Reply to Did anyone get more than $30K in merit aid at private college?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We make more than 180K and our kids both got merit aid at decent LAC's.  There's some formula you can find on College confidential.com that has to do with the size of the school's endowment, and it involves looking up the school's tax records, rather than going by what's on their websites.  We're grateful that both of our children go to schools with really large endowment where there is extra money 'floating around' to finance summer internships in other cities, study abroad, etc.  in addition to the merit aid.

The poster above is incorrect when she says not to even bother.  There are some schools where something like 80 percent of the students receive some financial aid.  That includes people at the upper ends as well as the lower ends.  Particularly people with multiple kids in college at the same time.[/quote]

You are conflating merit and (not need-based) and financial aid (purely need-based).  If your HHI is >$180,000, then[b] at some schools, it doesn't matter how fabulous a student you are - you will not get any need-based aid. [/b] These are the schools at the top of the USNWR rankings.  Therefore the PP who says "don't even bother" is correct, because [b]these schools will not give you any aid[/b].  [u]None.  Zilch.  Zip.[/u]

If you go down those USNWR rankings, however, to lower-ranked schools that do give merit aid - [i]not need-based; merit-based[/i] - then yes, you should look closely at your options.  You could be a billionaire, but if your child is a high-performer who scored well on SATs/ACT, then those schools will give your child significant scholarship money.

By using the Net Price Calculator (NPC) for each of these schools, you can guesstimate what kind of merit aid your child is likely to get, and what the bottom line will be for you to pay for tuition, room and board.[/quote]

It is true some top tier schools (Ivy schools mostly) do not offer merit aids but most schools DO have merit aids. [/quote]

Please list top schools that give lots of merit. We all want our kids to apply there.[/quote]

Obviously, only the top grades and test scorers in an applicant pool are going to receive merit aid.  The likelihood of receiving merit aid at a "top" school is much lower than at a school like The College of Wooster.  Top schools may have a lot of merit aid, but that ain't gonna help someone who doesn't have a 4.0-- which is most people.[/quote]

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