Anonymous wrote:Wtf? If this kid is a likely nmsf with top grades, there certainly are colleges better than mediocre northeastern that will offer aid.

Nope. People think that, and are sorely disappointed. Colleague was told by brother-in-law that his daughter should apply to University of Southern California, because of merit. Yes, they offer it, but getting it is more competitive than getting into Yale or the like. You may be surprised by some of the schools that posters have mentioned, but EVERYONE thinks that Case and Northeastern and Pitt are offering huge merit scholarships. I think that is old news, ship has sailed. If you want big merit, look several tiers down. If you are trying to get in-state match, you are probably not going to do much better than UMD - Universities are smart, they know what their competition is. Sure, apply to some of those just to see, but don't be surprised if not much comes of it.

Anonymous wrote:Wtf? If this kid is a likely nmsf with top grades, there certainly are colleges better than mediocre northeastern that will offer aid.

Need to read up on how Northeastern has evolved since you were a high school senior.

Pitt

Anonymous wrote:Try Grinnell obviously.

It's amazing how many ignorant fools post on DCUM straight out of their ass.
If you were in-state in VA, I would also add W&L and maybe Davidson due to competition with UVA and W&M.

Funny that you’re calling everyone ignorant when you can’t even read. The kid doesn’t want a LAC and all you had to offer was LACs

Wtf? If this kid is a likely nmsf with top grades, there certainly are colleges better than mediocre northeastern that will offer aid.

Try Grinnell obviously.

It's amazing how many ignorant fools post on DCUM straight out of their ass.
If you were in-state in VA, I would also add W&L and maybe Davidson due to competition with UVA and W&M.

U of Denver.

Top tier schools won’t offer you a dime to lure your kid there. They have tens of thousands to choose from an don’t need to offer an incentive.

If you want merit aid, its going to have to come from second or third tier private colleges or big state schools in less desirable states. Basically, colleges offer merit aid to pull your kids gpa and test scores into their averages. If they don’t need that, they won’t offer it.

You can’t have it all OP. If you want to pay UMD rated, the you have to look at lesser schools than Case and Nkrtheastern.

Seems like UMD is his best bet.

Merit aid will bring tuition as close as possible to in state tuition but be prepared to pay. In our case merit aid still fell short of what we hoped for. A 20K+ gap.

It’s rare to get merit aid from the SLACs and top flight flagships … simply because they
are so popular and have so many applications that they don’t need to “buy” someone’s 36 ACT or high SATs. Once you drop to second tier schools you might pick up on some but it’s only when the college sees something in your kid worth trading the money for.

Colleges are businesses

No, there are not "strong" schools that offer generous merit aid. There are weak schools that offer some merit aid. That's why they offer it. They have to, to attract students.

DS is trying to find strong schools that might offer merit as we don't want to pay much over the in-state price for UMD. UMD is a fantastic school, and he'll get in no problem, but I know he definitely wants to apply to some other good academic schools that might give merit. In terms of stats, from MCPS, not at W or Magnet, 1550+ SAT, 4.00 GPA, 4.85 WGPA, 10 APs completed by junior year, fairly strong ECs, probable National Merit Semifinalist, (will be) 4 year varsity athlete. Aside from Case Western and Northeastern, can anyone recommend strong academic schools that might offer merit? DS isn't interested in LACs and definitely not interested in any big southern schools like Bama, Ole Miss, UofSC, etc.