PiMom

The ultimate need based scholarship school is College of the Ozarks near Branson Missouri. NO ONE pays tuition! Kids work 15 hrs/week and 2 40 hr weeks when school isn't in session. You can also work 12 weeks in the summer and pay for room and board. Good solid education that you work for. Also known as Hard Work U.
Go to cofo.edu for info. 10% of each class is NOT need based. But they still work for tuition.

HImom

Deep Springs in CA is a two year college where all students work for their schooling as well, running a ranch and the school. It's all male and highly regarded with graduates accepted at nearly all schools they apply to, including ivies. I think it's "free" because of the work requirement.

cadbury

Greetings.

There is a parallel thread on this issue (i.e., schools that give most merit aid) in the "Parents Forum." So people might want to check that out as well. I've copied excerpts from my comments regarding Drew University below:

Drew University (NJ) has a good merit aid program, including a competitive Presidential Scholarship in the Arts (up to $10k per year)...

As I indicated in an earlier post, Drew gave my D a very attractive aid package based primarily on merit awards. The "Drew Recognition Award" can range up to more than $20K. She got notification of that fairly early in the process as an Early Action student, even before we had filed FAFSA. In addition, she got a Presidential Scholarship in the Arts, which is a competitive scholarship (up to $10k) that a student must apply for, offered in three areas: creative writing, theater, visual arts. All that said, it may be that Drew (and other institutions) is more likely to distribute non-need based $ to students with certain characteristics. For example, Debruns & I are both from New England; and I think Drew is interested in attracting more top students from outside metro NYC.

...Also, regarding travel abroad, Drew's policy is that all financial aid is available for Drew's own programs; that's not currently the case for approved programs offered through other institutions (though I've heard that may change). If your S or D hopes to go abroad, they should definitely check out their prospective school's policy re: application of financial aid.

curious14

We had a rather lengthy discussion of merit aid at Top 20 Univ. and Top 20 LAC's on another thread the results of which are as follows.

Amoung top 20 National Universities 8 offer it: Caltech, Duke, Chicago, Wash StL, JHU, Rice, Emory, and Vanderbilt. Northwestern has a hybrid part merit part need called the "Founders Scholarship" new this year.

Among top 20 LAC's 5 offer it: Davidson, Harvey Mudd and Claremont McKenna, Smith, and Grinnell. Colby has a hybrid program like Northwestern.

Many of these same schools plus some others also participate in something called the "Questbridge" program which appears to be aid to low income students that is based on merit.

curious14

The Questbridge Program is interesting, Focused on very low income, 40% with family income less than 20k. The scholarships are very good but there are not a lot of them, about 100 distributed over about 19 schools.

GAclassof2008

i thought this thread was for merit aid..... when did it go awry?

jym626

It didn't go awry GA. This is a longstanding thread that covers the topic at hand. It is a good read.

kat41911

As someone mentioned before, BC should not really be on this list. They give a full tuition merit aid scholarship to 15 students per year out of an applicant pool of 28,000, so the chance that you'll get it is very low.

As for colleges with merit aid, Mercyhurst gives out a fair bit--"Mercyhurst College is dedicated to making a college education affordable to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds." I don't think it's an amazing school, but they give guaranteed merit aid depending on your stats (might give more as well):

"The Egan Scholarship is the primary, merit-based scholarship awarded by Mercyhurst College. Ranging from $8,000 to $10,000, the Egan Scholarship goes to deserving students based on the following criteria:

* Students with at least a 3.0 GPA (as figured by admissions*) and SAT (math & verbal) of at least 1070 or ACT of at least 23** will receive no less than $8,000.
* Students with at least a 3.5 GPA (as figured by admissions*), and SAT (math & verbal) of 1100-1200 or ACT of 24-26** will receive $9,000.
* Students with at least a 3.5 GPA (as figured by admissions*), and SAT (math & verbal) of 1210+ or ACT of 27+** will receive $10,000."

trishalynn_08

BYU in Provo has really good scholarships for academic merit.
http://saas.byu.edu/depts/scholarships/matrix.aspx
You can see how your scores match and they aid you automatically get just for applying.

Please chance me at:
What are my chances at Yale?

curious14

sorry double post

kid2106

Do you guys know any school that has some really good scholarships for master program in environment engineering in US?

crazn

What if, after being accepted to a school, I decide to defer enrollment for a year to take a year off? Are scholarships and aid generally available for the original four years only?

HImom

You would need to check with the U & each of the places you're getting the scholarships from, as each can set seperate policies. Some folks have had no problems with deferring & keeping their funding while others had not deferred because otherwise they'd lose their funding.

nCgirl

University of Miami...really hard to get merit scholarships...even if your top of the class, do community service, be president of a thousand clubs...they won't offer that much...the best merit scholarship I got was 11K...not much for a school that costs 44K

nCgirl

how do you apply for the Questbridge Program?Or how do you know if they offer it?