What colleges give really good merit aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

No merit aid at Michigan.

Wake Forest awards it to less than 3% of incoming class https://financialaid.wfu.edu/merit/

Villanova does https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/enroll/finaid/scholarships_grants.html

BC says they award 15 merit scholarships per year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

No merit aid at Michigan.

Wake Forest awards it to less than 3% of incoming class https://financialaid.wfu.edu/merit/

Villanova does https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/enroll/finaid/scholarships_grants.html

BC says they award 15 merit scholarships per year.

+1

If by "really good schools" PP means, "schools ranked in the top 30 by USNWR," then with limited exceptions, none of them give merit money.

My DC was admitted to BC, but was not invited to compete for one of the 15 full merit scholarships. (BC selects a larger group, invites them to campus, and has them compete for those scholarships.) DC has a perfect GPA in an MCPS magnet (all As, all four years), SAT=1580, has hundreds of volunteer/service hours, is an athlete, and invented and marketed an app for use by disabled people (omitting details for privacy). We hoped that DC would at least be invited to compete for a scholarship at BC, but nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Temple is still pretty generous for high stats kids, and its tuition is already pretty reasonable.
Then if you live off campus you can save even more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

A thousand dollars off of $70,000 is meaningless but mama get to brag about “a scholarship”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

I know about 2. Wake Forest offers merit aid— but very little. I think they say top 2% of applicants to in a very competitive pool. Sure— give it a shot. But don’t could on it.

Michigan is very hard to get aid to if you are OOS. Even the ZtJ CS geniuses are often full pay (I KNOW A COUPLE)

Villanova and BC offer merit and. I’m not sure how hard it is to get. We looked a Villanova briefly, and it seemed possible for my high stats kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

No merit aid at Michigan.

Wake Forest awards it to less than 3% of incoming class https://financialaid.wfu.edu/merit/

Villanova does https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/enroll/finaid/scholarships_grants.html

BC says they award 15 merit scholarships per year.

+1

If by "really good schools" PP means, "schools ranked in the top 30 by USNWR," then with limited exceptions, none of them give merit money.

My DC was admitted to BC, but was not invited to compete for one of the 15 full merit scholarships. (BC selects a larger group, invites them to campus, and has them compete for those scholarships.) DC has a perfect GPA in an MCPS magnet (all As, all four years), SAT=1580, has hundreds of volunteer/service hours, is an athlete, and invented and marketed an app for use by disabled people (omitting details for privacy). We hoped that DC would at least be invited to compete for a scholarship at BC, but nope.

Jesus. Invited to campus to compete for scholarships?! Sounds like the Hunger Games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

No merit aid at Michigan.

Wake Forest awards it to less than 3% of incoming class https://financialaid.wfu.edu/merit/

Villanova does https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/enroll/finaid/scholarships_grants.html

BC says they award 15 merit scholarships per year.

+1

If by "really good schools" PP means, "schools ranked in the top 30 by USNWR," then with limited exceptions, none of them give merit money.

My DC was admitted to BC, but was not invited to compete for one of the 15 full merit scholarships. (BC selects a larger group, invites them to campus, and has them compete for those scholarships.) DC has a perfect GPA in an MCPS magnet (all As, all four years), SAT=1580, has hundreds of volunteer/service hours, is an athlete, and invented and marketed an app for use by disabled people (omitting details for privacy). We hoped that DC would at least be invited to compete for a scholarship at BC, but nope.

Jesus. Invited to campus to compete for scholarships?! Sounds like the Hunger Games.

It does sound scary, but maybe the intention is for the high-stats kids to meet each other, immerse themselves in the school, and decide to attend BC whether they get the scholarship or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

No merit aid at Michigan.

Wake Forest awards it to less than 3% of incoming class https://financialaid.wfu.edu/merit/

Villanova does https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/enroll/finaid/scholarships_grants.html

BC says they award 15 merit scholarships per year.

+1

If by "really good schools" PP means, "schools ranked in the top 30 by USNWR," then with limited exceptions, none of them give merit money.

