Hey there, it's Andy Lockwood from Lockwood College Prep. And I'm answering another question from the virtual mailbag. And when I mean mailbag, I say mailbag, I mean questions we get on webinars, emails, and never snail mail. So virtual mailbag. So today's question is about how to get merit scholarships. First thing to talk about is understanding what a merit scholarship is. So what I'm talking about is money that comes from the college endowment itself that it does not have to be repaid. And it's usually called merit aid or merit scholarships. Sometimes when you get an award, you'll see something like the presidential scholarship or the chancellor's scholarship, whatever. A lot of our clients and a lot of people that we talk to just do not qualify for need-based aid, which is entirely different. Need-based aid is based on filling out financial aid applications for which means for every college you apply for using the FAFSA, F-A-F-S-A, Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And for about 300 or 400 colleges, there's an additional form, which is about 10 times as long as the FAFSA, called the CSS Profile. And then a bunch of schools have their own financial aid form applications too. So I'm not talking about need-based aid. What I am talking about is everything else, which is under this umbrella that we call merit aid. Merit aid is basically given out for anything that is not based on your income and your savings and all the other stuff that goes on financial aid applications. And typically that means high grades and high SATs or ACTs. Yes, even in today's world of test optional, which is being chipped away at, by the way, those policies seem to be starting to be losing a little bit of, I don't know, popularity. But anyway, if you don't qualify for need-based aid, that's actually fine because there's more merit aid out there than there is need-based aid. And the average tuition discount at a private college is currently, as I record this in the spring of 2024, it's more than 56%, according to the National Association of Collegiate Business Officers. And a tuition discount usually means merit aid. It doesn't always. It could also include need-based aid. But the point is that there is a lot of discounting going on. There's a lot of money out there. And paying full price is a choice. It's not an obligation. So how do you get merit aid? Well, you have to look at a few different factors. Number one is you have to apply to schools that are generous with merit aid, traditionally. So... Rule of thumb, state universities, whether in your state or out of your state, wherever you reside, tend not to be the most generous with merit aid, although there are plenty of programs out there. Some states have their own merit aid programs. Some states have different programs that are not based on merit. But generally speaking, if you're looking for a discount off tuition program, The state universities tend not to give that much because they don't have much money to give. It's trying to get blood from a stone type of thing. So private universities, even though they have a higher sticker price, tend to discount more because they have more money to give. And that's sort of their business model. So you need to, number one, look at schools that are generous in general. And then number two, figure out if your child is in the running for that college to be generous to him or her. So generous colleges and schools that are generous to your child. That's the thing. How do you figure out if a school is going to be generous to your child? A rule of thumb is if you're applying to a college that you have to beg and borrow and steal and scratch and claw your way to get in, you're not going to be eligible for much, if any, merit aid. But if it's a college where you're in the top of the cohort, if you look at last year's average, the median GPA and SAT or ACT, and you're above that average, let's say you figure out you're somewhere in the top 20% compared to last year's cohort, then you have a really, really good shot at getting merit aid. Typically, just in closing, typically the schools that offer merit aid are not the Ivy League schools. Ivy League schools claim that they only give need-based aid. And I would say that's true for the most part, although I've seen wacky situations in the past. I've been in this college advising field about 22 years at this point, and some things justify that public explanation. Here's a quick example. Over the years, we've had kids who've gotten into more than one Ivy League that we've been working with for college advisory services. And then they received different offers. And then we would play the offers off against each other. So years ago, we had a child whose father is a doctor in New York City, did not show any financial need. And this kid was basically an admissions officer's dream. I was gonna say something else, but this is a PG lesson here. And he got into Harvard, which was, you know, You never really know, but I spent about six months counseling his family and saying, look, if he doesn't get into Harvard, I don't know who would. Top of his class academically, unbelievable extracurricular activities, like really, really crazy stuff. Either perfect or near perfect ACT. I think he might've had a 35. Multiracial, a whole bunch of other stuff. Red carpet rolled out. He gets into Harvard and they offer nothing. So we went back to them and said, look, here's some information that you may not know about about the dad's medical practice. And they gave like seven grand or something like that. And the mom was like, OK, well, Harvard is very expensive. That's not really so much money. I said, well, let's let's see what else happens. So a couple months later, he gets into Brown University and he also got into Princeton. And I think it was Brown University. No, it's Princeton. Sorry. Princeton has a reputation of being pretty generous compared to all the Ivy League schools. They have their own financial aid application. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but they gave a much better award. It was something in the $20,000 range. So we went back to Harvard and said, this is what we're looking at. Is there any way that you can meet or exceed that? Because Harvard's our number one top choice. So back and forth, back and forth. There was a few rounds of this. Ultimately Harvard ended up giving $53,000 from an initial offer of zero. So number one, I'm telling you this just because it's an interesting story and you should always assume that your, your initial offer is not your final offer from any college. But number two, how can harvard say we only are need-based we don't give money based on financial need when they do stuff like this and and that example I gave you is you know very common in in the world of harvard so it's not like this doctor all of a sudden showed fifty thousand dollars worth of need um out of the blue right it was because of these other offers So in general, IVs don't give merit aid, but there are exceptions. And the places to look for merit aid are usually the notch below, mostly private schools. Again, you may get away with some money at some state universities, either in or out of state. But in general, the private schools have the most money. So I hope you found this helpful because I think a lot of people don't really talk about merit aid. But I wanted to sort of clear the air and make sure you had a little bit more information. If you want to contact us, wherever you're watching this or listening to this, there are links right below this post. And thanks a lot. Hope you found it valuable. Have a great day.
