For parents of juniors... Merit aid schools in a nutshell

[JanetC]

Obviously this doesn't cover everything, but it's a great place to start looking if you need merit aid

 

http://www.mykidscollegechoice.com/2016/02/13/top-8-ways-to-find-affordable-colleges/

 

PS: I have not taken the course being sold on this website, but have used other resources by Michelle Kretzschmar and liked them.

Edited February 14, 2016 by JanetC

[Gwen in VA]

Do remember tuition-free colleges.

 

http://time.com/money/2977702/22-colleges-free-tuition-moneys-best-colleges/

 

My son went to Webb, and it is as good a deal as it sounds -- a great tuition-free engineering education!

 

Also remember that some top colleges are known for lots of merit aid -- like Washington & Lee.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I don't have personal experience with them but it is important to note that Washington and Lee would like (not requires but strongly suggests) 5 SAT subject tests, from a list of specific subjects, and 2 teacher recommendations from non-parents.  It is important to know this ahead of time as it takes planning to achieve all 5 subject tests as well as the regular SAT prior to application deadlines.  In dd's admissions cycle she ignored the one school that suggested SAT subject tests in this sort of quantity and is waiting on an admissions decision.  However, she was also not expecting any merit aid from this school.  Were I expecting merit aid I might be inclined to offer the items they suggest as they might not give a candidate who doesn't offer these items (or something very similar) full consideration.

[Pawz4me]

I don't have personal experience with them but it is important to note that Washington and Lee would like (not requires but strongly suggests) 5 SAT subject tests, from a list of specific subjects, and 2 teacher recommendations from non-parents. It is important to know this ahead of time as it takes planning to achieve all 5 subject tests as well as the regular SAT prior to application deadlines. In dd's admissions cycle she ignored the one school that suggested SAT subject tests in this sort of quantity and is waiting on an admissions decision. However, she was also not expecting any merit aid from this school. Were I expecting merit aid I might be inclined to offer the items they suggest as they might not give a candidate who doesn't offer these items (or something very similar) full consideration.

When we toured W&L a few years ago with oldest DS the admissions rep said during his spiel "Remember when applying to any highly selective school that optional really means required "

[Gwen in VA]

Fpr top schools, optional does mean required....

 

But if you are hoping that a top school will spend upwards of $250,000 on your kid's education and your kid wants to attend that kind of school, a little hoop-jumping is part of the deal.

 

Maybe my kids are weird, but they all found the SAT-2's highly satisfying -- studying for those tests allowed them to really assimilate their knowledge of one subject area. They actually enjoyed the process!

 

And do always remember that optional doesn't ALWAYS mean required. My dd2 was accepted as a Monroe Scholar at William & Mary despite only having 3 years of a foreign language and 3 years of science and only one year of a lab science. She had all kinds of other strengths, but she was accepted despite not having met several of their "strongly recommended" criteria.

 

I didn't know about tuition-free schools when my older two were applying or I would have researched them more, but Webb is an amazing college with a 100% employment rate right out of college!

[raptor_dad]

These lists of automatic full tuition scholarship schools from the College Confidential forums are fairly comprehensive:

 

http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

 

http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/

[MarkT]

Obviously this doesn't cover everything, but it's a great place to start looking if you need merit aid

 

http://www.mykidscollegechoice.com/2016/02/13/top-8-ways-to-find-affordable-colleges/

 

PS: I have not taken the course being sold on this website, but have used other resources by Michelle Kretzschmar and liked them.

they look like good ideas for a plan but is there any data (even anecdotal) to back them up?

[8filltheheart]

Truly in a nutshell.....the simplest way to get high merit scholarships is to have high stats and apply to schools with guaranteed scholarships based on those test scores.

[katilac]

Truly in a nutshell.....the simplest way to get high merit scholarships is to have high stats and apply to schools with guaranteed scholarships based on those test scores.

 

And it's so much less stressful! No waiting and wondering. It's very nice to have that first good offer in hand. 

 

You also have to have your eyes open about what kind of merit aid being in the top 25% will get you. Many offers for students in this range will add up to a substantial amount, don't get me wrong, but it's generally not going to be full tuition. 

[8filltheheart]

You also have to have your eyes open about what kind of merit aid being in the top 25% will get you. Many offers for students in this range will add up to a substantial amount, don't get me wrong, but it's generally not going to be full tuition. 

