Merit-based scholarship from top colleges

Paying for College
1

<p>My child is applying to UC Berkeley. What other top colleges, private or public, are offering merit-based scholarships?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Here is a thread that addresses your question. I haven’t had time to update it lately, unfortunately. You might wish to start toward the end because that’s where the most recent figures are.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/696637-merit-aid-percentage-common-data-set-7.html?highlight=merit+aid+percentages[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/696637-merit-aid-percentage-common-data-set-7.html?highlight=merit+aid+percentages&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>*
My child is applying to UC Berkeley. What other top colleges, private or public, are offering merit-based scholarships?</p>

<p>Thanks!*</p>

<p>Can you clarify? UC Berkeley isn’t known for merit scholarships. And, frankly, most “top colleges” don’t either because nearly all of their students have top stats…so everyone would deserve merit.</p>

<p>Are you instate for Berkeley?? </p>

<p>Berkeley has the Regents scholarship for students will REALLY HIGH stats (near perfect/perfect test scores), but if you don’t have high need, the scholarship is only $1k per year…not much.</p>

<p>If you want merit scholarships, then you need to apply to the schools that give them.</p>

<p>What is your child’s stats (test scores and GPA)?</p>

4

<p>I went to a presentation of adcoms from Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown and Vanderbilt. A question was asked about merit aid from these schools. The Brown rep answered that three of the presenting schools are typical of highly selective schools in that they do not offer any merit aid. The Vanderbilt rep chimed in that while Vandy does offer a small number of merit scholarships, you need to be a direct blood relation of Mother Theresa to qualify.</p>

<p>The point being that when a schools admits less than 25% of applicants, and only 1-2% of admitted students receive merit aid, it is exceedingly difficult and arbitrary.</p>

5

<p>I know UC Berkeley does not have merit scholarship. We are instate for Berkeley. We just wonder if there is any college that is at the similar rank as Berkeley but offers merit-based scholarship.</p>

<p>My kid status: perfect score SAT, #1 in school, 15 AP classes all 5 so far.</p>

<p>We want to go to private school, preferably top school with merit-based scholarship.</p>

<p>Any suggestion?</p>

6

<p>Is your kid a NMSF?</p>

<p>Your choices are generally top school OR big merit scholarships. But there are some pretty good schools that offer big merit scholarships to NMFs</p>

7

<p>Davidson, WUSTL, and Vandy (one of my daughter’s friends received a Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship last year and she was a very good student with some excellent outside activities, but nothing akin to mother theresa, and not with the highest academics of the five students accepted by vandy from my daughter’s school last year; what set her apart in my daughter’s view was she presented and thus interviewed very well).</p>

8

<p>@yjeanie - Your child has impressive statistics, but there are roughly a couple hundred other seniors who also have perfect SATs, valedictorian and more than a dozen APs. Your child is also competing with a couple thousand students who have high SATs, high class rank and not quite as many APs but they have accomplished more outside the classroom and are able to effectively communicate these accomplishments. The most selective schools that offer merit scholarships want to see more than just tremendous academics. </p>

<p>I would add Duke, Emory and Rice to muckdog’s list.</p>

9

<p>What does your kid want to study?</p>

<p>JHU and UMD College Park have big scholarships</p>

10

<p>Try this thread:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/211927-institutional-merit-based-scholarships-full-tuition.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/211927-institutional-merit-based-scholarships-full-tuition.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Lots of great colleges with competitive merit awards are listed, UNC, UVa, Duke, USC, Emory, etc.</p>