Schools known for good merit aid

[jmmom]

On a couple of other threads, the question of which schools give good merit aid is being discussed. This comes up often, but the combined knowledge of all those here on cc tends to be buried among many posts on many related topics.

I thought I'd start a thread here. I have only a little knowledge, but will start with a few that I know of/recall being mentioned.
Hope this will be an efficient repository of the info that so many can use.


Tulane
Vanderbilt
Case Western Reserve
Santa Clara (?- offered S about half of what Tulane did, but still over $10K)

[hazmat]

Rice, Duke, Emory, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, CalTech.....what are you looking for? How good is the student?

[jmmom]

This is a general question, rather than specific to a particular student. So, if it works, I think the answer to "what looking for" is: schools that offer good merit aid (not nickels and dimes) to applicants at the top of that particular school's pool.

[dadofsam]

add Brandeis and Rochester

[ohio_mom]

add Allegheny College

[mini]

Grinnell - about 38% of all the aid they offer, according to the Common Data Set, is merit aid

[ohio_mom]

And Kalamazoo College

[cangel]

Rhodes College, Trinity University

[hazmat]

Oakland, CA all women.

[kdos]

for NM look at some state schools: Ohio State, Arizona State, U of Oklahoma, U of Texas at Austin (I think), U of Florida, etc..

[evitajr1]

Add American.

[carolyn]

I think we need to set some definitions. What exactly are we defining as "good with merit money?"

Are we talking about schools that give full rides to a few selected students or are we talking about schools that give merit awards to a high percentage of students? Two completely different things -- and the average merit award is probably something we need to consider as well. Some schools potentially fall into both categories.

Schools that give full rides (or close to it) to selected students:
Emory
Vanderbilt
Southwestern U (TX)
Dickinson
Seattle U
Johns Hopkins
University of Arizona
Arizona State U


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

[digmedia]

We can compile a huge list of schools which may actually not help much. What I'd like to propose is that people post a list of links to college scholarship pages that show merit grants and what it takes to qualify for them. For example, Ohio University (Athens, OH) is a public school, but gives automatic aid for certain SAT/GPA/Rank combinations, and also gives extra money for out-of-state students:

http://www.ohio.edu/admissions/schol...scholfresh.cfm

http://www.ohio.edu/admissions/gateway/

Also especially interesting is Southwestern University's Merit Calculator for determining in advance how much merit money they'll give you:

http://southwestern.edu/admission-fi...olarships.html


This kind of SPECIFIC information was most helpful to me in doing some research.

[carolyn]

DePauw also has a merit calculator on its page. I am running out and don't have time to pull it up just yet.

[jmmom]

Good idea,s dig and carolyn. We can add links and, where we know it the merit aid "policies and practices."

Tulane offers 100 (I believe)DHS full tuition (not room/bd) rides; and a very good % of generous merit awards (2005-6 was $19K for the DSA, about $15K for Founders; others for La. residents and urban residents (cities >200,000).
http://www.tulane.edu/~finaid/scholarships.shtml