 

Yep.  Ds was offered scholarships from multiple schools, but the cost differential between the scholarship and remaining cost was still too high for us to afford.  The guaranteed scholarships are typically larger $$ amts and many of those schools allow stacking of scholarships, so additional dept scholarships can stack on top of full-tuition scholarships.  

[JanetC]

they look like good ideas for a plan but is there any data (even anecdotal) to back them up?

 

The website appears to be down, so I can't go through these point-by-point, but in general:

 

Merit aid is considered a "trade secret" as colleges compete for students. (Also firms like Noel-Levitz https://www.ruffalonl.com/probably lock their ideas under nondisclosure agreements with their customer colleges.)

 

There are some statistics regarding merit scholarships in the common data set, but it's hard to identify exactly who got the biggest scholarships and who got token amounts from a statistic like "206 students received merit awards with an average value of $12,000." (Try looking up a school on collegedata.com and selecting Money Matters to see the type of data that is available.)

 

You can determine that schools in New York City tend to be more expensive and have higher average net prices than schools in, say, Alabama (famous for merit aid). But, you can't get a clear handle on who exactly is getting better aid than someone else unless the school chooses to publish their criteria.

 

So, yes, some of this is anecdotal. But, I do see the same type of information over and over from different sources, and I'm assuming where there's smoke, there's fire.

[JanetC]

You also have to have your eyes open about what kind of merit aid being in the top 25% will get you. Many offers for students in this range will add up to a substantial amount, don't get me wrong, but it's generally not going to be full tuition. 

 

Definitely! The merit aid strategy is best for families that can afford to pay some amount for college, just not their high EFC amount. Merit for full tuition is going to require the child to have the stats or other talents the college is looking for, combined with the flexibility and willingness to go where the money is, even if that is far from home. But, merit for a substantial discount off sticker price is easier to get in many cases.

 

Other families with low EFCs or documented extenuating circumstances are better off seeking need-based aid from schools which are generous with that type of aid (sometimes the same schools, sometimes different ones).

 

[teachermom2834]

I just want to mention that while certainly not always possible, often enough digging will yield pretty good info so you are not blindsided. My ds applied to 10 schools. With one decision still out, there have been no surprises as to admission results or initial scholarship offers. So far he has gotten what we anticipated from each school in merit aid.

 

He has gotten no less, but no more, than anticipated based on info online. I believe those few full tuition scholarships available at most schools are very very hard to get. Ds has a great resume but he has yet to be offered any of the larger competitive scholarships. So, those are very competitive and not to be counted on. I also think the difficulty getting those scholarships highlight why we will not have our younger kids in a zillion activities just to build a resume. Ds does have a great resume of extra curriculars and service but everything he has gotten has been based on ACT/GPA. Ds did not do those activities just for scholarship applications and that is good because they did not factor in at all.

 

We are now waiting on final financial aid offers. Not expecting many surprises there as we know our EFC and how much need his schools generally meet.

 

It definitely takes time but there is a lot of info out there. Particularly for less than top tier schools. Most schools just want to raise their academic stats profile and their focus will be on ACT/GPA in awarding those automatic scholarships. I realize top tier schools are a whole different ball game but those are not the ones we are discussing in regards to merit aid on this thread.

[8filltheheart]

One thing to keep in mind is at some schools merit scholarships do not actually net a different total cost. For example, say a family has an EFC of 20,000. The student applies to schools which do not publicize their awards and cost around $65,000. These schools are also generous with FA (but not necessarily the well-publicized meet full need schools.). Say the student is awarded one of their most generous scholarships, $30,000. When they get their full FA package, they are awarded $15,000 in grants and work study. They may have ended up with the exact identical total cost w/o the scholarship $$ purely in grant $$ bc they would have received $45,000 in grant/work study (and grant $$ isnt tied to GPA.)

 

It is a convoluted process and there is no easy way to determine ahead of time unless you focus on guaranteed $$ amts. If costs need to be a certain amt well below your EFC, including those financially affordable schools as a first priority is prudent. Then applying to schools with unknown aid as secondary opens up those as possibilities if finances do end up working out.

[JanetC]

One thing to keep in mind is at some schools merit scholarships do not actually net a different total cost.

 

<snip>

 

It is a convoluted process and there is no easy way to determine ahead of time unless you focus on guaranteed $$ amts.

