<p>Two questions:
When applying to AU, do you indicate the school to which you are applying or just intended major?
Also, does anyone know the official policy on ED and merit aid? Does ED diminish your chances of getting scholarship (or size of award) since you are already committed?</p>
<p>You apply to the university as a whole and not to a specific school or major. And applying ED doesnt have an effect on merit award consideration</p>
<p>just a point of clarification…you definitely apply to AU as a whole, but if you check a box on your application indicating which school you are interested in, your acceptance packet will include things from the University as a whole, as well as the individual college. However, AU does not pay attention to which school you are applying in making its admission decision, and there are not different standards for the different programs. So no program is easier to get into than any other, and there is no advantage to applying to one program over another.</p>
<p>It also is no big deal to transfer among the different schools programs at AU–students do it all the time. This is actually an important thing to consider…at a lot of schools it is difficult to transfer from one program to another after acceptance, this is not the case at AU. It was one of the things that made AU stand out to my son. He knew he could keep his options open as his interests developed over time.</p>
<p>Boysx3, D doesn’t remember indicating a school, just intended major. What difference will this make if any? Will she still get a SIS advisor?</p>
<p>If the student chooses International Studies as a major, the student, if accepted, is in the SIS and gets an SIS advisor.</p>
<p>There is only one other major in SIS, Language and Area Studies. That is a cooperative effort w/CAS, so I’m not sure what school the student is placed into.</p>
<p>The students don’t actually have to pick a major right away. I think my daughter indicated International Studies on her application, but she’s in SIS as undecided at the moment, choosing between IS and L&AS. I’m not even sure when she has to declare her choice.</p>
<p>As to the question about ED and merit aid–If a student is a strong candidate for a merit scholarship, I’m not sure what is in it for him/her to apply ED. I believe ED gives a boost for admissions, because AU really does love applicants who love them, but a strong merit scholarship candidate doesn’t need that admissions bump. I do not think they give away all the merit money early on. Plenty of people are awarded merit scholarships in the RD round.</p>
<p>Also, note that AU is ratcheting down on the merit money (and ratcheting up the need-based aid). So if I felt that a merit scholarship was going to make the difference between going and not going to AU, I’d be disinclined to enter into a binding ED agreement. Getting a merit scholarship might not be as sure a bet as it’s been in the past, or the award amount might be less than you are expecting. (They did cut the top scholarship back from ~$27K to ~$20K two years ago.)</p>