Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grinnell gives great merit aid and is firmly in the top 20

OP acknowledged there are exceptions where T20 schools give merit - and asked specifically for schools ranked lower than 20. Would consider Haverford Holy Cross Colorado college Bucknell Gettysburg schools like that - I would say no to those at a discount vs a Williams level school full pay

No, moron, she did not say that at all. She assumed, wrongly, that there weren’t any top 20 schools other than Washington Lee offering good merit. We’re just telling her that she’s wrong and that she does have other options.

Have you run the NPCs for each school? Need-based aid can vary widely. We made ~330k at the time of application and received 20K in aid from a WASP school. This aligned with the NPC estimate. We decided it was worth it vs. potentially more generous merit at a 20-30 ranked LAC.

Anonymous wrote:Grinnell gives great merit aid and is firmly in the top 20

OP acknowledged there are exceptions where T20 schools give merit - and asked specifically for schools ranked lower than 20. Would consider Haverford Holy Cross Colorado college Bucknell Gettysburg schools like that - I would say no to those at a discount vs a Williams level school full pay

Anonymous wrote:I’d full pay Williams, Amherst, Pomona. Swarthmore is too grad school heavy for it to be worth it. There’s a few top lacs like CMC and W&L, as you mentioned, that are worth the merit. I wouldn’t slide past t20 tho for LACs.

There is no reason not to go further down the list of SLACs if you get good merit offers. There are a few that are real influential for IB, MBB but outside of those job markets you will,still get great results from a pretty large number of SLACs. It is the superiority of the learning model that matters.

Grinnell gives great merit aid and is firmly in the top 20

Go where he chooses to go. Tell him you’ll give him the difference to invest in property etc and see what DC thinks.

OP again - solving for would $30k-$40k merit from a $90k school ranked in 20-30 range compared to WASP full pay - for a family that can afford full pay from cash flow

And if he is looking at grad school, all of the aforementioned have excellent acceptance rates, and fill a much needed Midwest location demo for top grad schools. I knew of many who parlayed a solidly good Midwest school into acceptances at the top MBA and law schools.

Anonymous wrote:Struggling with this as expect it could be an issue for us if DC obtains WASP acceptance. Seems like merit doesn’t really come into play until after the T20 SLACs, although exceptions like Johnson scholarship at W&L and I’m sure some others. But question how many DCs would take 30%-40% merit at a SLAC in the 20-30 ranking range over full pay at a WASP school? I think we would, but would luv thoughts from those who’ve wrestled with this..

We are taking 30% off at a school ranked in the 40’s.

OP here sorry should have added what we can afford. Solidly upper middle class and will pay college from cash flow. Will not impact life, but would like to give kid some of the savings as nest egg to buy house etx. So money does matter, but we would not struggle with full pay - would be nice to save it though lol

The rankings are so up and down. Not long that long ago grinnel macalaster and Carleton were consider “eh, fine, but not east coast worthy schools” even though their academic programs were on par. I’m guessing those will still give great merit, so I’d look at those. I know of a student at bowdoin who was accepted full ride at st Olaf. Which is another excellent school on the rise. his family is loaded so he went with bowdoin full pay bc of the oceanic ecological programs there. If you can save yourself 400k or even use it to invest in property or the market for your DC, I think that’s a far wiser.

Anonymous wrote:How much money do you have? How much of an impact does that $20-30k a year make to you? Different people are going to have different answers depending on their household budgets.

Agree. This is all about what you can afford.

I’d full pay Williams, Amherst, Pomona. Swarthmore is too grad school heavy for it to be worth it. There’s a few top lacs like CMC and W&L, as you mentioned, that are worth the merit. I wouldn’t slide past t20 tho for LACs.

How much money do you have? How much of an impact does that $20-30k a year make to you? Different people are going to have different answers depending on their household budgets.

Struggling with this as expect it could be an issue for us if DC obtains WASP acceptance. Seems like merit doesn’t really come into play until after the T20 SLACs, although exceptions like Johnson scholarship at W&L and I’m sure some others. But question how many DCs would take 30%-40% merit at a SLAC in the 20-30 ranking range over full pay at a WASP school? I think we would, but would luv thoughts from those who’ve wrestled with this..