 

I don't know about the first part of the post -- There are a couple sides to merit aid:

 

1. Merit aid is a recruitment tool to attract paying students whose parents can't or won't pay their full, high EFCs. (I would put my DD in this category.) They are an attempt to get the student by adjusting the price to what the market will bear. From this perspective, the kid with a low EFC is not going to be getting the high merit award in the first place - he's not bringing in enough dollars.

 

2. Merit aid is also an attempt to stretch financial aid budgets by "funding our favorites first." A school with a limited aid budget will be "gapping" students or stuffing the financial aid letter full of loans. But, there are kids they really want, who will be getting more grants and fewer loans and zero gap or a small merit award to do a bit better than EFC. From this perspective, the low EFC kid who qualifies for merit aid is definitely getting a better deal than a similar kid who is not a "favorite."

 

In neither case is the kid with the low EFC getting the same award regardless of whether they are a merit aid candidate.

 

Those tables of guaranteed scholarships that were posted were both short (compared to the full number of colleges out there) and regionally skewed (especially towards the south). If there is a school on that list that meets your needs, I'm not saying don't go for it. Absolutely do.

 

But, if those schools don't meet your needs, there are definitely ways to use IPEDS, CDS, and NPC data, the colleges themselves (website, financial aid officer), and word-of-mouth (parents who have gone before, college confidential posts, general rules-of-thumb like the article I first posted, etc.) to get a pretty good handle on where you'll be eligible for a good scholarship.

 

But, yes, you also have to reduce the uncertainty by applying to more than one merit aid school, because it's not a "guarantee".

[8filltheheart]

Janet, we have had it happen to us. I changed the numbers, but, yes, our EFC was unchanged even though he received large merit awards. They filled the difference between the merit amts with grants and work study. In reading on sites like CC, it is easy to fill in the missing pieces. Our ds received the largest awards I saw reported. But, most students had their need met (even though it was not a guaranteed need met school.) So essentially, the merit award made $0 net gain bc the our EFC remained identical.

 

In cases like this, the only time merit $$ makes a real difference is if your EFC is greater than any scholarship offers. Even for unpublicized schools, you can pretty much figure out what they offer if you spend time reading posts on places like CC. Kids post their stats and what scholarships they received. They are pretty consistent results. X GPA + y test scores nets in this ballpark of scholarship $$. Our results matched what I read. If I had paid attention earlier, I would have discouraged applying to some of those schools bc nothing was going to make them affordable.

[JanetC]

Janet, we have had it happen to us. I changed the numbers, but, yes, our EFC was unchanged even though he received large merit awards. They filled the difference between the merit amts with grants and work study.

 

And, I would say if he wasn't a merit candidate, his award would have been loans and work study first, then grants. So, the fact that his need-based aid didn't include loans is a "fund our favorites" tip.

 

When you say your EFC remained the same, I think you meant your Net Price stayed the same. But, if your FA package after the merit award didn't have any loans, you actually came out ahead.

 

There are definitely schools out there where there is nothing you can do to make them affordable, though. No argument at all there. I get so frustrated sometimes when I hear parents talking about their child's college lists and they are AWFUL from a financial standpoint. They just don't know how to gather the information or they have totally let their kids drive the process without injecting some financial reality.

[8filltheheart]

I guess I should have defined terms more clearly. When we look at financial packages, any loans are added back in as part of the total cost. I refuse to play FA games and look at loans as reducing anything. Period. When I am writing about our expected payment, I mean as in both parents and children bc that is what the school is charging. Loans aren't reducing any cost. They are simply deferring costs.

 

So in my posts when I am referring to expected family contribution, I am referring to our total cost. Our total cost would have been identical. I am not sure why it is so hard to believe that that happens, bc it does.

[JanetC]

I guess I should have defined terms more clearly. When we look at financial packages, any loans are added back in as part of the total cost. I refuse to play FA games and look at loans as reducing anything. Period. When I am writing about our expected payment, I mean as in both parents and children bc that is what the school is charging. Loans aren't reducing any cost. They are simply deferring costs.

 

So in my posts when I am referring to expected family contribution, I am referring to our total cost. Our total cost would have been identical. I am not sure why it is so hard to believe that that happens, bc it does.

 

Financial planning terms are:

 

EFC = Estimated Family Contribution. Your Federal EFC is from the FAFSA and your Institutional EFC is from the PROFILE. This is a fixed amount. Financial aid does not change your EFC, it changes your Net Price.

