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I know that Emory, Wash U, UVA, Wake Forest, Davidson, are all outstanding. Can anyone add other names or rank the schools according to their generosity in merit aid? Thanks in advance.

By Arizonamom (Arizonamom) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 01:05 am: Edit

Claremont-McKenna for finaid, Tulane is very generous with merit as it Trinity. There was a post a while back where folks listed their merit awards and some included stats. Do a search, it is very useful info. Also of course honors programs at state colleges, especially your own state is extremely generous.

By Reidmc (Reidmc) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 02:08 am: Edit

Among other schools mentioned on merit aid threads are Pitt, College of Wooster, Michigan, Grinnell and Franklin & Marshall.

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 09:18 am: Edit

Virtually all schools are "generous with merit aid" if you are at the top of their applicant pool. (the exceptions being Ivies, Stanford, MIT). The trick is to find a school you would like to attend, and where you will be in the top 5% or so.

By Alan5 (Alan5) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 09:23 am: Edit

Northeastern.

By Lenk58 (Lenk58) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 11:33 am: Edit

Northeastern has to be generous because it is a tier 3 school that has already gone deep into it's waitlist. If you are looking at good schools you will do better than NEU

By Shennie (Shennie) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 11:52 am: Edit

Rice University is known to be fairly generous. Plus their costs are lower overall as well.

By Calif (Calif) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 12:05 pm: Edit

Denison.

By Alan5 (Alan5) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 12:08 pm: Edit

Lenk, is a Northeastern reject. He bashes NEU every chance he gets. Northeastern does give out a ton of merit aid though.

By Oldman (Oldman) on Friday, June 04, 2004 - 10:12 pm: Edit

Georgia gives out merit money rather easily.

By Hsseniorpa (Hsseniorpa) on Saturday, June 05, 2004 - 12:32 pm: Edit

I pretty much only applied to schools with a lot of merit aid, so these were the bets ones that i could find and got scholarships to

Case Western
They give full scholarships to pretty much everybody with >1500 SAT (i got that one)

Davidson
They pick people based on acaemics and EC's they have an interview after they evaluate your application for the top applicants(i didn't get that one, my app was 2 months late)

Furman
Same criteria as Davidson (I got a full scholarship there)

USC
Hundreds (literally) of full and half tuition scholarsships Same criteria as Davidson and Furman with the interview an all but weighted a little more towards SAT scores (I got the full tuition scholarship)

NYU
Up to full tuition scholarship (I got 100K) for National Merit

Duke
Johns Hopkins
I didn't even bother applying for these, you have to be unbelieveable to get them

there are a lot of school that give out scholarships based solely n National Merit, University of Folida, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and many more that give half scholarships for PSAT's

By Willywonka (Willywonka) on Saturday, June 05, 2004 - 01:00 pm: Edit

Washington College (Maryland) gives a minimum of 10,000 and a maximum of 17,000 a year to every student who is in National Honor Society. That's around one third of the cost just for being in NHS, and it's actually a really good school. Everyone seems to be in love with their English department. The college offers other merit aid as well, I believe.

The only other places that I know of are Washington and Lee, which gives out several forms of the George Washington scholarship. I would imagine it's rather selective.

University of Maryland, on top of already being pretty cheap, offers merit aid for very qualified students. Although being accepted isn't really hard, getting the merit aid seems to be.

By Indecisive123 (Indecisive123) on Sunday, June 06, 2004 - 05:58 pm: Edit

Merit aid was a huge part of my college search. There are suprisingly few schools that offer this type of aid, as most is need-based. Let me give you a run-down of my list of schools offering merit scholarships.

Lafayette College
Generous, ranges from partial to half tuition, and they even offer a computer!

Franklin and Marshall
Generous, up to half-tuition

Whitman College
Small endowment, so less available, but still a good option.

Davidson College
Relatively tough to get merit aid, as there is quite a bit of competition. The Belk is the most difficult, but there are numerous other smaller scholarships they offer.

Kenyon College
Small endowment, but very generous and kind admissions/finaid departments. They will work with you to make a situation work. Largest merit offered is half-tuition. I'll be attending in the fall

Boston University
Generous, ranges from full to half. Difficult to get the scholarships, however. Because their tuition is the highest of any private school in the country (no joke) it's still a pretty high price no matter the reduction.

Emory
Lots of competition, but still a possibility.

UCs
I'm not sure where you live, but the Regents scholarships at the University of California are often rather generous. Personally, I'm not one to go for large state schools.

Johns Hopkins
Really, really tough.

Grinnell
Recently becoming much more selective, but still a possibility.

Lewis and Clark
Generous to good students/citizens.

Occidental
Good merit aid program, although they are becoming more selective.

Loyola Marymount
If you have a high GPA and SAT, they award merit aid very generously. You will be asked to come visit the campus for an interview/weekend visit.

A friend of mine also received a generous scholarship from Washington and Lee.

Schools that offer merit aid are sort of a trade-off. They offer merit money to attract intelligent/promising students, but often the rest of the student body is not as academic. This is not true at all schools, as I found Kenyon, Davidson, Oxy and a few others to be very serious academically. It's pretty much up to you and how you feel when you visit the campus.

Another thing about applying to college when hoping for merit scholarships is that you sorta have to do a broad sweep. It's tough to say for sure that a certain school will offer you merit aid, so you may have to apply to more schools than you would have were you not looking for merit aid.

Hope this is helpful, and let me know if you have more questions.

By Takanawajoe (Takanawajoe) on Sunday, June 06, 2004 - 06:03 pm: Edit

Rensselaer Poly (RPI) gave me $78k for Leadership Award

U. Rochester gave me $40k for Rush Rhees

Southern Methodist (SMU) gave me $12k for University Scholar

All are merit based. Needless to say, I am going to RPI in August.....

By Mafmaf22 (Mafmaf22) on Sunday, June 06, 2004 - 06:50 pm: Edit

Tulane gives out tons of merit aid as does USC. i don't know your stats, but don't count on getting merit money from WashU. they give out like 36 total for Arts Sci and some for engineering and only 1 for business, so they are really hard to get