Some schools like ASU Honor College embeded SAT in their scholarship calculation, but still costs more. Is there any top 25 schools offering decent amount merit scholarship?
@BearsHunter do you know what type of major your son is thinking of applying into? Is he thinking of engineering or CS?
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Yes. Seems it’s impacted major in all top schools.
CS or Engineering? Can you be more specific?
We’re not qualified for any need-based money due to high SAI index. I checked the scholarship for regents offered at all UCs, just thousands, it’s a joke.
Are you thinking of a budget about the same as UC COA? or is your budget higher or lower than that?
I can tell you that the Venn diagram between
- CS major
- T25
- Merit aid to get cost below std in-state UC cost
is extremely tiny. Even for NMF or high 1500s SAT scores at schools that take scores.
So if CS is intended major, he’ll have to apply well beyond T25. The good news is that CS graduates from T100 and beyond are employable, so the school name is not important.
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Then, regardless of how strong your student is academically, he needs to change his application strategy.
As far as top 25 offering merit, if you are looking at USNWR, within the top 25, the Ivies, Caltech, Northwestern, MIT, and Stanford do not offer merit scholarships. That leaves you with eight remaining schools, two which are UCs.
If he is applying to engineering or CS and needs merit aid, he (and you) should be expanding your search to at least the top 50, if not the top 100.
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The net price at the most generous schools can be much lower than the SAI. Did you try Harvard’s net price calculator?
Remember to exclude retirement assets. “Cash and investments Cash: You should include all cash amounts - typically in savings and checking accounts. Investments: You should include the present value of stocks and bonds (excluding those held in traditional retirement accounts) but may also need to include more complex investments.”
I’m paying full in-state cost for my older bear, and covering partial cost for my nephew. I will have to feed 3 bears next year. Without decent scholarship, it’s a burden.
Need based aid at private colleges can be much more generous. Check out a couple before you decide that won’t work.
Each college is required to have a net price calculator on their financial aid page. Some use much more detailed information than the FAFSA, which helps some families.
Some private colleges will still take multiple kids in colleges into account. They have to be CSS -profile colleges, not FAFSA-only colleges.
Do you have a budget number in mind? It’s easier for people to help if they have specific numbers to work with.
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@BearsHunter Just FYI, the suggestion to check out Harvard’s NPC is because they are one of the most generous with need-based aid (as is Princeton). Even if your student is not interested in Harvard (or wouldn’t have the GPA etc to qualify for Harvard), you can still run their NPC to get a ball park “best case scenario” for need-based aid . It will very like be much better than your SAI.
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Even though SAI index is higher, but I can only afford $100K in education per year including the full in-state cost for my older son, and partial OOS cost for my nephew starting this year, leaving less than $30K for my younger one…
Is there any school considers multiple college students factor for need-based aid? I ran the estimates for several schools, all says zero aid money, and no workstudy offer.
Again, it appears that some private, CSS-profile colleges will still take siblings’ college costs into account.
OP is paying in-state UC tuition for a child and a portion of OOS UC tuition for a nephew. They wouldn’t consider the nephew, would they?
Unlikely, but they might consider the older sibling. The OP would have to contact the schools to ask.
What does the Harvard NPC listed above show in terms of need-based aid?