Schools known for good merit aid

[mom5i52]

I would say Brandeis is rising, so it doesn't have to offer big $$$ to attract good students.
NEU and CWRU are rising too.
CWRU is over-enrolled this year and didn't use waitlist. It had 50% out of state students before, but it jumped to 75% OOS for class 2016. Both Engineering school and healthcare education are very good. It offered merit scholarships to many students and minimum GPA requirement is only 2.0! You will never lose it!

[BobWallace]

CWRU is an excellent place to look for merit aid. According to 2011-2012 CDS, out of 283 freshmen with no need, 167 received merit aid (59%) in an average amount of $18,355.

[MiamiDAP]

I second CWRU. My own kid got huge Merit there 5 y ago though. She ended up choosing another UG. But if she has chosen Case, our balance to pay was only $5k for 4 years, not bad at all for private school.

[uskoolfish]

It's not whether or not Brandeis is rising or a good school. I would have been happy if either of my D's attended. But I do think that merit aid was being used to try to lure tippy top (ivy) candidates to the school. And it wasn't really working. (At least this is what a spokesman for Brandeis published.) So a lot of that money was being awarded but not used. If instead you award the merit to the top students who will more than likely actually attend, then the money is being used to those student's benefit.

Older D was probably awarded the Dean's scholarship because of her leadership and involvement in musical theatre and acappella. She went to an audition-based musical theatre program at NYU instead. So although she wasn't ivy claiber, I do think they felt her talent was very strong and hoped that the scholarship would seal the deal.

[SteveMA]

St. Ambrose, Davenport, IA. COA is $35,000, automatic merit aid for test scores. ACT 30+ is $20,000 and down from there. 26 or above gets $14,000. Strong focus on science and fine arts at this school. 10 students awarded full tuition scholarships with 31+ ACT as bottom qualifying but this is a competitive scholarship, the rest are automatic.

[vincom]

Schools that offer some merit money to a large percentage of students:
Beloit
Goucher (this may be changing however)
Knox
College of Wooster
Hendrix
University of Redlands
Whittier
Chapman U
DePauw
Lawrence
University of Puget Sound
Gustavos Adolphus
Case Western
Texas Christian University
Wabash
Albion
Linfield

[ohiobassmom]

I can confirm that Wooster and Depauw (and Wittenberg, not on your list) made nice offers to my "B student from a strong school with some APs and musical talent" S. But they couldn't beat the total packages offered to him by Adrian and Capital.

D really wants east coast, like Dc to Boston area. She's a strong student but only a soph so I'll be following these threads for awhile for ideas

[spackler]

Great ealy start Ohio! My d a senior and I may be treading over some ground b/4 you. She likes northeast also but not opposed to midwest. Has 4.1 gpa and 33 act. The advice i've seen so far says look below college rank of # 25 and above # 130 and you will find good merit aid. D chose health care career (pre med). While the general pooled advice seems logical it has not translated into an application yet. GWSLU looks good and we are going to visit. Anyone have any thoughts for a northeast school?

[SteveMA]

Truman State has changed their out of state tuition program so now a 29+ with a 3.75+ receives $5000/year on top of the $3000 they get for merit aid alone. For a 25-28 ACT with a 3.75+ it's $4000, 3.5-3.74 it's $2500 plus what they get for merit aid. OOS COA is about $20,000. Smaller awards available for other test scores/GPA's. This is all automatic aid--more aid available on a competitive basis.

[Dungareedoll]

Holy Cross is great with finaid. Also a fantastic school for premed. Last time I checked they had a 90% acceptance rate to medical schools.

[OHMomof2]

ohio here. Looking forward to hearing what you find spackler. D is interested in science, maybe premed, maybe research.

[GvaMom]

Jumping in here. S1 who should be class of 2014 received merit offers from Fairfield, Ursinus, and Muhlenberg (all around $20K annually) and Villanova ($3K annually). He went to school in England where he could start medicine immediately. He is dual citizen so costs were also interesing. He went to a high school that only offers IB so GPA doesn't work, but I would say he would hit around 3.5 GPA but did well in SATs with 2210 combined (1410 without writing).

For those of you interested in Medicine, you should look at some of the schools, like Muhlenberg, who actually has a dual degree program that routes directly into medical school (it requires an early application, but certainly direct entry is always interesting, especially if there is merit aid as well). Tufts also has programs with a number of the New England LACs (though there is not so much merit aid available probably) that grants entry guarantee after sophmore year.

S2 is more directed towards Engineering and Lafayette offers interesting merit aid through their Marquis Scholarships (though not full ride).

[upstate13]

Why is no one mentioning Alabama? Full tuition/ride based on stats- automatic???

[BobWallace]

If you actually read the thread, you'll find Alabama mentioned in 16 different posts. (Now 17.)

[upstate13]

Yikes, excuse me. I will admit I only scanned it, thanks for the item count.