mythmom

Grinnell, Oberlin, Smith all give merit money.

And there are snippy people at all schools. And lovely ones too. I dont think a rude receptionist is really a reflection on Swat. She may be very efficient, there a long time, and it might be inappropriate to fire her. Or she could have been having a bad day.

I have no ties to Swat BTW.

A.E.

A rude receptionist at a college in a Philadelphia suburb? Astounding.

dadx3

Our older kids got nice merit scholarship offers from Grinnell, Oberlin, and Whitman. The very tippy-top rated LACs (AWS and a few others) give no, or essentially zero, merit scholarships. A clear understanding of how many merit scholarships are available can usually be found in the school's Common Data Set, if that is available on the web.

bears and dogs

Kroe
I see why you are so upset but there are something like 27,500 high schools in US, means as many top of the class kids. If 1/30 of them happened to apply Swat, it already meets its accepted number: means top of the class itself won’t guarantee anything for the best schools even you are willing full pay.
Are you URM or got something else to sell? then it will be different story.

kroe

Bears & Dogs and Dad3x:
Daughter is National Merit, #1 in class of 400, SAT 2350, 12 APs (all 5s so far on exams), athlete, lots of the usual awards/honors. She just doesn't know how to sell this. Kind of thought recruiters would come to us, but hasn't happened.
Suggestions?

involved mom

kroe,

Mythmom and dadx3 gave you some good recommendations. For an overview of possible merit aid you can google merit aid and there is a site that lists schools and what they offer (don't think I can link the site here). You can also go to each college's website and look under financial aid for possible merit aid options. Sometimes it takes a little digging. Most of the top-tier schools in the northeast do not award merit aid - even $1,000 National Merit scholarships are rare at these schools. You will have to move down the rankings and focus on different geographic regions to find more options. For instance, in the southeast, Davidson, Vanderbilt, Washington & Lee, University of Richmond, Wake Forest, and Duke offer merit aid - some more than others. In the midwest, Grinnell, Oberlin, Denison, Wooster, Macalester ($5,000 to NM finalists), and Carleton ($2,500 first year/$2,000 succeeding years) offer merit aid. Some women's colleges offer merit aid - Smith, Holyoke, Scripps, etc. If you're set on the northeast, there are options like Bucknell, Lafayette, lots of other PA schools like F&M, Ursinus, Gettysburg, Dickinson, etc. For the techy student, Rice, RPI, Carnegie Mellon, Cooper Union, and Harvey Mudd are great options offering merit aid. These are just a few examples. Merit aid is available if you and your daughter are willing to expand your list. We paid full price for Swarthmore and are currently paying near full price for another competing college - philosophically, we are finished with this. We have told our third child (current senior and also a NM semifinalist) that if she chooses a school offering substantial merit aid, we will set aside the difference in tuition dollars for graduate school. She currently has a very nice set of schools - all offering substantial merit aid - and is very happy with this option.

kroe

Thanks to Involved Mom for the succinct summary and analysis--very helpful. We made much the same deal with our older daughter, and she chose a top-ranked state school and pocketed the $ difference for graduate school. But daughter #2 really wants smaller/private--Rice is looking like a really good option. How do I find their Common Data Set to find out how much they actually gave out in merit last year? Seems like with the economic downturn all the rules went out the window--in the class of 2009 even the top kids in our local schools, unless they were very special URMs, got zero dollars in scholarships. Hoping--but not really hopeful--that it's better this year.

bears and dogs

Wow… kroe
Your description is exactly of the kid everyone would wonder why she didn’t get what she rightfully deserve after all that super overachieving.
Here is my two cents, if you can answer all these questions “yes” in her honest shoes; I assure you that money and happiness will come.

1. Is she good at two or three of these - run, kick, hit, row, throw or swim? How good is she? national, international, professional level?
2. Is there anything else she does for pure joy if she ever sleeps more than four hours a day?
3. Does she have lots of different kind of friends and extended families to learn socio economic differences first hand, not by volunteering three days a month at soup kitchen that school requires or something?
4. Does she go out with boyfriend and does normal high school thing so won’t get disillusioned or confused in that area of study once goes away to college?

Now I see I am as bad as SourGrape SwatGrad, but really, there are 27,500 -
55,000 if counting would be sal and val who are exactly like her in this country.
Go for lower ranked schools, like, the certain Southern LAC that change lives which I couldn’t stomach but it is just me.

bears and dogs

College Confidential > College Admissions and Search > Financial Aid & Scholarships
NMF Scholarships: An Updated Compilation

I don't know how to link but see this thread, there is this senior as smart as your D who lives to make any sort of listing updated. Good luck.

Duhvinci

ok, not sure exactly what this thread is about, but when has that ever stopped me. first, a little about life here. i just got back from a bmc dorm party and about to hit the swat party circuit. this is just to let mom and dad know that i don't spend all my time in my room shooting up. i just wanted to say something to kroe...i can tell how proud you are of your girls accomplishments. the reason recruiters aren't falling over themselves for her is that you're waiting on the wrong recruiters. your decription of her accomplishments are really nothing special here (nor are there probably anything that jumps out at a recruiter at any of the upper tier schools.) everyone here is 1/???. before anyone attacks, i am just exaggerating a bit, but not much. everyone has close to 2400 (except diversity students, who are just a tad lower). so your daughters numbers may be something special at state schools and haverford, but not too unique here. so where am i going with this? i'm not really sure except that neither swat or bmc (although their admin tries) is a dry place so i'm not really sure about what i'm tyuping. in fact, i hipe i remember that i even tyuped this in the morning. oh right, financial aid, i didn't get any so i assure you princeton review didn't ask my opinion. so, if you're looking for money from swat, if you don't get anything, it's more a reflection on you and not your kid. if it were as simple as a matter of merit, noone at swat would have to pay. that's not to say that this place is all that. if you want to attend harvard law and you're not ready for the crap this place dishes out, you could easily screw up your gpa and kiss that dream goodbye. even so, don't stress, there's always uchi law.

bears and dogs

Gawd Duhvinci what took you so long to say something in here?
I love that you -still- worry about what your folks think about you... aren't you about finishing up?
kroe, pay attention to him but not really listen to him.