Admissions Blog

Avoid Tuition Anxiety: Put Strong Merit Aid Colleges on Your List

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Neeta Vallab

Already mostly unaffordable for middle-class families, college costs have gone up by about twenty-five percent in just the last ten years. For the past two decades, sticker prices for public and private colleges have increased more than the rate of inflation almost every year. The average cost of attending a public four-year college is $22,000/per year and $50,000/per year for a private four-year college. Yet, there are ways for families that aren’t loaded to afford college in the United States.

Stay away from the ‘student loan trap’

Student loan debt is the second-highest household debt category ($1.6 trillion with 45 million borrowers!); only mortgage debt exceeds student loan debt.

Still, college graduates annually make about $32,000 more than high school graduates on average, and on average over $1 million more in a lifetime. There can be a huge payoff for going to college, but how can students avoid taking out outsized student loans for their education? The key to avoiding the student loan trap is to make your “out-of-pocket” expenses as low as possible and take out as small of a loan as possible (ideally one with a very low and subsidized interest rate as well). This is particularly important if you don’t qualify for some, any, or enough need-based financial aid, yet can’t afford to comfortably pay the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) of the college you want to attend.

Assess your financial situation

For many colleges, the Federal government methodology determines if you qualify for need-based aid and how much. Expected Family Contribution (EFC) calculations are based on information parents/guardians are asked to disclose regarding their financial history on the FAFSA form for financial aid. A family earning $130K per year would generally be considered ‘rich’ enough to pay 20% of their annual salary toward college costs.

Find scholarship money at the source

There’s a better strategy to help you reduce your out-of-pocket college expenses and that’s by finding and comparing merit aid offers. The largest pool of non-loan money is available directly from colleges in the form of merit aid scholarships. Understanding how colleges award these scholarships requires a thoughtful strategy. Having one can help you reduce tuition costs by thousands, and even tens of thousand of dollars. Colleges award over $8 to $10 billion dollars in merit scholarships annually, which is the largest pool of money available to families who don’t qualify for need-based grants.

What is merit aid and how does it work?

While mostly awarded to students who show academic excellence, merit aid is also awarded for other talents in music, art, or athletics. Merit Aid scholarships are used by colleges to attract students who can boost the applicant stats of a school. They’re usually offered to students in the top 25% of a college’s most recently admitted first-year class.

Because many colleges offer merit scholarships, you don’t need to have straight A’s or a 1600 SAT score to be awarded merit aid. Each school has its own top quartile stats.

Merit aid grants, unlike loans, don’t need to be repaid. In most cases, there’s no separate application process and colleges share award amounts in their acceptance letters. Most are renewable and you’re eligible to receive them for four years, but it’s important to check requirements and renewability. Often, you must maintain a certain GPA in order to continue to be eligible each year for the award.

How do you find merit aid?

Make a list of all the colleges you are interested in and find their common data set. Once found, you can apply top quartile data for your standardized test scores, but not for your GPA. You can go to the website of each college to find common data information or you can use the Common Data Set Initiative to find the information. A search engine called MeritMore allows you to search across schools to find and compare merit aid offers using your standardized tests scores and GPA.

What can you do with merit aid information?

First, check to see if your top schools may offer you merit aid. Second, compare aid offers from your top schools against each other. Third, explore other financial-fit schools that match your criteria, but may not have been on your radar. Finally, use merit aid comparison data to make informed decisions about colleges you can afford, the true cost of attending each college, and the total loan you may need to borrow.

Georgetown’s 2020 School-Specific Acceptance Rates

Posted on March 22, 2020 by Craig

Georgetown University has released its school-by-school acceptance rates for students applying during the 2019-2020 admissions cycle for the D.C. university’s Class of 2024.

Georgetown continues to be one of the most proactively transparent universities when it comes to sharing both its overall acceptance rate and its acceptance rates broken down at the school level (Business, Foreign Service, Arts and Sciences, and Nursing). We wish more selective universities would follow Georgetown’s lead. Georgetown, of course, always has a lot of impressive statistics to share.

“This year, the Admissions Committee reviewed more than 21,300 applications and offered admission to 15% of these candidates. Because of the precautions against COVID-19 that we have been asked by the University to take, for the first time we are not sending decision letters in the mail. Admissions decisions were posted in the applicant portal on March 20. Students can view and print their decision letters from their applicant portals.” shared Charles A. Deacon, Georgetown University’s Dean of Undergraduate Admissions.

Deacon went on to add that financial aid decisions will be sent by the Office of Student Financial Services early this week and that candidates accepting a place on Georgetown’s Waiting List will be informed of their status by May 15. “As the Waiting List is not ranked in advance, it is not possible to offer an estimate of chances of admission.”

If you got into Georgetown this year, or any year for that matter, congratulations! Have you bought some Georgetown gear yet?

Of note, in just the past two years, the number of students who have applied to Georgetown College has dropped by 1,126 students, which represents the bulk in Georgetown’s overall drop in applicants over the past two years (which totals 1,579). While total applications are not where they were at their peak, Georgetown is still accepting students at roughly the same rate as it has in recent years. When reviewing the table below, do note that rows with an asterisk (*) are filled with statistics reflecting numbers applicable to admitted students only.

