Congrats @pastelrain !!! “I’ve been smiling ever since I got the news,” That indicates a good fit for sure!
My D was accepted to Moore College’s Visionary Woman Honors Program. She loves the fact that it’s an all-girls school, relatively near to home and the major is animation AND game design, but we know little else. Any insight is appreciated.
Congrats to all with the recent acceptances! I would love hear about the financial aid packages you received. Were they included in the acceptance letter? Do they arrive later closer? What are the merit scholarships like? Are merits due to academic and/or portfolio accomplishments?
I know that SCAD offers up to $12k for academic accomplishments and $7.5 for artistic merit. It looks like Ringling’s merit is limited in number and amount. RIT lists all their merit scholarships on their website but they are not stackable and the amounts are smaller, on the average of $2.5k per year. Tyler at Temple appears to give larger merit amounts for high stats kids but I wonder how art students fair with larger merit money.
Schools like RISD and CMU are need based so I suspect that there is no merit awards. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this.
Thanks!
RISD is a “need-sensitive” school. That is, their admissions is determined at least in part by ability to pay. However, they have been offering more aid in the past couple of admission cycles. Anecdotally, the word was they were losing too many top kids to Pratt and MICA, etc. Not sure if the aid is in the form of merit or institutional need-based (probably some combination of the two - any institution with funds can blur those lines a bit with year-to-year grants).
CMU is need-blind but currently does not meet full demonstrated need. If one is accepted RD, it’s possible to receive merit aid but not sure of the details.
For SCAD, the merit aid award came very soon after acceptance–my daughter got basically pocket change for “art” merit (portfolio-based) and a more significant amount for “academic” merit, I think totaling $5,000 a year. That’s it (and she had a super high SAT score and good grades!). I haven’t even checked yet if she has heard about any need-based aid (we submitted a FAFSA) as she’s basically already ruled them out of contention.
For MICA, she got an “initial” merit award letter with her acceptance, about $8,000 per year, but many of their competitive freshmen merit scholarships aren’t awarded until March, and it says she’ll receive her final merit aid offer on April 2nd. It’s unclear to me whether what she was offered now was based on her portfolio or academics–though I know she did submit some supplementary things (an academic writing sample and an additional short essay) for an academic scholarship that won’t be awarded till March. I’m assuming April is also when we’ll hear about any need-based aid.
Her most substantial scholarship offer so far has come from Bard, a liberal arts college with a good art department. At about half the yearly cost of attendance, maybe a little over.
I was under the impression (from the RISD admissions facebook page) that they only award need-based aid now, no merit at all.
@JBStillFlying Thank you for sharing the info; they are very helpful. At this time, my D thinks she is interested in illustration at schools like RISD, Pratt, Ringling or SCAD, but if the financial aid package is too skinny, those schools will not be an option. We want her to expand her choices, even non-art schools, to consider other options. We’re one of those donut hole families, so merit aid will be necessary. We do have a college freshman, but he’s on full merit so I don’t know if that will help or hurt EFC for my D when she applies for fall of 2019. D will not apply ED to any schools, strictly EA if available and RD.
@cag60093 The Visionary Woman Honors Program at Moore includes a $22K scholarship. They also have several other levels of merit scholarships.
So far, we have found that acceptance letters usually provide a merit-based award and let you know that final financial aid packages will be mailed out in March or April.
College websites and visits have provided good information on what we can expect based on grades & transcripts and awards have been in line with that.
Ahhh, “donut hole” families–that’s us, too (I knew there was a term, but couldn’t remember it!). Such a tricky spot to be in. We are very lucky in that my husband’s family will make up the difference for my kids if the aid is too paltry. Still, we want to be able to minimize their contribution as much as possible. We’re finding this situation to be particularly hard with the art schools (vs. more traditional colleges/universities).
“For SCAD, the merit aid award came very soon after acceptance–my daughter got basically pocket change for “art” merit (portfolio-based) and a more significant amount for “academic” merit, I think totaling $5,000 a year. That’s it (and she had a super high SAT score and good grades!). I haven’t even checked yet if she has heard about any need-based aid (we submitted a FAFSA) as she’s basically already ruled them out of contention.”
Reach out to them or to whoever is your student’s first choice college. The initial package needn’t be the final one. SCAD increased our D’s scholarships because it was her clear first choice but she needed more in order to attend. She had a great offer from UCF but SCAD matched it completely and tossed in a bit more for good measure. As promised, she enrolled immediately upon learning of her increased award.
Schools like a high yield, but they are also want to direct their funds prudently. They don’t know your preferences as well as you do so they are not really sure what it will take for you to commit. Especially in a non-early-decision situation. Be open and honest about your financial situation and explain that with more your student will enroll. That’s a nice quid-pro-quo. It may work, it may not. But at least you asked.
@NYart15 We haven’t considered Moore, but the Women Honors Scholarship is impressive. We’re trying to stretch our D in terms of school options, but all women’s college is probably not going to fly. She wants a mix of boys and girls socially; she has girlfriends, but she doesn’t think they really get her. She’s get boys better bc of of her brothers and playing hockey on boys teams. She can be a straight shooter with them and they won’t read into it. She’s also a huge gamer and she hasn’t found many girls who do.
