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I once heard an admissions officer say that the only reason any school offers merit money is to persuade the student to choose them over another (more desirable?) school.</p>
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<p>There’s a good bit of truth to that. And the other school may be a peer, not even a “more desirable” school. Schools do try to out-do their peers.</p>
<p>Schools that offer merit aren’t doing it because they’re being nice or even generous. It is a rather self-serving purpose; usually there is some long-range plan in mind to raise its profile, hire better profs, get more grants, make alums happy, etc. </p>
<p>When choosing a big merit school, there is sometimes a concern that the high-stats student will be one of few “smart” kids at the school. That can happen when merit awards are very limited. But at schools where they award a large number of big merit awards for high stats, the student will have lots of smart classmates! </p>
<p>Schools appear to offer merit aid to raise their average test scores. That enables them to rise in the USNEWS ratings.</p>
<p>Some schools go test-optional for the same reason: the students who do report have higher scores, thus increasing their middle 50 percent test scores reported.</p>
<p>OP, your D should be happy that you got the paperwork done when she asked. Though it seems unlikely to yield any need-based aid from the school. At least you did your part in a very timely way. Good for you. One more item checked off in the process.</p>
<p>I see I had the wrong school in mind that you had talked about back then, sorry. Your original post says up to $20K merit aid from the school. That doesn’t seem enough, barring some miracle. Too bad Tuscaloosa is so far away. Is finding time/money to make a trip difficult? Are you doing any college visits with her? What you need is a nice college in VA that will give her a full ride or at least full tuition. Is there such an animal? How about George Mason? She should be a top admit there, have a shot at one of their full tuition scholarships. I don’t know a thing about this college, except that it is a public in VA and has full tuition merit awards, so I may be suggesting something not at all appropriate. There must be other schools not too far away from which she could get money like that.</p>
<p>I live in VA too. My son is a h.s. junior. I’ve heard his friends talking about what colleges they are planning to attend and it is : MIT, Harvard, Princeton, etc. These are the top juniors. Our small town paper is very helpful in that they list the names of all graduating seniors and put an asterisk beside the top ten graduates. My son figured out by Facebook where the top ten out of 450 went to college this year. Two went to JMU, one to VCU, the rest went to UVA, VA Tech and William & Mary. We live in a yuppie neighborhood and most parents have graduate degrees. Some how the choice between expensive Ivy League schools and state schools closes when financial reality sets in. I tried to set the financial expectation for my kids early so there won’t be hard feelings. We are in the “full pay” donut hole.</p>
<p>My point above is that while she “needs” the expensive out of state school now, once reality sets in she will adjust. Senior year is a time for a lot of growing up. </p>
<p>I would suggest you put in writing what you can do for your daughter financially. She may not “hear” you due to the emotional nature of your situation. If she qualifies for in state tuition in VA I hope she will make some applications soon. Some colleges have scholarships with dead lines of Nov 1. VA Tech and William & Mary are ED schools and the rest are EA. Also, U of R (private) gives some aid. I have heard of a couple of “full rides” at VCU but I don’t know the details. </p>
<p>I do think if you are paying some of your daughter’s schooling you should have some input in to what school she attends. Good luck to your family.</p>
<p>VCU has full rides and full tuition awards. For IS it’s 50 full rides and about 250 full tuition offers.The D’s stats seem in line with the averages for these awards. VTech has full ride Stamps(deadline 12/1). I think her GPA may not be high enough for the big W&M merit, though her SAT is.</p>
<p>This is very true. There’s a lot of “lunch table talk” going on right now. Some of it is just bragging and students “one upping” each other. In the spring, many will find out that either they didn’t get accepted or their families can’t afford those schools. You should visit this forum next spring. You’ll see a whole bunch of threads by parents and students who are shocked that they don’t have any affordable schools. </p>
<p>I am surprised they have come up with only Temple and Bama for full scholarships. How about many good schools where OP’s daughter may end up paying fees similar to VA in-state? Also, what is wrong with many in-state and highly rated schools like UVA?</p>
<p>…" what is wrong with many in-state and highly rated schools like UVA?"</p>
<p>I think OP wants his daughter to apply to state of VA schools but she lives with her mother in another state. She’s the one we need to convince. I hope for OP’s sake she papers our schools with applications in the next few weeks. I forgot about George Mason and the merit scholarships there. She would probably be an honors student there. It’s a subway ride into downtown D.C. Great location IMO. She should consider it as a safety. </p>
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I am surprised they have come up with only Temple and Bama for full scholarships. How about many good schools where OP’s daughter may end up paying fees similar to VA in-state? Also, what is wrong with many in-state and highly rated schools like UVA?</p>
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<p>It sounds like the D was only req’d to apply to one state school, and logically they looked at ones where she could get assured big merit. I agree that she should have applied to more, but there is something amiss about this whole thing. The mom seems to be in some sort of denial about how all of this is going to get paid. And, I suspect that the mom doesn’t want the D to be geographically closer to her dad, which would happen if she went to a VA school. There seems to be a you-will-see-our-child-as-little-as-possible thing going on - possibly a punishment for the divorce.</p>
