limbwalker

Would a young lady with straight A's through all 12 years of school and 2160+ SAT's be able to expect any merit aid, or is that not reasonable? Looking in Texas. Thanks.

John.

csleslie51

Go to MeritAid.com: Search Merit Scholarships, Academic Scholarships, Merit Awards - Merit Aid - Search, click on view directory, click on Texas and then check out the list. You will do better if you consider colleges outside your state, the further the better (diversity).

silverturtle

limbwalker,

Colleges only care about high school and will not expect a transcript from middle school or elementary school. If you look outside Texas, there are certainly schools that will offer some merit aid for those stats. (Probably not a lot of money, but it depends on the school.)

limbwalker

Silver, I'm aware they are only interested in high school. Just stated those stats to show a trend. Guess I shouldn't have. But thanks for the advice, csleslie, I'll look up that site.

John.

uskoolfish

limbwalker

In 2008, D did well with merit aid with a 2130 SAT and 97.5ish average (weighted)--straight A's.

I believe more than anything that she earned many of her merit awards because of her leadership skills and musical talent. She was school president, lead in her school musical, founder director of an acapella group, and made all-state in voice. I don't think she would have done nearly as well merit-aid wise without her extra-curriculars. In addition, she highlighted these in her essay and on her interviews. She was applying to most schools as a music major (or double major), as well.

In and of itself, D's stats were not extra-ordinary...but when "packaged" the right way, they worked.

So I would say, the answer to your question regarding merit aid is that your D will be considered if she is in the top 75th percetile stat-wise for a school...or if she has some talent or extra-curricular that makes her unique and appealing to an individual school.

Cashley16

My husband and I both went to Richmond, and our oldest daughter would love to go, but we have four children and the tuition has increased so dramatically. I think our tuition was about $8000.00/yr. Sharonohio, I was very happy to see that your daughter received merit aid. I was under the impression that they only gave 50 financial need based awards and that was it. What kind of scores, grades, rank and activities do you think helped her win her award? Thanks

EMM1

It think they give 50 full tuition scholarships in addition to other merit aid.

sharonohio

Cashley16, the 50 (this year 45 I think) full tuition scholarships are merit based. In addition Richmond gives quite a bit of need based aid (we did not apply because our asset base is too high).

My daughter's stats (and from what I can determine the stats of the other winners of the full tuition awards) were straight A's, 12 AP classes, a 36 on the ACT and 2240 on the SAT, 3 SATII's of 800, valedictorian of her class and various extra curriculars.

Cashley16

Sharonohio - thanks for the info - your daughter's stats are awesome! Our EFC is also high, so we are not expecting much if anything.

Apollo6

My ds will be a jr in the fall. He is talented in both drawing and computer related skills. He is a very good but not phenomenal student - currently 25th/700 in his class with a 3.9 GPA. He scored 31 on ACT this year with no prep. He scored 4 on AP WH as a freshman and will take APUSH, AP Eng lang, AP Comp Sci, AP studio art (drawing), Latin 3, physics and precalc this year. Last year he took A+ computer certification and is now licensed as a computer tech. He thinks he would like to major in computer game design. His extracurriculars are minimal - he is in Latin club and fences outside school but that's it. Even if he brings his scores up and/or brings up his PSAT 20 points from his sophomore score to qualify for NMF this year, I can't see him winning too many merit scholarships if they require interviews or proof of "leadership qualities" because he really just likes to live on the computer. I have been unable to motivate him to get involved in anything.
Any ideas of schools with computer game design that might offer him some merit aid?
Any ideas of ways to motivate him to pursue some extracurricular activities that might help him?

csleslie51

This thread has lots of suggestions College suggestions - Maybe Digital Media studies

jerzgrlmom

Take a look at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). They offer merit awards (Presidential as well as departmental awards as well as Honors) but reguirements vary by school (major). FA is ok, not great (doesn't meet full need) but tuition is lower than many private schools. Your son sounds like the typical computer major at RIT (loves gaming, not big on ECs) so he would certainly fit in. Lots of similar type majors so have your son take a look at all the choices - degrees are fairly specialized, not a general program, so it helps to have a focus starting out. Coops and internships are required and seem to be helping secure jobs, even in this market... Easier to get into RIT than to stay in. 10 week quarter system so classes move quickly and are demanding so there's no real down time. Small classes.

talla349

i'll be a freshman at georgetown (which didn't offer me any aid) in the fall... my SATS were about a 2250... i didn't apply for need-based aid, but a bunch of other schools i was accepted to offered me merit-based aid (none of which i was expecting or applied for!):

BU: 1/2 scholarship (about 19K per yr)

Villanova: 2K per yr

URochester: 16 K per year.... ( i can't reccommend urochester enough! although it is not very well known it's an AWESOME school, very tough decision not to go there!)

UMass Amherst: tuition free (abilgail adams scholarship, if anyone is from MA they should really look into this it's not that hard to get and the honors program Commonwealth College looks GREAT)

Kei-o-lei

Here's our ongoing list of schools that we've dicussed at one point or another for our kid who will be applying to college for Fall 2010.

I took data from USWN&WR Big Book that lists the percentage of students that received merit aid and the average merit aid award.

We're doing this to try and find some financial safety schools, since the schools kid is most interested in (Brown, Vassar) provide no merit aid, and with ~$160k income we aren't banking on any significant need-based aid.

First # is percentage of students that received merit aid; secodn number of average award in thousands.

Kei


How % w/ avg merit
School merit award

Grinnell 32 10
Muhlenberg 30 11
U Michigan 29 6
Beloit 25 12
Franklin Marshall 24 13
Oberlin 17 10
U Wisconsin 17 2
Hampshire 15 5
Wash U 14 5
U Chicago 11 11
Skidmore 10 0
Dickinson 9 10
Carleton 8 3
Macalester 6 5
Colorado 6 10
Bard 3 11
Swarthmore 1 34
Harvard 0 0
Middlebury 0 0
Columbia 0 0
Brown 0 0
Vassar 0 0
Bates 0 0
Wesleyan
Connecticut 0 0
Amherst
McGill
UVM

Kei-o-lei

Mom at Home asked " chaospaladin, what would you term as "high income"?

-------------------------------

* Of the 78 million families . . .
10% have income over $150k per year
14% have income betweeen $100k and $150k

On one hand almost all of us could use help for college.

On the other hand, hard to quarrel with a system that restricts "need" type aid to the lower 90% of families.

* 2006 data from the Statistical Abstract of the US