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]

The answer is obvious, OP.

[b]They don't want merit.[/b]

They want...whatever is the latest "balance" fad.[/quote]

Or, as many posters have pointed out, they have more than enough students with extremely enough merit that they don't need to reward the ones with 10 points higher on an exam or whatever with money.  They are consistently attracting their pick of the top 5% of academic achievement.  Trying to squeak out "merit" differences from among those students is a less meaningful exercise than building a class that will help them all grow to make meaningful contributions to society.[/quote]

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