Check out the latest addition to the Gourmet Guide -- Hamilton College.  We've got the recommendations of Dean of Admission Monica Inzer and her staff -- including where to find chocolate chip pancakes, cider donuts, the best breakfast and that always important great cup of coffee. Check it out here.

Chat Leonard is Director of College Counseling at Metro Academic & Classical High School, a magnet school in the St. Louis University neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. She joined the administration of the school she calls "one of the gems of the St. Louis public school system" last year, after 13 years as a College Counselor at Clayton High School. Named one of the top 100 public schools in the nation by Newsweek magazine, Metro prides itself on its diverse ethnic and socioeconomic student body, where 50% of the 326 enrolled students are African American who live within the St. Louis city limits. In Ms. Leonard's first year as Director, 100% of her students went on to attend four-year colleges.

Financial aid -- need-based and merit -- is much on the minds of students and parents these days. As we get questions on these subjects, we will be posting responses here as blog post when we feel they may be helpful to a range of our readers  Today we answer one of our readers who posed this question in response to an earlier post titled "Can You Negotiate Merit Aid?"

Darryl wrote:  St.John University offered my son a 10k merit award. He also was accepted to Howard University. His first choice is Howard. Can I use the 10k merit award from St. John University as a bargaining chip so Howard could match or make a counter-offer?

Different colleges will handle this differently. Some schools will be flexible. For other schools, merit aid awards are final and non-negotiable, as noted by Purdue University's Pamela Horne in the article in this post.

However, colleges usually welcome all information about a student's financial situation. So it doesn't hurt to ask. But how you approach the college is key.

Jon Boeckenstedt, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at DePaul University, brought to our attention the latest report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)  -- "What Do Students Pay for College?"  A summary of average net prices at colleges and universities across the country, it can be a useful tool for parents, students and counselors.

Boeckenstedt notes that while it's not institution-specific, it may provide helpful information especially at the start of a student's admission process as it rolls up averages by characteristics such as control (public or private) and region. The report is available at: http://1.usa.gov/vZXWXY .

And for more from Boeckenstedt, visit his blog, Admitting Things, or see what he's thinking about on Twitter @TenSecondCynic.