 

Net Price = The cost of the college, minus the "free money." So, your Net Price at a school is the Cost of Attendance (COA) minus grants. Net Price does not include unsubsidized loans or PLUS loans, however subsidized loans (the ones that do not accumulate interest while you are in school) are consider a form of gift aid and do reduce your net price according to the financial aid industry definition of the term, something to consider when looking at Average Net Price statistics on sites like the College Scorecard or Debt by Degrees.

[dhudson]

Another thing that can change the merit aid that schools advertise is prestigious outside scholarships. My ds applied and was a finalist for a prestigious private scholarship in our state. It was a long, laborious process and while he didn't win the scholarships itself, schools within our state kept sending him scholarship offers during the process which were offers on top of their highest academic scholarships. While we were waiting to hear about the final stage, three of the schools sent him scholarship offers yet again, which effectively gave him a full tuition scholarship for his first year and 90% thereafter.

 

All that to say that there does seem to be more wiggle room in merit aid than it might first appear. Talking to the financial aid office really helped us as I am not sure I would have spent the time necessary (20 + hours) to just apply for the private scholarship had the financial aid person not told me about the unpublished scholarships that are earmarked for certain student populations. A friend of my son's got extra merit aid for being a girl in Computer Science, again, an unpublished scholarship that they wouldn't have known about without talking to financial aid for the college they were looking at.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Depending on the student's goals, it might be worth looking at ROTC scholarships.  The four year scholarships cover tuition, uniforms, books and a small monthly stipend.  Students take military/naval science courses each semester, drill with the ROTC unit, and have summer training periods.  At graduation, they are commissioned as officers in the branch of the military the ROTC unit is affiliated with.  They serve on active duty for a period of time as "payback" for the scholarship (typically 5-10 years depending on branch of service and specialty).  

 

ROTC scholarships are competitive to get, and are based on grades, extracurriculars and leadership experience.  (Participation in JROTC in high school is not required.  It can be a good extracurricular activity, but so can Boy Scouts, sports, a part time job, robotics, etc.)  

 

ROTC scholarships don't cover room and board, but some colleges will discount room and board for ROTC students (I think UCSD does this, for example).  

 

Students can use ROTC scholarships at colleges that have a ROTC unit for that service.  (IE, a student has to be accepted at a school with an Air Force ROTC unit in order to use the Air Force ROTC scholarship there.)  Navy ROTC applications ask students to list schools with Navy units in ranked order.  If they are granted a scholarship, it is assigned to a specific unit (there is some possibility to ask for the scholarship to be transferred to a different unit/school).  

 

DS has gone through this over the last year.  He earned a Navy ROTC scholarship assigned to his first choice ROTC school.  He also earned a merit award from that school.  Depending on stackability, that will bring his costs down to $8-14k/year.  (Part of the cost here is high transportation costs to and from Hawaii.)

 

It's not an answer for every student, but it can be a very good package for those who are interested.  

 

Edited February 18, 2016 by Sebastian (a lady)

[8filltheheart]

Not all schools require the CSS and loans are still loans. If you want to make this a formal thread on how to analyze school data available on various websites, then that is a different conversation and the terminology on how to wade through various descriptors matter.

 

I thought it was to discuss the nuts and bolts of merit scholarships "in a nutshell." In simple terms, some merit scholarships do not make any difference in the final total (regardless of the terms used to describe them) unless you are close to full pay bc the scholarship amt may have just been replaced by grant $$.

 

What it really boils down to is just how much merit $$ is needed.

[JanetC]

If you want to make this a formal thread on how to analyze school data available on various websites, then that is a different conversation and the terminology on how to wade through various descriptors matter.

 

Actually, terminology matters A LOT when trying to understand financial aid. It's really important to deeply understand the terms bandied about on websites and at college fairs to do any sort of due diligence. If you get in to a school that "meets 100% of need" and you think that means a guaranteed scholarship, you could be unhappily surprised when your aid package has the maximum federal Stafford loan inside or a grant that falls far short of what you know your budget could handle for four years because you didn't understand EFC thoroughly.

 

The biggest source of financial aid after the federal government is college institutional grant money. The only way to get institutional grants is to apply to the institutions that grant them. A student's college list has a huge impact on their final college price, and families often don't realize their child made a poor list until it's too late. They think it's all the same FAFSA, it's all the same aid. It's not.

 

All the article I posted does is give some rules of thumb, for families that are possible candidates for merit aid, for building a list with that in mind. I didn't mean for it to be anything more than that.