<p>Since the OP can’t communicate with the ex-W without lawyers involved, I think he should send a bullet-point email to the D. He could write the facts out in regards to the financial situation, how she won’t qualify for aid, how neither family can pay much/anything, and that she needs to have 2-3 financial safeties (schools that will give full tuition or more) as back-ups. From what the OP wrote, even with a full tuition award, getting room, board, books, etc, covered will be a challenge. Since the OP has a lot of legal debt from the latest custody battle, I suspect the mom has some as well unless she had a relative representing her for free/low cost. </p>
<p>Sometimes. In the case of ED applicants…that would not be the case…at all. </p>
<p>Most schools offer merit aid to attract top applicants to their school. In some cases, these top applicants don’t apply to more “desirable” (whatever that means) schools.</p>
<p>She has not submitted any applications anywhere yet. Apparently the first one will be to the private school she likes (EA). She has agreed to apply to the three public schools here that I have taken her to see. There is clearly a lot of snobbery among her classmates about which schools they might deign to attend.</p>
<p>Seriously. Both William and Mary, and University of Virginia are top schools. She is so fortunate to have these as instate tuition options. So fortunate. </p>
<p>UVA is a Profile school also. </p>
<p>This is the down side to reading about rankings and discussing college applications with anyone outside of the immediate family. Too many folks have “elite college only” attitudes. And truthfully, with over 3000 colleges, there are plenty of really fabulous schools that are not in the top 50.</p>
<p>Plus, the Masters University category of USNews receives NO press at all. The Universities and LACs get tons of press. But those masters universities get nada. And that group includes some outstanding colleges. Outstanding.</p>
<p>I think UVA and W&M are both Profile, but neither one is NCP Profile. How about that? My support gets her IS status for admission and tuition but my income is not considered for FA.</p>
<p>W&M: “Applicants for undergraduate admission - as either freshman or as transfer students - also are strongly encouraged to complete the CSS Profile. Unless a student submits a CSS Profile, financial aid will be limited to federal sources.” I think it used to be Fafsa only.</p>
<p>"The custodial parent’s information is used when filing the application. However, there are times that we request certain information from the non-custodial parent.</p>
<p>The custodial parent is the one with whom you reside more than 50% of the time. It does not matter which parent claims you on their tax return. E.g.: If your father claims you on his taxes but you live with your mother most of the time, your mother is your custodial parent. We generally do not ask for detailed information about the non-custodial parent."</p>
<p>Quality VA publics may not be on the radar in school since the daughter doesn’t go to high school in VA.</p>
<p>OP, can you find out from her high school where students went to college from there? There is always lots of talk about big-$$$ colleges in the fall; not so much in April when parents finally put their foot down and say, no, I cannot afford to pay $60k/year for you to go to top-20 college. There are always many threads here every spring from students pleading for magic ways to talk their parents into paying the big bucks or cosigning for loans.</p>
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I think UVA and W&M are both Profile, but neither one is NCP Profile. How about that? My support gets her IS status for admission and tuition but my income is not considered for FA.
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<p>That may be so, but with an income of $150k (the mom’s household), she still will get NO free money. The COA is - what? - $35k? Well, the EFC of the mom’s household will be at least $35k.</p>
<p>Again, I think expecting that a FA situation that only counts mom’s household will yield the money that you all want is not going to happen. </p>
<p>Try the UVA % W&M EFC pretending that you are you’re Ex-W using estimated info and see what results… </p>
<p>Actually she might be able to get something. Her stepfather has a child of his own in college. Attending much less expensive college than D1 hopes for, I think.</p>
<p>With a $150,000 income from mom and stepdad, her EFC per FAFSA will be in the $37,000 to $49,000 range. Take even half of that…and it would be $18,000 to $25,000 or so. WM does not guarantee to meet full need, I don’t believe. She would get a $5500 Direct loan, but really would not be eligible for any low income grant aid. She might get some institutional aid from WM. No guarantee. </p>
<p>UVA guarantees to meet full need, so she might actually get some grant aid from that school if she is accepted.</p>
<p>I guess she’s not NMF, or that would have opened up a whole new guaranteed full-or-free-ride discussion. </p>
<p>Those are good stats. If her school is super rigorous, meaning that an UW 3.8 is equivalent to a very high class rank, then there are quite possibly some less well-known, or less-talked-about, schools out there that might pay her way, or close to it. Same thing if she has spectacular credentials in some particular extracurricular that has gone unmentioned so far.</p>
<p>I suppose you’ve already looked into this sort of thing, FCCDAD? There are threads here on CC that might be helpful for that.</p>
<p>My kids very strategically applied to several schools based on what they might expect for merit-based aid. It turned out to be a good strategy for each of them. I don’t know if her UW 3.8 will be enough anywhere, but it’s certainly worth looking into, and it will particularly depend on whether that 3.8 is a high class rank. She could still apply to the state schools, but also apply to other schools you and/or she might find between now and then that will pay for her stats. </p>
<p>I do not recommend applying somewhere only for the money, of course – she has to be able to see herself at the school – it must be a good fit for her, or this strategy will fail. But if she can see herself at each and every school to which she applies, then she can ultimately choose the cheapest COA for herself once all the FA results come in. Sometimes, a small private school ends up being cheaper to attend because of scholarships.</p>
<p>Anyway, I just thought I’d throw that out there. It’s worth a look-see, if you think she’ll be a contender for that sort of thing.</p>