Better Financial Aid for Top Students?

whatever4 · 08-11-2009, 05:11 PM

Does Notre Dame offer better financial aid to exceptionally good students? Or is financial aid at UND purely dependent on a student and his/her family's financial situation? Any insight appreciated.

kevdude · 08-11-2009, 06:48 PM

The simplest answer is quality if aid is better for top students, but quantity is completely dependent on financial need. Better students typically receive more grants - money that does not need to be repaid - than loans.

notre dame AL · 08-11-2009, 06:52 PM

All aid is based on need--you do know that there is no pure merit aid for top students. And, as kevdude indicates, if you qualify for aid, the better your grades (top students), the better your aid will be.

tjd · 08-12-2009, 08:38 AM

The official Notre Dame response is that FA for top students is "preferential",
which they define as better quality aid, meaning little or no loans. Incoming
freshman D was originally not going to apply, due to no merit aid, but changed
her mind, and received an FA award that is not only good quality, but very
generous ... well beyond what was offered at two other "meets 100% of need"
schools. If you're interested in ND and fall into the top 5% or so of the pool,
I would certainly recommend that you apply, you might be pleasantly surprised.

whatever4 · 08-12-2009, 11:39 AM

So a student with good stats should not assume he will get the same sort of financial aid offer from Notre Dame as his sibling with tip-top stats. Correct?

tjd · 08-12-2009, 12:44 PM

Notre Dame has a program called Reilly scholars. This program is not publicized a lot, but I believe it is directed to about the top 5% of admits. Kids designated as Reilly scholars are invited to ND for a "recruiting" weekend in the spring. I'm aware of several kids in this category, and FA for each of them was very good.

notre dame AL · 08-12-2009, 01:23 PM

TJD-yes Reilly Scholars designation does give one a "leg up" so to speak with regard to aid--but, again, one must qualify for aid based on need.

kevdude · 08-12-2009, 05:59 PM

whatever4 - to answer your question. Quantitatively, they will receive the same. However, the sibling with the better stats would probably, hypothetically, receive more grant aid than his sibling.

whatever4 · 08-13-2009, 10:06 AM

I am not terribly familiar with financial aid terminology, but I would think that a school giving grants to students with top stats versus loans to students with lesser stats would mean that school is giving "merit aid."

The difference between grants and loans is like the difference between night and day.

kevdude · 08-13-2009, 12:12 PM

No, it is not merit aid. If you do not qualify for financial aid based on your family's financial situation, you will not receive grants OR loans, regardless of your stats.

tjd · 08-13-2009, 01:58 PM

I don't disagree with the statement that if you don't qualify for aid, being a Reilly Scholar will not get you aid. That may well be true. What I do disagree with is that ND students with the same financial profiles get the same amount of FA, but it is just distributed differently, based on academic strength. Based on a very small sample, our experience is that Notre Dame seems to be attempting to raise its academic profile by enrolling high stats students, and it is putting out very enticing offers to make this happen. You can call that FA all day long if you want to, but is is most certainly merit based.

notre dame AL · 08-13-2009, 03:57 PM

It is most definately financial aid--and need based at that. Our student was a Reilly Scholar, yet does not receive $1 of money. Our financial stats did not meet the financial need stats of ND. Yes, the better your academics, the better the aid--and I guess you could essentially rename it financial need/merit award. And yes, this is Notre Dame's way of trying to entice top students since they don't offer pure merit aid; they do not even participate in National Merit finalist program for scholarship (it would be nice if they at least did this). They might be able to attract even more top students!

tjd · 08-14-2009, 10:11 AM

ND Al, you're determined to categorize all ND aid as need-based FA, and maybe this is just semantics, but consider ... ND defines "need" differently for students with different academic profiles. Not just quality of aid, but quantity of aid as well. ND does allow some stacking of outside merit aid on top of their own FA; not sure whether this is just for top students or not. This does not meet a strict definition of purely need-based financial aid.

notre dame AL · 08-14-2009, 10:38 AM

Good Luck w/your aid!

tjd · 08-14-2009, 03:33 PM

Not sure what luck has to do with it? Package received in April, freshman orientation next week. This could be a newly-implemented approach for FA, I don't know. Again, my only point is for for the OP; if you have a student with very desirable characteristics (however ND defines this) you may receive a package that is much better than expected.