Oldhat

D was given Presidential Scholarship at Assumption College (16000.00 per year for 4 years) along with acceptance to their Honors Program. Sadly, for us, not the college she chose to attend. However, it is a wonderful school set in Worcester, MA. If you are the top 5% of your class I would recommend applying to Assumption.

macinici

just need to mark this

gooose

Duke keeps getting mentioned but the trinity scholarship, one of the best scholarships in the nation, hasn't been mentioned. Although it is only given to 2-4 students per year, the beenefits are amazing. It provides full everything, opporunity money for the summer, and specific opportunities all year long. I believe that it is only available to students from NC. for me

Spack

TU give ridiculous amounts of money to anyone who has done well.

underthebelljar

bumping this up

bethmarie

NYU is notoriously bad, but I've found that they do give scholarships based mainly on scores and GPA. I got a 20k Stern scholarship(pretty sure the highest amount they give out for that) but passed it for a full ride at UMich.
UMich is actually pretty good for OOS if you have some need. They have a scholarship(Award for Academic Excellence/Rogel) that pays the rest of your need after loans and grants are awarded, so if you don't mind taking out a couple thousand in loans, you only end up having to pay your EFC. This scholarship, like some of the others, is awarded based on need but you qualify for it based on "academic record"-so if you have a lot of need, a high GPA(we're talking 4.0, but UMich has an interesting way of calculating it), and high scores (mine was 1530/34) you should definitely look into it.
As far as purely merit based aid, it is EXTREMELY difficult, like top 1%. there are different scholarships that you may have to apply separately for through different programs, i.e. math and english. However, LSA does give out roughly 150 scholarships a year, but only some of those are full. Check out http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/students/scholarships/new/ for more info on the LSA scholarships.
Sorry this was so long but I am just so excited to be going to this amazing school with so little debt when I graduate. I hope someone finds this useful!

kjo61787

Ohio State University...most of the aid goes out to the honors scholars (29 ACT or above)..but there is a lot of merit aid out there..even a scholarship for Appalachian/Ohio students (must apply).

condor30

good thread.....any more to add to list?

wannagotocornell

what about drexel, pratt, phila u, u cinn, vtech, rit, uga, and howard all for out of state?

HImom

Ripon in Wisconsin gives awesome aid (totally free ride), including a one-way plane ticket. A friend's son was tempted, but finally decided he couldn't handle the cold.
Lots boils down to what you have to offer the school that it needs, I think.

wyogal

I thought I would add a couple, and do a summary.

S is a Rensselaer medalist, which is worth $15K/year. Also has an offer from St. Joseph's (Philadelphia) for $20K/year, which came out of the blue. Also know there is merit money at Furman, from a visit there.

So here's the list from this thread:

Universities:
American University
Boston University
Brandeis
Case Western Reserve University
Denison University
Duke
Emory University
George Washington University
Indiana University
Miami University (OH)
NYU
Ohio State University
Rensselaer Institute of Technology
Rice
St. Louis University
Tulane University
University of Chicago
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of Miami (FL)
University of Michigan
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
University of Texas, Dallas
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt
Wake Forest University
Washington St. Louis

LAC’s:
Allegheny College
Assumption College (MA)
Bard College
Boston College
College of Wooster
Davidson
DePauw
Fordham
Furman
Grinnell
Illinois Wesleyan
Kenyon College
Knox
Lawrence
Loyola College of New Orleans
Mount Holyoke
Ripon
Scripps
Smith
St. Joseph's (PA)
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Ursinus College
Washington College (MD)
Washington & Lee
Wells College
William and Mary

Sylvan

The Foundation Fellows program at UGA is very, very nice; they have money for the Fellows to do summers abroad, etc. I think it is the top students that get those- 1550 plus old SAT and significant EC's.

Otherwise, UGA has Ramsey Scholars and then various other meager merit scholarships ($1000 is the norm for in-state; OOS might get in-state tuition).

The website for UGA has information.

Tulane has great merit money as does Case Western. UVa and Emory have great programs for the old SAT 1550 crowd, but UVa is very limited in terms of money beyond that group (although their honors' program is stellar in terms of benefits to students, just no money attached, but since it is a state school, the tuition bill is less than many private schools- it is worth a hard look). Emory has several scholarships besides the traditional Emory Scholars program- see their web site for more information. All of the scholarships at Emory enjoy the benefits of Emory Scholars, and that is a very nice program full of benefits.

On that vein, many "Honors Programs" are full of benefits for the student, such as early registration for classes, extra seminars, 1st pick of dorms, money for travel or EC activities; however, many honors programs (Tulane is our example) offer extra classes and work but not the other perks, Look at all that closely.

sybbie719

The Parents forum had compiled a listing of schools with good Merit Aid.

here is the link

Schools known for good merit aid

mom of four

Hi all, this is my first post. Our oldest d is a senior this year, so this is the first time we are doing all this college app stuff.

I did the Princeton financial aid survey, and d will not qualify for financial need. D was going to apply to Ivies,among others, but since finding out that the ivies don't do need based aid, than the $43K/year is too steep for us. We do live in California so she will get into a UC school somewhere (will try UCLA and UCSD) but D is also interested in going to college out-of-state at a top notch school, hopefully with merit based scholarships.

Have enjoyed this thread because of getting suggestions for colleges that do merit based aid, that we will now do additional research on (U of Mich and Duke sound promising).

Here are d's "stats", she is top of her class and does esp well in math and science, not sure of her major (probably something in math or science) --any suggestions?

unweighted GPA 4.0, weighted GPA 4.7, was ranked 4 in class of 540 (not ranked 1 or 2, even though she has straight As, because she has taken some dance and theatre classes that are not weighted)
Sat: Verbal 770, writing 770 (subscore:77), Math 720
SAT IIs: literature 790; US History 800; Math level 2 710
Ap scores (so far) Chemistry 4; US History 5, Calc AB 5; Language and Comp 5; Physics B 5
This year is planning to take AP tests in Spanish, English, World History, also taking Calculus BC at the local JC.
just got notified that she is a National Merit semifinalist
Extracurricular: President of Christian Clubat her high school, active in theatre and orchestra, tutors for local library (collectively last year, that tutor program got "Volunteer of the year" from the district), is in her school's dance company, just spent 7 weeks of her summer in Thailand doing construction work and teaching ESL.

Lastly, what are HYPS? Thanks for any suggestions of schools that you think might be a good fit that also gives "merit" aid.

just_forget_me

HYPS=Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford.

Mom of four, don't discount the ivies just because some finaid calculator said you don't qualify. I've heard (and seen first-hand) great things about the personal nature of financial aid, especially at Harvard. It's definitely worth applying + then talking to them in person if you don't get what you want.