I applied regular decision to MU and received $18000/year but that still puts it a little above my in state school choice. Has anyone received extra financial aid after the received their first amount? Thank you.
My son is in the same boat. Got 18K per year merit offer and was hoping for more. We don’t qualify for financial aid. Miami will cost considerably more than our in state option (UT-K) including the scholarships he got there. He also has full ride offers at UKentucky and UAlabama for NMF. We are going to Make it Miami next week. If he really likes Miami, we plan to ask if they can increase the merit award. For his stats, their website says half to full tuition award. Full tuition would be 30K. However, I don’t have any idea if they are flexible or if they will negotiate to try to match other offers. Does anyone else have an info about this?
It is unlikely they will budge from the initial offer. MU is a large state school, not a small private LAC that will add merit aid because it needs to fill spots to meet an enrollment quota. MU isn’t having any issues filling seats.
But there is no risk in asking since the worst they can say is no, and it isn’t as though they will reduce what you have already been offered because you asked. The best bet is to make a case for the typical reasons for an appeal – parent loss of income, high family unreimbursed medical expenses, siblings in college, etc., the sort of things they wouldn’t know about if you didn’t file the FAFSA.
If there are no compelling family financial issues, provide your financial aid counselor copies of your other merit aid offers with a sincere expression of wanting to come to Miami but needing to choose a college based on the cost to avoid debt. Obviously, be kind and respectful. Acting entitled, or carrying yourself as though MU would be lucky to have you and if you don’t get what you want you are walking out the door, will get you nothing. Financial aid isn’t a used car dealership. The fine folks in MU’s financial aid office have largely thankless jobs, and likely make a lot less than your parents, so a bit of graciousness could go a long way.
I asked the FA office about the likelihood of students being awarded more merit after the initial offer. They told me that merit awards would not be increased unless the student retook the ACT and resubmitted scores that put them in a higher merit award bracket. I suppose one could try to negotiate based on other offers, but it seems like they had a straight-forward formula for calculating merit.
I also asked about departmental scholarships. In order to be eligible, a student needs a Miami Univ GPA, which eliminates all incoming freshman from those scholarships.
FA pretty much told me unless there was need (or higher scores), the final award would be identical to the initial one students received.
Supposedly FA packages were mailed out last Wednesday in a larger envelope, so they should be arriving any day now.
I called about more aid because our son did not receive the expected amount based on the table. All FA awards are based on application data and no new test scores or GPA increases would up your amount. The sheer numbers of highly qualified applicants reduced the amount of aid available for each table level and some got none despite the table’s forecasted amounts.
Thanks for the info. With other schools decreasing merit awards in favor of increased focus on need based aid, I am sure that the number of highly qualified applicants for Miami’s merit awards has skyrocketed. On the other hand, a good percentage of the top applicants will choose more elite schools and not use the tuition discount at Miami. I presume they predict their enrollment yield based upon past experience and use this to determine how much overall scholarship money they can promise.
Thank you all for the info. I’ll still call in and see if I can get any, with my ACT score I should be in a higher bracket, but I applied Reg Dec which may have hurt me.
@kingraven, I strongly suspect applying regular decision was a variable in your not receiving more $. Miami even posted expressly on the admissions web site that students applying either binding or early decision would receive greater consideration for $. Based upon past years, Miami admissions assumes (oftentimes correctly) that those applying regular decision view Miami at best as a 2nd or 3rd choice; therefore they will offer more $ to prospective students that seem to show more interest in Miami (aka - apply binding or ED.)
18K per year is in the highest bracket, so not sure what you mean by your ACT putting you in a higher bracket. I’ve seen numbers on here OOS with 32’s ranging from 16 to 19K, 33’s ranging from 17 to 20K, and 34+ getting 23K+. And those were all early decision. Thsi might give you an idea how your award compares.
Maybe extra merit is not available but grant money may be. My daughter received more after I talked to the admissions counselor to discuss the amount she had received in state. Admissions has access to all the numbers so it’s sort of a game.