What colleges give really good merit aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is my understanding that merit aid is used to entice over qualified students to attend.

Merit aid is used to entice high stats students to come. It’s no different than schools that give full ride to students whose family income falls below a certain threshold. You can call that enticing overqualified students to come, a charity, merit aid, or financial aid. Makes no difference.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Your DC have extended time? What % of kids in class have them? If no to first and high percentage to second, then difficult unless your DC managed to still be top 1% of class.

My kid wasn’t in the top 1% of her class and she received a lot of merit aid. She had a 1540 SAT and 4.2 GPA, 9 APs.

OP: if your child is above the top quartile in stats at the college in question, your kid has a decent shot at schools who offer aid.

Check the common data set and it will tell you the number of kids who receive non-need based financial
aid AND the average award.

How does one find the common data set?

Google the name of the school + Common Data Set.

I recommend the book, The College Solution, which lays out the strategy for finding the right school at the right price.

This. Common Data Set is the place where you’ll find the answer to this question. It’s not an efficient process by any means (think of college, find CDS, copy key data) but I haven’t found any resource that compiles it. I’ll give you an example from a recent CDS hunt that’s illuminating. Bowdoin and Oberlin both do merit aid. Cool. Both are yes. But Bowdoin awards merit aid to 2% of incoming classes at an average of $1000 each year. Oberlin also does merit aid, but it awards same to 33% of incoming classes at an average of $19,000 each year. Very different.

Yes. Searching through the CDS for each school is time-consuming and tedious, but worth the effort. Ditto re: the Net Price Calculator.

My DC got a $34K/year scholarship from Oberlin and no financial aid of any kind (other than the $5500 student loan) from Bowdoin or Williams, where she was admitted. That is a huge difference.

Which makes sense. Both Bowden and Williams (and Amherst and Colby and Bates...) say that they do not give merit aid. Period. Oberlin and Kenyon do.

Not according to Bowdoin’s latest published CDS, which shows 7 first-year students getting an average of $1000 per year each.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Your DC have extended time? What % of kids in class have them? If no to first and high percentage to second, then difficult unless your DC managed to still be top 1% of class.

My kid wasn’t in the top 1% of her class and she received a lot of merit aid. She had a 1540 SAT and 4.2 GPA, 9 APs.

OP: if your child is above the top quartile in stats at the college in question, your kid has a decent shot at schools who offer aid.

Check the common data set and it will tell you the number of kids who receive non-need based financial
aid AND the average award.

How does one find the common data set?

Google the name of the school + Common Data Set.

I recommend the book, The College Solution, which lays out the strategy for finding the right school at the right price.

This. Common Data Set is the place where you’ll find the answer to this question. It’s not an efficient process by any means (think of college, find CDS, copy key data) but I haven’t found any resource that compiles it. I’ll give you an example from a recent CDS hunt that’s illuminating. Bowdoin and Oberlin both do merit aid. Cool. Both are yes. But Bowdoin awards merit aid to 2% of incoming classes at an average of $1000 each year. Oberlin also does merit aid, but it awards same to 33% of incoming classes at an average of $19,000 each year. Very different.

Yes. Searching through the CDS for each school is time-consuming and tedious, but worth the effort. Ditto re: the Net Price Calculator.

My DC got a $34K/year scholarship from Oberlin and no financial aid of any kind (other than the $5500 student loan) from Bowdoin or Williams, where she was admitted. That is a huge difference.

Which makes sense. Both Bowden and Williams (and Amherst and Colby and Bates...) say that they do not give merit aid. Period. Oberlin and Kenyon do.

Not according to Bowdoin’s latest published CDS, which shows 7 first-year students getting an average of $1000 per year each.

Some of these colleges do give small one time NMS scholarships only. That’s not really enough to make a difference when faced with a $300,000 price tag for an education though.

[Anonymous]

Other than to allow proud moms and dads to brag about junior’s scholarship, leaving to the listener an impression of a vast sum.

