly. I have firsthand knowledge of two colleges listed in that category, one I attended and one my spouse did, and we are both very liberal. I’d say my college had a higher proportion of Republicans than a lot of colleges but still skewed Democrat - I bet you could say the same at Penn and Princeton where lots of students go on to work in finance. I only knew one student who I would say was capital C conservative, and he was an outlier (Republican does not equal conservative, by the way).

It does right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks.

I really appreciated the folks who broke the schools down by liberal to conservative and the ranking of aid and college rank.

If anyone wants to continue adding to the list, please do.

I cannot thank you all enough for the input. It is very much appreciated.

Hope to start some college tours in January.

This thread should be pinned. There's some really helpful info here.

Good luck to your DC, OP!