Schools known for good merit aid

[1psmom]

Anxious Dad,
If you really only want to pay about $8000/year. I suggest you look at your instate schools. As the cost of most private schools including room and board is around 40K. Even your D got a 20K scholarship/per year (which would be generous) you are still looking at about $15-25000/year.

[pikasof]

Washington in St. Louis is not on the list?

[chuckdvc]

Sorry if this was already covered somewhere. We are trying to narrow down choices. All the talk about the way to get the best merit scholarship is to apply to schools where your S/D is in the top 10% of the pool. Is there a web page that will let you enter your s/d stats and come up with a list of schools where they would rank in the top 10%?

[chuckdvc]

Crum- did the google search and it came up with some good names. Looked at the guaranteed scholarship page and it didnt show too much, nothing that we are interested in.

I did see some ads on the page for web pages that say they will help you to get recruited.

Are there any of these types of services that actually provide results?

[curmudgeon]

chuck, the free collegeboard.com site has some of that info but unfortunately not for top 10% and not sortable but it - in combination with the $15 online USNews subscription - gives you some ability to sort by SAT ranges and access to data on scholarship amounts etc.

There is a wonderful thread by papachicken with a big list of links to institutional data called a Common Data Set. It is where some real meat can be found in the search. Number of kids above 700, etc. Good luck and good hunting.

And to answer the Q - no. You are much better at this then they are.

[texashoosier]

I learned you can sort of figure out the SAT ranges at a college if your have the 25/50/75 numbers and, if you're not mathematically inclined, a spreadsheet program. The real numbers don't exactly follow a bell curve but they are close enough for estimation. If you take the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile of freshmen and divide by 1.35, that's within shouting distance of the standard deviation of the scores. Once you know standard deviation (sigma), you can guess close enough:

+1 sigma == about 85th percentile
+1.5 sigma == about 93rd percentile
+2 sigma == about 98th percentile

[inverse]

Honors College at Florida Atlantic University provides every student with merit scholarship.

http://wise.fau.edu/divdept/honcol/financial.htm#major

[Mizo]

pikasof,

04-19-2005, 11:40 PM #130
esrajay
Member

Join Date: Oct 2004
Threads:
Posts: 304

The best schools I have come across for merit aid are:

U of Miami
Tulane
Case Western

To say that Emory, Wash U., and Vanderbuilt gives excellent merit aid is rediculous. Not only do applicants have outstanding scores to get in, but they must be "ivy quality" students to receive the small number of these scholarships.

In contrast, the three universities I have named give scholarships to a vast majority of the student population. Take myself for example. I have the stats for about the cutoff for the top 25%. At each of these universities I received merit based scholarships worth over 20K and the final cost at about 17-18k. That is an excellent deal since I only qualify for about 2k in financial need (which will probably be given to me in loans).

Also take into the quality of the institution. Case, Tulane, and Miami are top quality schools (Regarded much more highly than the colleges others are stating - Grinnell, Holy Cross, American, etc.)

Of course, the best education you can get for the price is at your state university where there are merit scholarships like the lottery that make the total cost relatively miniscule.

[mstee]

*highly regarded* -- to each his own, I suppose.

But I would like to point out that Grinnell, at least, (I'm not familiar with Holy Cross and American) is a *highly regarded* school in many circles.

[EMM1]

Holy Cross is quite selective, and is very highly regarded among those familiar with conservative Catholic colleges.

[NJres]

Can someone point me to the website that lists colleges and the percent of the student body that receives merit aid(and another column for need based aid) ? I know I have seen it, but I can't find it now!

[jjsmom]

NJres, I think you are talking about post #88. I've copied and pasted it below:

The best way to investigate merit aid schools

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

1) Go to USNews
2) Look at each school you are interested in
3) Check the Tuition & Financial Aid tab
4) Check the table at the bottom of the tab for Merit Aid

For example:

Tulane:
(% awarded aid) $16,402 (28%) $15,306 (29%)
Avg. athletic scholarship
(% awarded aid) $24,738 (3%) $28,469 (3%)

To me that means that if you are in the top 28% of the applicant pool then you will probably get around $16,402. If your child is in the top 10% of their class and has an SAT score above their 75th percentile I would expect that they would get that type of merit award.

Do the same check for all the schools that you are referencing, i.e. BU, Emory, Grinnell, WUStL. To save you some time here are a few of them:

WUStL:
Avg. merit award
(% awarded aid) $10,813 (16%) $9,231 (14%)

BU:
Avg. merit award
(% awarded aid) $11,902 (16%) $14,324 (13%)
Avg. athletic scholarship
(% awarded aid) $27,699 (1%) $28,275 (1%)

Emory:
Avg. merit award
(% awarded aid) $12,428 (5%) $16,422 (6%)

Grinnell:
Avg. merit award
(% awarded aid) $10,370 (24%) $8,890 (28%)

To me you are looking for 2 things, the size of the average award and how broadly it is awarded. Using those 2 criterea Tulane probably has the broadest and deepest merit aid program. However, that is not the only reason to pick a school.

Of course there are a number of other schools that give merit aid for certain of their honors programs but those are not broadly administered. For example, Boston College Presidential Scholars Program, Villanova, same thing.

Anyway, good luck to all.

[k8thnotes]

If you're into music, then U. Puget Sound definitely has good merit awards. I also know a few people who have gotten free rides to Villanova

[jjsmom]

Hiya all, my S received excellent merit money from BU, Goucher and American with SATs of 2150, and class rank of top 10% and weighted GPA of 4.3.

BU = University Scholars (1/2 tuition) + Legacy scholarship (1,000/year) = $18,500/year
Goucher = Global Citizen Scholarship = $15,000/year
American = Dean's Scholarship = $18,000/year

He didn't qualify for either of Skidmore's non-need based scholarships (there are big ticket ones in music and in science).

Even with the merit money he was awarded, The College of New Jersey, the wonderful state school to which he was also admitted and found really interesting, was still less expensive than these private schools. But, not soooo significantly so.

Ultimately he chose B.U.

Merit money is definitely out there! Happy hunting!

[chuckdvc]

Just wondering what this means. My s received an unsolicited letter from Centre
that said he was a fellow which gave him 10k a year scholarship to start with, not counting any other merit scholarship he will qualify for. Does this mean colleges will be competing for my s or that Centre is having a hard time getting students.

He hasnt visited Centre yet although its only 50 miles from home. If he stays instate he will also have 2500 a year he earned from the state for test scores and grades. He did visit Vandy, didnt like it. He visited Rhodes and loved it.

One other thing. He wants to play football but is not D1 material and will never go pro. I am afraid he will sacrifice quality of education just so he can play anywhere. We have had some intense discussions over this. How do I get him to realize the academics is what will lead him for the rest of his life.