<p>higherlead, I’m convinced the reason for the lower merit offer was his major. Polysci majors are a dime a dozen at GW. S has a good friend who went to GW last year as an engineering major with a $20k merit award, plus more FA grants on top of that. The kid has nearly the same - probably a little lower - academic stats than my S, but they covet those engineering majors.</p>
<p>Moonmaid - Yes I am sure the intended major didn’t help. GW has no shortage of PoliSci majors.</p>
<p>Whatever GW is going it is working for them. Basically they are proving very successful at attracting students who for the the most part are BWRK’s who can afford to pay and who cannot crack the top 25 lists. They accept 37% of applicants and have a 33% yield which is quite respectable for a school with their price tag an d ranking.</p>
<p>I agree higherlead: For a fairly smart kid who has no need, GW is a great fit.<br>
That said, I believe those students could have similar experiences for 1/2 the price somewhere else and see a better return on investment.</p>
<p>“False - GW simply does not admit needy kids it seems.”</p>
<p>GW’s official admissions policy is need blind.</p>
<p>“That said, I believe those students could have similar experiences for 1/2 the price somewhere else and see a better return on investment.”</p>
<p>Very possibly but then a pair of house brand pants from Target wili cover your butt just as effectively as a pair of Calvin Kleins and for have the price but that doesn’t keep folks from buying the brand if they can aford it.</p>
<p>“GW didn’t make the list of top 50 best values this year which leads me to believe students are graduating with a significant amount of debt (~29K).”</p>
<p>While both of the statements in your proposition are true, as a general rule, the connection between the two is not. Colleges where students graduate with higher levels of debt are often those who are MORE rather than less generous toward low-income students. Low levels of debt (within the 100% of need schools) generally means that parents are able and do take on the debt rather than the students, and thus those receiving financial aid often have higher incomes to begin with.</p>
<p>But this isn’t true at GW, as it is not a 100% of need school.</p>
<p>A few definitions are in order.</p>
<p>Need blind admissions. - means they allegedly don’t look at need when making admission decisions or reserve a percentage of the class for full pay. Waht they do instead is have ED adnission which accomplishes the same thing as reserving a percentage of the admits for full pay.</p>
<p>Meeting 100% - of course the school decides what that need is and how to meet it. Basically those qualifiers make the promise totally meaningless. That said though some schools do a better job then others. The easiest way to tell which ones those schools are is to look and see how many kids they admit ED. If it is a lot then you can probably expect them to give more grants and fewer loans as need aid because they have made their nut by effectively getting a good quota of full pay kids.</p>
<p>I don’t know how GW makes its decisions - all I know is that our S attended GW for about the same cost as the local state school. </p>
<p>For those with siblings who both attend GW, it can be a huge boon: he has friends who also were given scholarships, plus the 50% discount for having a sibling there. Both kids went to GW, and paid less for one year, than our local state school charged for one student. That sibling discount is a fantastic benefit.</p>
<p>So…I decided to do a little research on HigherLead’s suggestions, and he (or she?) turns out to be correct. Not counting ANY merit aid (which often replaces need-based aid when it is awarded), according to the Common Data Sets, GW meets 93% of students’ need with its $71 million in need-based aid. An additional $19+ million in merit aid, some of which goes to students needing aid, probably brings that up to slightly over 100%. At Brown, it is 100%.</p>
<p>BUT, in need-based aid per student, GW in fact puts out slightly more than Brown (though neither would get close to breaking the top 50.) Coupled with their merit aid, and then with athletic aid on top of that, GW is MUCH more generous in this department than Brown. (whether to chalk that up to admissions decisions or other motivations, I’ll leave to others to speculate.)</p>
<p>I wanted to compare both of them to Georgetown, which I suspect is less generous than either of them. But I can’t find their common data set.</p>
<p>Georgetown is kind of in the “we don’t need to give merit aid because we’re so selective camp” I think. They don’t need it like GW to attract top students. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. I’m sure they have some, but it doesn’t seem very out there or anything. Although I haven’t heard from anyone who got into Georgetown yet this year so I’m not sure exactly how it compares. But I haven’t really known anyone who’s gotten merit aid there, and I think even with less generous need packages some people would matriculate because it’s the “best” school they got into. Some of Georgetown’s athletic scholarship money probably goes to needy students, and some that aren’t as needy but wouldn’t choose Georgetown with their EFC. </p>
<p>GW is affordable, and even a good deal, in some situations. In some, it really isn’t. Depends. IME with some people I know, they are a little more forthcoming with athletic scholarships than some other schools. Also the academic scholarship, though like I said it’s only half tuition AFAIK and it really doesn’t change much for some people. They could probably be less generous and set a lower sticker price and have more people pay it all. But then they wouldn’t be really competitive in attracting the students they need/want. The aid to bring the price down probably is where GW has an edge over Georgetown.</p>
<p>“Georgetown is kind of in the “we don’t need to give merit aid because we’re so selective camp” I think”.</p>
<p>But my point was that, WITHOUT merit or athletic aid, GW was still more generous than Brown. With merit and athletic aid, there isn’t even a real comparison. And I expect that is even more the case with Georgetown (though I can’t find their Common Data Set.)</p>