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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm the 9.09 poster and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the empathetic posts.  DS is still a couple of years away from applying so we have not done a ton of detailed research about merit aid packages at top universities.  It sounds like a couple of you were able to find some at non-Ivy top tier schools.  May I ask how you conducted this research?  Did you have to look at individual universities and colleges or was there a resource that summarized the information for you?  
Thanks in advance.[/quote]

I'm 9:30.  As others have said, merit aid offers seem pretty random. There's no book to tell you that College X generally offers $X in merit to the straight-A student, while College Y generally offers $Y in merit aid to the same student. There's some anecdotal evidence floating around. For example, there was a recent DCUM thread on how Fordham generally offers full rides to a handful of stellar kids and very little to most others, and that was certainly consistent with the stellar kid we know who got a full ride at Fordham recently. I'll add my own anecdote, which is that one school offered our $25K as the &quot;President's Award&quot; and DC's friend got the exact same $25K amount from the exact same school, but this time it was called the &quot;Dean's Award.&quot; So not a lot of rhyme or reason.

In general, colleges that are trying to improve their reputation tend to be generous with merit aid towards exceptional kids they think might matriculate -- which means stellar kids but always kids they think might be lured away by an even more attractive college offering a great package. If you apply for FA (which we didn't, having HHI&gt;$100K), this will give the admissions folks additional info about how they might tailor their offer to woo your kid.

As you might expect, at least among the kids we know who have recently gone through the process, this tends to result in outcomes that don't follow very clear patterns....
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