Reply to Why don't most of the top LACs offer substantial merit scholarships?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona, Wellesley, Middlebury, Colby, Haverford, Vassar, Carleton, Barnard, Hamilton, and Colgate are just some of the best known examples of LACs that have essentially no merit aid, outside of maybe 1 or 2 $2000 national merit scholarship awards a year from alumni restricted funds.

These schools have some of the highest endowments per students of any institution, making it easily attainable to finance a merit scholarship opportunity covering minimum 20K a year and up to a full ride. The first five schools above all have over 1 million dollar per student. Given that they tend to lose cross admits to top universities, why not offer merit aid to attract the best and brightest to their schools? Several universities already do this to lure in HYPMS level candidates: Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WashU, Emory, and UVA. [/quote]

I think that you have posed a valid question and that posters have provided reasonable responses.

These SLACs simply do not need to buy students from upper income families. Supply & demand; selling versus buying.

Even tough they do lose applicants in cross-admit battles with elite National Universities, enough students are locked in via binding ED admissions that each school will have plenty of students once need based financial aid is awarded.[/quote]

This. There are plenty of wealthy families willing to pay full freight at the top ranked schools and then they get to feel like they are balancing that out by providing full-need aid to lower income students. It means these schools have a barbell distribution - a lot at the top income tier, some at the bottom and very very few in the middle. So, if you are in that no-need-aid, can't/won't pay full sticker price then you focus on schools that will meet your budget. There are plenty of good schools that fall into that group but you'll need to stop worshiping the USNWR rankings.[/quote]

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