<p>Which LACs give the most merit aid?</p>
<p>Thank you!!!</p>
<p>Go to the Parent’s Forum. About four threads down from the top will be one whose title is something like Schools Known for Giving Good Merit Aid.</p>
<p>It is really long. Get ready to sit awhile and take notes.</p>
<p>Grinnell, Beloit, Macalester, Hendrix, Knox, Luther, Cornell College, St. Olaf, Lawrence</p>
<p>Yeah, Hendrix might give merit aid, but they don’t give much financial aid in addition to the merit aid.</p>
<p>…In fact, the ‘merit aid’ they give is pretty much fake: it’s just financial aid they call ‘merit’ aid.</p>
<p>Occidental does, which is based solely on stats i believe.</p>
<p>Colby-Sawyer College <a href=“http://www.colby-sawyer.edu/news/USNewsRanking.html[/url]”>http://www.colby-sawyer.edu/news/USNewsRanking.html</a></p>
<p>IllKill: Regarding what you say about Hendrix’ financial aid, I fail to note why you consider it “fake”. If the school gives you a tuition discount, whether they call it merit aid or need-based aid, it’s financial aid either way. The only way I would consider it “fake” is if a college gave every admitted student the identical aid package, in which case you would be right - aid based neither on merit or need. Thanks for explaining your thought.</p>
<p>Do you really not see why I’m calling it fake?</p>
<p>It’s fake because Hendrix gives everyone, and I mean everyone, lots of what they call ‘merit aid’, but very little financial aid. In other words, they know how much they are willing to give each student total (‘total’ meaning both merit and financial aid), and they categorize nearly all of it as ‘merit’ aid, even though most of it is not merit aid at all, but financial aid – and they call most of it merit aid as opposed to financial aid as attempt to entice you to go. Hence its fakeness. </p>
<p>To use myself as an example, I received $12,000 in ‘merit aid’, but only 3,000 in financial aid.</p>
<p>And all the people I know who’ve applied to Hendrix have gotten way more ‘merit aid’ than financial aid.</p>
<p>Does Macalester really give good merit aid? That’s so strange, they seem to emphasize on their website that the majority of their aid is need-based and imply that there is very little merit aid…</p>
<p>Anyone have any insight?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/219357-usnews-top-100-liberal-arts-college-merit-v-need-only.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/219357-usnews-top-100-liberal-arts-college-merit-v-need-only.html</a></p>
<p>Macalester, like Carleton, just gives small NMF awards as the only merit aid. All other scholarships are need-based as well as merit. Both schools give meet 100% of financial need. The only LAC of their caliber in the upper Midwest that gives true merit aid is Grinnell. However, St Olaf, Gustavus Adolphus, Knox, Beloit and Lawrence (all top 100 LAC’s in the area) do give merit aid.</p>
<p>the reason why some schools are need-based aid only is because the stupid population is so qualified you really can’t judge which individuals have more merit than others</p>
<p>Masquemom, I guess it depends on what you mean by upper midwest. I know other midwest schools, like Denison, give good merit aid.</p>
<p>mcb, the schools which offer only need based aid tend to be the top tier schools like the Ivies. A stupid population isn’t involved there. All the applicants are worthy of merit. In that case the differentiator is need.</p>
<p>On the College Board school profiles you can look under Cost & Financial Aid and there is a line that gives the dollar amount of the average non-need based aid. I looked up the number for all the schools my D applied to although they weren’t all LACs. Most were in the $10,000 range. Case Western Reserve University had the highest of the schools I looked up with $20,329. </p>
<p>For a few of the schools mentioned here Hendrix was $19,277; Grinnell was $10,137, Macalester was $4,038 and St. Olaf was $10,925. These are all averages.</p>