Anonymous wrote:Does anyone actually pay the full price? Of all the schools my kids were admitted to (no financial aid), only one did not offer a merit discount, so we scratched that one from the list.

65% pay full price at the top 50 colleges. Lots of merit aid offered at colleges 50+

You can continue to apply to merit scholarships once enrolled. If you have stats for elite but goto a non -elite school you may find the less competition for merit scholarships.

Especially true for stem where you have a lot of corporate sponsored scholarships

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone actually pay the full price? Of all the schools my kids were admitted to (no financial aid), only one did not offer a merit discount, so we scratched that one from the list.

Ivies do not offer merit aid, just need-based. The 45% who come from families making over 200k a yr typically do not qualify for needbased aid ie they are full pay. True top schools that have full tuition or full cost of attendance merit only offer it to a couple dozen of incoming freshman, out of the entire class of 1500-2000. These schools also have excellent need-based aid that sometimes is listed as a named “scholarship” but it requires fafsa qualification as needy. Still, about half of the student body makes over 200k and is fullpay. Examples are Hopkins, Duke, WashU, Notre Dame, Vandy, Wake. Non-need true Merit is rare and hard to get at these schools.

If your kid is “getting merit everywhere” the schools are not top schools

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone actually pay the full price? Of all the schools my kids were admitted to (no financial aid), only one did not offer a merit discount, so we scratched that one from the list.

45% of Harvard students pay full price

I told my kid that paying $90k a year for a private college is like buying a new Mercedes and rolling it off a cliff every year for 4 years.

Kalamazoo College. Easily the best college in Michigan and top 3 in the United States. It is better than all the Ivies. I cannot believe people do not know this.

Does anyone actually pay the full price? Of all the schools my kids were admitted to (no financial aid), only one did not offer a merit discount, so we scratched that one from the list.

The University of Virginia.

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely zero schools are worth $90k a year. How absurd.

Agreed

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the top Engineering Schools. Because the value of the education with regard to immediate earning potential are great.

MIT
Stanford
Cal Tech
Berkley
Georgia Tech
etc. Go down the line.

actually, engineering is one area that doesnt need a name school really.

Completely false. Graduates and students of the schools listed above are highly recruited and sought after by Engineering companies for jobs and internships etc. To be clear, not saying other graduates of lesser ranked schools aren't going to find jobs, but I know for a fact graduates of the schools listed above are greatly sought out.

Anonymous wrote:All the top Engineering Schools. Because the value of the education with regard to immediate earning potential are great.

MIT
Stanford
Cal Tech
Berkley
Georgia Tech
etc. Go down the line.

This 100 %

Absolutely zero schools are worth $90k a year. How absurd.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the top Engineering Schools. Because the value of the education with regard to immediate earning potential are great.

MIT
Stanford
Cal Tech
Berkley
Georgia Tech
etc. Go down the line.

actually, engineering is one area that doesnt need a name school really.

people keep saying this, but I have a hard time believing the graduates from the lowest ranked (or non-ranked...) ABET school are making the same as those from MIT/Berkley/GT etc

Ivies, MIT, Stanford Hopkins Duke Williams Amherst

Syracuse