[Anonymous]

I don’t care what you people say but a full ride is sweet. At HHI of 320k, we couldn’t get need based aids but DC got merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care what you people say but a full ride is sweet. At HHI of 320k, we couldn’t get need based aids but DC got merit aid.

Someone said a full ride isn’t sweet?

[Anonymous]

Nephew got a full-tuition merit scholarship at Temple. 1540 SAT, 3.8+ GPA.

A few years ago, Temple was exceedingly generous with merit aid, offering guaranteed scholarships at reasonably attainable benchmarks, for both in-state and out-of-state students. That policy helped them snare a lot of smart kids... it also put them $25 million in the red on their budget one year. So they've tightened up. But there is still a lot of money to be had, even at the full tuition level, for kids who apply EA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Other than to allow proud moms and dads to brag about junior’s scholarship, leaving to the listener an impression of a vast sum.

Wut?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nephew got a full-tuition merit scholarship at Temple. 1540 SAT, 3.8+ GPA.

A few years ago, Temple was exceedingly generous with merit aid, offering guaranteed scholarships at reasonably attainable benchmarks, for both in-state and out-of-state students. That policy helped them snare a lot of smart kids... it also put them $25 million in the red on their budget one year. So they've tightened up. But there is still a lot of money to be had, even at the full tuition level, for kids who apply EA.

Thanks for sharing the name Temple. Bummer they are running low on money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your DC have extended time? What % of kids in class have them? If no to first and high percentage to second, then difficult unless your DC managed to still be top 1% of class.

My kid wasn’t in the top 1% of her class and she received a lot of merit aid. She had a 1540 SAT and 4.2 GPA, 9 APs.

OP: if your child is above the top quartile in stats at the college in question, your kid has a decent shot at schools who offer aid.

Check the common data set and it will tell you the number of kids who receive non-need based financial
aid AND the average award.

How does one find the common data set?

Google the name of the school + Common Data Set.

I recommend the book, The College Solution, which lays out the strategy for finding the right school at the right price.

This. Common Data Set is the place where you’ll find the answer to this question. It’s not an efficient process by any means (think of college, find CDS, copy key data) but I haven’t found any resource that compiles it. I’ll give you an example from a recent CDS hunt that’s illuminating. Bowdoin and Oberlin both do merit aid. Cool. Both are yes. But Bowdoin awards merit aid to 2% of incoming classes at an average of $1000 each year. Oberlin also does merit aid, but it awards same to 33% of incoming classes at an average of $19,000 each year. Very different.

Yes. Searching through the CDS for each school is time-consuming and tedious, but worth the effort. Ditto re: the Net Price Calculator.

My DC got a $34K/year scholarship from Oberlin and no financial aid of any kind (other than the $5500 student loan) from Bowdoin or Williams, where she was admitted. That is a huge difference.

I don’t believe Bowdoin or Williams – or even Harvard or Yale - is worth $34,000 more per year than Oberlin. That’s $130,000 in four years.

[Anonymous]

University of Rochester is good about that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University of Rochester is good about that

Except when they aren't. This year they took a record number of students via ED, something like 60% of their incoming class.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/01/05/early-college-admissions-by-numbers/?utm_term=.6c470cee78d2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University of Rochester is good about that

Except when they aren't. This year they took a record number of students via ED, something like 60% of their incoming class.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/01/05/early-college-admissions-by-numbers/?utm_term=.6c470cee78d2

Your math is wrong. 519 accepted through ED1 and ED2 for a class of 1370. That’s 37-38%. Nowhere near 60%

[Anonymous]

Juniata. A solid safety for STEM majors.

[Anonymous]

What about really good schools like Villanova, Wake Forest, Boston College, Michigan — can a 4.0uw, 1550+ student that has no special EC to get into Ivy or top tier get merit at any of those schools or do they need to look for private scholarships?