My DC was admitted to BC, but was not invited to compete for one of the 15 full merit scholarships. (BC selects a larger group, invites them to campus, and has them compete for those scholarships.) DC has a perfect GPA in an MCPS magnet (all As, all four years), SAT=1580, has hundreds of volunteer/service hours, is an athlete, and invented and marketed an app for use by disabled people (omitting details for privacy). We hoped that DC would at least be invited to compete for a scholarship at BC, but nope.

Jesus. Invited to campus to compete for scholarships?! Sounds like the Hunger Games.

LOL

I picture the finalists in trees, with slings and arrows at the ready:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And are any of them in VA?

My Classes of 2019 thru 2023 kids, nieces, and nephews received substantial merit aid covering 4 years/8 semesters* -- from 50% of tuition to "full rides" (100% of tuition, 100% of standard room&board, and stipend) -- from Duke, GWU* (*merit scholarship is for 5 years/10 semesters), Tufts, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, UMBC, and UMD. Some of these colleges required a separate merit scholarship application (e.g., Vanderbilt) but some awarded the scholarship based on the admission application (e.g., Duke). I don't know of any VA colleges but I believe that a neighbor's kid turned down the Banneker-Key scholarship at UMD in favor of a comparable full ride scholarship to UVA (Class of 2020). Hope this helps and good luck.

[Anonymous]

University of Florida gave my daughter a full academic scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And are any of them in VA?

My Classes of 2019 thru 2023 kids, nieces, and nephews received substantial merit aid covering 4 years/8 semesters* -- from 50% of tuition to "full rides" (100% of tuition, 100% of standard room&board, and stipend) -- from Duke, GWU* (*merit scholarship is for 5 years/10 semesters), Tufts, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, UMBC, and UMD. Some of these colleges required a separate merit scholarship application (e.g., Vanderbilt) but some awarded the scholarship based on the admission application (e.g., Duke). I don't know of any VA colleges but I believe that a neighbor's kid turned down the Banneker-Key scholarship at UMD in favor of a comparable full ride scholarship to UVA (Class of 2020). Hope this helps and good luck.

Tufts does not give merit scholarships.

https://admissions.tufts.edu/tuition-and-aid/types-of-aid/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University of Florida gave my daughter a full academic scholarship.

Wow, congrats, UF is great school. Is she OOS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And are any of them in VA?

My Classes of 2019 thru 2023 kids, nieces, and nephews received substantial merit aid covering 4 years/8 semesters* -- from 50% of tuition to "full rides" (100% of tuition, 100% of standard room&board, and stipend) -- from Duke, GWU* (*merit scholarship is for 5 years/10 semesters), Tufts, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, UMBC, and UMD. Some of these colleges required a separate merit scholarship application (e.g., Vanderbilt) but some awarded the scholarship based on the admission application (e.g., Duke). I don't know of any VA colleges but I believe that a neighbor's kid turned down the Banneker-Key scholarship at UMD in favor of a comparable full ride scholarship to UVA (Class of 2020). Hope this helps and good luck.

Washington and Lee has a full-ride scholarship (complete with Hunger Games interview weekend) called the Johnson, offered to roughly 10% of each incoming class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

No merit aid at Michigan.

Wake Forest awards it to less than 3% of incoming class https://financialaid.wfu.edu/merit/

Villanova does https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/enroll/finaid/scholarships_grants.html

BC says they award 15 merit scholarships per year.

+1

If by "really good schools" PP means, "schools ranked in the top 30 by USNWR," then with limited exceptions, none of them give merit money.

My DC was admitted to BC, but was not invited to compete for one of the 15 full merit scholarships. (BC selects a larger group, invites them to campus, and has them compete for those scholarships.) DC has a perfect GPA in an MCPS magnet (all As, all four years), SAT=1580, has hundreds of volunteer/service hours, is an athlete, and invented and marketed an app for use by disabled people (omitting details for privacy). We hoped that DC would at least be invited to compete for a scholarship at BC, but nope.

Your DC is impressive. So basically that tells me no merit at BC. Interesting, I would have though at a highly ranked private like BC that they would throw some money out to ensure the 1580 kid choose their school. Those kids are getting close to full rides at some very decent state school. Good to know....

[Anonymous]

UMDCP has surprisingly good full ride scholarship. DC got one. Don’t count them out.