Admitted Students 2019-2020 Cycle (Class of 2024)

	Georgetown College	Walsh School of Foreign Service	McDonough School of Business	School of Nursing & Health Studies	Total
Applied	12,683	4,027	3,219	1,389	21,318
Admitted	1,950	590	543	226	3,309
Admission Rate	15%	15%	17%	16%	15%
*Mean Class Rank Percentile	94.5%	95.4%	93.3%	95.0%	94.5%
Middle 50% SAT EBRW*	710-770	730-770	690-760	700-770	710-770
Middle 50% SAT Math*	710-790	730-790	730-800	710-790	720-790
Middle 50% ACT Composite*	32-35	33-35	32-35	32-35	32-35

Recent Acceptance Rates of Candidates From the Waiting List

	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012
Georgetown College	6%	None	14%	7%	14%	12%	10%	7%
McDonough School of Business	3%	None	3%	1%	4%	None	6%	10%
School of Nursing & Health Studies	11%	14%	9%	28%	4%	22%	None	10%
Walsh School of Foreign Service	3%	None	None	None	17%	13%	8%	6%

Again, thanks for the transparency Georgetown. Hopefully the Class of 2024 will be able to start on campus safe and well in a few months.

The neighborhood around the university is usually bustling, but currently is boarding up because of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

12 of the nation’s most prestigious science competitions for high school students

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Nancy Griesemer

Each year, thousands of high school students across the country gain valuable hands-on laboratory and research experience by interning for a variety of academic, government and nonprofit organizations engaged in scientific research.

Locally, high school interns may be found in George Mason’s Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program (ASSIP) or in one of the two Science & Engineering Apprenticeship Programs (SEAPs) sponsored by George Washington University, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Navy. They may also be found at NIST, NASA or one of many summer programs offered by the National Institutes of Health.

While they vary in terms of content and work experience, each of these internships supports opportunities to explore science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Students meet and interact with scientists, learn lab skills, conduct research, and possibly publish their findings or patent their ideas.

In fact, some programs encourage students to present research at poster sessions or similar scientific forums where they gain self-confidence, improve writing skills, and potentially earn credentials important to colleges and universities as well as future employers. They also lay the groundwork for undergraduate research assignments as well as admission to post graduate studies in medical schools or PhD programs.

And many young researchers turn their summer experiences into competitive science projects, vying for hundreds of thousands in scholarship dollars offered annually by organizations supporting the goals of STEM education.

Here are 12 of the more prestigious and well-respected competitions:

1. AAN Neuroscience Research Prize. Students investigating problems concerning the brain or the nervous system are invited to compete for monetary prizes as well as all expenses paid trips to the AAN Annual Meeting, to present their work during a scientific poster session.
2. Davidson Fellows. This prestigious scholarship annually awards up to $50,000 to students, 18 and under, who have completed a “significant” piece of work in one of eight categories including Engineering, Mathematics, Science, Literature, Music, Technology, Philosophy, and Outside the Box.
3. Conrad Spirit of Innovation Challenge. Participants work in teams of 2 to 5 members to develop solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems. Finalist teams compete for seed funding grants, investment opportunities, patent support, business services and scholarships.
4. ExploraVision. Jointly sponsored by Toshiba and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), ExploraVision encourages collaboration by restricting the competition to group projects. Although all participants win gifts and discounts, the top four teams receive US Savings Bonds worth $10,000 for each student.
5. Google Science Fair. Beginning with online submissions, this competition invites young scientists from all over the world to compete for up to $50,000 in scholarships as well as a trip to the Galapagos Islands sponsored by National Geographic. Finalists are invited to Google Headquarters to present their projects before expert judges. To receive information on future competitions, sign-up on the Google Science Fair website.
6. Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The Intel ISEF is possibly the world’s largest international pre-college science competition, providing an annual forum for over 1,800 high school students from countries all over the world who compete for approximately $4 million in awards. Competition begins at the high school level and culminates at the International Science and Engineering Fair, held each year in different cities around the country.
7. International BioGENEius Challenge. This competition is designed to recognize outstanding research in biotechnology. Finalists showcase their talent and research before a prestigious panel of expert biotech judges and have the opportunity to win cash awards.
8. Microsoft Imagine Cup. Imagine Cup is a global competition for computer science students who team up to use their creativity, passion and knowledge of technology to create applications and compete for cash, travel and prizes. Sign up on line to get notified when the 2018 season begins.
9. MIT THINK Scholars Program. The THINK Scholars program is an initiative that promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics by supporting and funding projects developed by high school students. Finalists receive all-expenses paid trips to MIT to attend XFair (MIT’s spring tech symposium) and winners receive up to $1000 to build their projects. Additional scholarship prizes are also available.
10. National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. Individual students compete for scholarships and recognition by presenting the results of their original research before a panel of judges and an audience of their peers. Regional scholarships as well as eight national top awards of up to $12,000 are among the prizes available. Different regions/states run on different schedules.
11. Regeneron Science Talent Search. The Regeneron Science Talent Search invites the nation’s best and brightest young scientists to present original research to nationally recognized professional scientists. Open only to high school seniors, 40 finalists are selected to come to Washington DC and compete for the top award of $250,000. This year’s competition will open on August 1, 2017. All applications will be due on November 15, 2017.
12. Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology. Since 1999, the Siemens Foundation, has provided young scientists with opportunities to win scholarships ranging from $1000 to $100,000 for original research in team and individual categories. This year’s competition is now underway and all competition materials must be received by September 19, 2017.