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Which of these schools award merit aid? If they do, how much and what for? Are their admissions need-blind? Feel free to make comments about more schools too.

MIT
Caltech
U Chicago
Harvey Mudd
Princeton
Harvard
Columbia
Johns Hopkins
Stanford
Brown
Yale
Duke
U Penn
Bowdoin

By Sareen_Eng (Sareen_Eng) on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 02:51 am: Edit

Ivies do not offer merit aid (but I think they're all need-blind). I know quite a few kids who have gotten free-rides or close to it (merit-based) at CalTech, and Duke has some merit scholarships as well (check their website)

By Mattmom (Mattmom) on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 08:42 am: Edit

You would get the most accurate information by gogn to the admissions section of each school's Web site. It might be more work for you, but you woudl be getting accurate material rather than second-hand guesswork or the producct of other people's research.

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 01:53 pm: Edit

Here's the data from US News & World Report 2004 Ultimate College Guide which bases its info. on the common data set of information supplied by each school:


MIT - merit awards given to 16% of students, average merit award $6948
Caltech - merit given to 19% of students, average award $14,129
U Chicago - merit given to 11%, average award $10,642
Harvey Mudd - merit given to 24%, average award %5,900
Princeton - no merit
Harvard - no merit
Columbia - no merit
Johns Hopkins -merit given to 6%, average award $14,982
Stanford - merit given to 16%, average award $4550
Brown - no merit
Yale - no merit
Duke - 18%, average award $13,481
U Penn - no merit
Bowdoin -2% given merit, avearage award $1,000

By Star69 (Star69) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 01:42 pm: Edit

If you go to MIT's website it states very clearly that they offer no merit or athletic scholarships -- all aid is based upon need.

By Jamimom (Jamimom) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 01:50 pm: Edit

Stanford also does not give merit awards according to their info. They do give band and athletic scholarships. Perhaps that is marching band money that got reported. Bowdoin is not supposed to give pure merit aid either. Harvey Mudd and Johns Hopkins are not need blind. but info on some of the other is a bit shaky as some colleges change year to year on the need blind issue and don't want to make a stand on it one way or the other. It is hard to get as straight answer on that one when that happens.

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 01:52 pm: Edit

Could US News be including athletic scholarships under "merit aid"? MIT and Stanford give no aid based on academic merit.

By Jamimom (Jamimom) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 02:16 pm: Edit

No, but they base their info on stuff colleges fill out and sometimes they are careless in saying that they have no purely merit based scholarships. I know that Stanford gives marching band scholarships and all schools give merit with need awards and sometimes they slip into the merit award category, erroneously. I saw data saying that Harvard give merit aid, and I know that is not correct except within need.

By Mhawk177 (Mhawk177) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 02:20 pm: Edit

Either way.. merit aid at one of those schools would be REALLY tough if they did offer it for academics. These are the schools that have plenty of 1500+ students.. how do you compete with that?

By Liek0806 (Liek0806) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 07:49 pm: Edit

USC gives a lot of merit aid

By Marlgirl (Marlgirl) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 07:52 pm: Edit

How hard is it to get merit aid from Chicago? What does it take?

By Massdad (Massdad) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 11:08 pm: Edit

Chicago merit aid? Look at the stats of kids that get into HYP, and be just a bit better. No, I'm not joking. Kids I know that received merit aid offers turned chicago down for Harvard and Yale. They had SAT scores in th 1550 range, SATII around 800 each, GPA about 3.9+ in a tough curric (several APs by senior year) and good extra currics.

You might say Chicago uses its merit aid offers to lure kids away from HYPS.

BTW, CMU also offers merit aid, and more to females.