36 ACT.... Now what?

Midwestmomofboys
Thu, 02 Apr 2015 18:34:15 +0000

A quick search shows required score in Illinois is a 215, so no National Merit Semifinalist won’t be a route to merit money.

I do encourage you to look at the “stickied” threads on automatic merit money, and to run Net Price Calculator on a couple of school websites, plugging in your income, deductions etc. from last year’s taxes. It will give you a ballpark estimate of what you can expect to pay, though there will be differences among schools. Some schools which do give merit money will also estimate the merit award, based on kid’s stats, so that can give you a rough sense.

The big shocker for my family was understanding the gap between what schools said we could pay and what we felt we could actually afford. Although we don’t feel like we can write a check for $55,000, that is how a number of schools view our situation. So chasing the merit money to close that gap is part of the college admissions ride.