@KCHWriter Which non-art schools did your student apply to?
@JBStillFlying Thanks for the advice. Good to know when all acceptances come in and families can compare and consider requesting additional aid. That’s why I like the RD process. I realize that some kids definitely know where I want to go as their number 1 choice and some families can pay full cost. That’s very impressive. My oldest didn’t really have his favorite and we were definitely looking for merit aid and the RD process worked very well for him.
@cag60093, in addition to art schools, she also applied to:
Bard College (EA) – accepted
Univ. of Vermont (EA) – accepted
STAMPS at Univ. of Michigan (EA) – deferred to RD
Washington Univ. of St. Louis (RD)-- so still waiting to hear, but not very likely as they track interest and we weren’t able to visit and she was out sick the day the rep came to her school!
Brandeis Univ. (RD), and mostly because her father and grandparents went there and bugged her to death to apply! Also still waiting to hear.
She also thought about applying to Vassar as she really liked it, but decided to apply to Bard instead (and didn’t want to apply to both as they felt very similar to her).
Good to know, @JBStillFlying! Will definitely keep that mind, especially come March/April when we get the “final” aid offer from MICA! Maybe we can leverage the offer from Bard to raise the amount some!
@cag60093 We were very happy with our FA package from CMU. We will end up taking out $3500/yr loan. He can also do work-study but we’ll see if he can handle that along with his classes after freshman year. We received similiar FA packages from Tyler and Drexel with CMU coming in slightly cheaper. He got his ED decision before he’d had the chance to submit his portfolio online for Tyler’s consideration so I’m not sure what that would have looked like. My sons grades and scores weren’t high enough for merit so most of his CMU package is covered by the Carnegie Mellon Undergraduate Grant.
Considering what we paid OOS for our eldest daughter to attend Michigan, we were pleasantly surprised. They certainly made it affordable for us. Our youngest is in 3rd grade at a nyc Private so that was another consideration.
@KCHWriter That’s great for your D, all great schools. Have your received a financial aid package from Bard yet?
We also plan to visit Bard, Vassar, Wash U. We visited Stamps, but I don’t think she’ll apply bc U of M is quite stingy with aid for OOS. My oldest got $0 for engineering from them. Wash U is a very popular in our area; they like high stat kids.
@itsreallymia2 Congrats to your son. @JBStillFlying thought “CMU is need-blind but currently does not meet full demonstrated need.” It sounds like this wasn’t your S’s experience? We too have a 3rd child in 8th grade so we can’t blow our savings for our D’s art degree.
U of M is super expensive for OOS. It’s insane, but so many students in our area consider it as their number #1 choice. I have sat through so many info session where school tout their stats on how many students receive aid, etc., but it’s mostly for families with lower EFC. If merit is offered, info is so opaque.
Yeah, I’m from Michigan and attended U of M. A big chunk of my family including my parents are only 45 mins away from campus. OOS is a lot but my eldest daughter worked her but off getting outside scholarships to make it happen. She had more loans than I would have liked but she worked hard during the summer at paid internships and part time work to help. She’s always been an “if I want it I’ll make it happen” kind of kid.
Although CMU didn’t meet our full need, I do feel that they were very generous with our son. Yes, they are need blind.
We have a very supportive, large extended family (even 2nd and third cousins are close) and when it comes to educating our kids, we pitch in when needed. We aren’t wealthy but we chip in when someone in the family is trying to better themselves. It isn’t rare for grad school tuition to be paid by many households adding to the pot. I guess that’s our “wealth”.
@cag60093, are you in NYC, too?? (that’s where we are! Coming from a private school in Riverdale!) But yes, got aid package from Bard, and I thought it was pretty generous! Which is good, because Bard is probably the most expensive school on her list (though Brandeis is close!). It was a little over half the full cost of attendance! Before she found out she got into MICA, I think she was seriously considering Bard.
@itsreallymia2 You are wealthy to have such family support. It’s wonderful to hear such generosity.
@KCHWriter No, we’re not in NYC, but I have a sister and nephew in Riverdale! We’re in Chicago suburbs where most students prefer U of M over our flagship, UIUC. I’m glad Bard was generous; it makes me hopeful. She really likes drawing and want to be a working artist. However, I know she thoroughly enjoys History and Chinese and would love her to consider a minor in one of those areas. I wonder a bit if in some aspect she is wanting art school bc she never wants to take math ever again after HS. I am aware that it’s not her strongest area, but she has been a solid B+ or A- in the highest math track. She just can’t process math quickly and time limitation always hurt her.
By the way, my nephew is hoping he’ll get into one the Riverdale private schools for 9th grade. He applied to 2 of them, not Horace Mann. We’re crossing our fingers for him.
Ahh, you’ll have to let me know if he gets in! We’re at one, my kids’ cousins are at the other (no one at Horace Mann, though I will be there tomorrow for D2’s fencing tournament!).
Seems like we have quite a few NYC posters in this group.