Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can both be true? PP explicitly said "plenty of top 50 schools," which would belie the idea that merit aid is scarce.

"Plenty" of top 50 schools offer it but not to everyone, but to small numbers of students making it a bad strategy for chasing merit aid as your odds are very small.

Other colleges will over merit awards to a large percentage of their admits, making that a better strategy for chasing merit aid as your odds of receiving it are much higher.

Do you really need this explained to you? Or are you just being petulant?

If the "odds are very small" as you claim, then why does Selingo call these top 50 schools buyers?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can both be true? PP explicitly said "plenty of top 50 schools," which would belie the idea that merit aid is scarce.

"Plenty" of top 50 schools offer it but not to everyone, but to small numbers of students making it a bad strategy for chasing merit aid as your odds are very small.

Other colleges will over merit awards to a large percentage of their admits, making that a better strategy for chasing merit aid as your odds of receiving it are much higher.

Do you really need this explained to you? Or are you just being petulant?

Anonymous wrote:How can both be true? PP explicitly said "plenty of top 50 schools," which would belie the idea that merit aid is scarce.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at Selingo's spreadsheet...seems like the only T50 non-state flagship "buyer" schools are Rochester and Case Western.

If you want great merit, you don’t pursue the top 50.

PP said: "Some top schools offer merit - maybe not the tippy top, but plenty of top 50 schools offer merit regardless of income/assets." Which one of you is lying?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at Selingo's spreadsheet...seems like the only T50 non-state flagship "buyer" schools are Rochester and Case Western.

If you want great merit, you don’t pursue the top 50.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$250K families are getting merit aid at T30? Since when?

I am OP and I ran a few calculators and you can get a lot of aid at Harvard and Princeton. The cost gets pretty close to UMD (we are in MD).

I got almost zero aid at, for example Carnegie Mellon. Since there are a lot of schools and we are still some year out of applying, I am looking for leads on other top schools where aid is available.

Anonymous wrote:I looked at Selingo's spreadsheet...seems like the only T50 non-state flagship "buyer" schools are Rochester and Case Western.

Anonymous wrote:I looked at Selingo's spreadsheet...seems like the only T50 non-state flagship "buyer" schools are Rochester and Case Western.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And I love people where Dad is over 59.5 and they have five million in 401K and claim no assets. That 401K money can be pulled penalty free.

401k is for retirement. I believe this is classified as a "hardship" withdrawal and must demonstrate no other way to pay for education. No penalty but you have to pay income taxes.

401Ks are not easily accessible. They should be protected, and are. Smart people save for their retirement and figure out how to pay for college as needed (if they cannot afford to save for both)

However, nobody has $5M in a 401K.

Anonymous wrote:And I love people where Dad is over 59.5 and they have five million in 401K and claim no assets. That 401K money can be pulled penalty free.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$250K families are getting merit aid at T30? Since when?

I am OP and I ran a few calculators and you can get a lot of aid at Harvard and Princeton. The cost gets pretty close to UMD (we are in MD).

I got almost zero aid at, for example Carnegie Mellon. Since there are a lot of schools and we are still some year out of applying, I am looking for leads on other top schools where aid is available.

Nice. You must not have a lot of assets outside of retirement/primary residence.. We are in the same income neighborhood and noticed that once you cross the $1.5-$2M threshold for assets, there's zero merit at top schools.

That's not quite right. Some top schools offer merit - maybe not the tippy top, but plenty of top 50 schools offer merit regardless of income/assets. Jeff Selling has a very helpful list of schools that are "buyers" and "sellers" and those that offer no merit aid at all. I found that list useful and accurate as I went through the process with two different kids.

This is better; look at undergrads without need columns:
https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/merit-aid

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$250K families are getting merit aid at T30? Since when?

I am OP and I ran a few calculators and you can get a lot of aid at Harvard and Princeton. The cost gets pretty close to UMD (we are in MD).

I got almost zero aid at, for example Carnegie Mellon. Since there are a lot of schools and we are still some year out of applying, I am looking for leads on other top schools where aid is available.

Nice. You must not have a lot of assets outside of retirement/primary residence.. We are in the same income neighborhood and noticed that once you cross the $1.5-$2M threshold for assets, there's zero merit at top schools.

That's not quite right. Some top schools offer merit - maybe not the tippy top, but plenty of top 50 schools offer merit regardless of income/assets. Jeff Selling has a very helpful list of schools that are "buyers" and "sellers" and those that offer no merit aid at all. I found that list useful and accurate as I went through the process with two different kids.