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Merit based aid is not necessarily all that it is cracked up to be. My son applied to both NU and U-M and was given a whopping $1500/year for merit aid for his 4.0 UW GPA and 35 on his ACT from U-M. Also, as far as family contribution goes, it will be higher than your EFC as NU expects you to work a summer job to help pay school costs. Our contribution was about 3K higher than our EFC so I imagine that is what they expect the student to earn over the summer.</p>