Has anyone else found that merit aid is far less for students who apply early decision with a binding contract? My daughter got $0 in merit aid from her ED I school but has been offered president’s scholarships of up to $100k by every other school she applied to.
Most of the popular ED schools discussed on this site don’t offer merit aid, or the merit awards are super competitive.
It’s not atypical at all for a strong student to be offered a lot of merit at one school and nothing at another, especially if they aren’t peer institutions.
3 Likes
Some schools are up front that merit is less for ED students, like Tulane. Others say they give the same merit regardless of round, like CWRU. Many schools aren’t transparent about merit awards by round, or really in any way.
Did the ED school’s NPC estimate your D would get merit? Or did you have any other indication she would get merit at this school as an ED applicant?
5 Likes
Yes. Many universities use merit as a marketing tool to convince a accepted applicants to attend. No such carrot is needed for ED, since acceptance obligates you to commit absent wild deviations from NPC
5 Likes
One should never apply ED if they hope for merit.
In the end, merit is a marketing tool for a school to convince you to attend.
They have no need to convince you so it makes sense to hold onto their marketing $ for others.
Yes some give or no one would apply ED but there is definitely a trade off. If there wasn’t, it would be malpractice being committed by the admissions team.
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.