<p>I'm a high school senior in the process of applying to Wisconsin. I was wondering if Wisconsin offers any automatic academic scholarships based on test scores/GPA. For example Indiana University lets you know if you get a 31 and have a 3.8 GPA you qualify for $11,000 a year. Does University of Wisconsin have anything like this?</p>
<p>Also, I'm an out of state student with a 4.0 GPA and a 30 on the ACT. If Wisconsin does not have any "automatic" scholarships, would I still be eligible for any merit based financial aid?</p>
<p>From my understand UW is tight with the money for OOS. Better chances in the area would probably be Iowa State etc. They’re a top tiered engineering school. GATech offers more scholarships than them I think. I didn’t find any while I was researching.</p>
<p>No automatic merit money. Incoming students typically don’t get any merit money. There are some scholarships given to current students, such as perhaps $1000 to the best freshman chemistry or math student if the department has the funds set up for that. That would be one student of literally hundreds, so even current top college students don’t count on any merit money. No financial rewards directly from UW for any test scores or gpa. There are some National Merit Scholarships but that is a competition, not automatic. No automatic merit money even for instate students.</p>
<p>Short answer, if merit $ is a factor in your college selection process…don’t put Wisc. high on your list. Virtually impossible. Its a fantastic school, but several other schools (Indiana, Maimi of Ohio, Iowa, etc.) will throw money at your qualifications. Wisc. will welcome you with a handshake and a song.</p>
<p>They will also offer excellent academics and a peer group of high achievers, especially in the Honors courses. UW doesn’t need to pay good students to come.</p>
<p>The 2010-2011 NMSC report says that for 2011 entering class, UW-Madison had 20 National Merit Scholar freshmen, of which 3 received that scholarship from the university. I don’t know how to extrapolate from that to how many NMF freshmen they enrolled, maybe double, 40 or so? Compare that to Twin Cities which had 169 Scholars. </p>
<p>In 2010, according to the article I linked, Madison gave scholarships to 52 NMF, the one time $6500 awards. I was actually surprise to see that, didn’t realize they had sponsored that many.</p>
<p>I wrote to ‘askbucky’ to see how many NMF freshmen they have this fall, will see if I get a response. Can’t find the data easily anywhere.</p>
<p>There are plenty of students who enroll at UW who are NMS finalists who don’t get tracked. Don’t get hung up that. Some will not have listed UW as their top choice but end up there, etc. Remember only a minority of NMS finalists get money. Some may have perfect SATs but only a 3.8 or so…</p>
<p>There are about 1000 NMSF who don’t make it to finalist status nationwide. I suppose no one is keeping track of them. There are also plenty of kids who don’t take the PSAT, or don’t take it seriously, who are wonderful smart kids. </p>
<p>I’m sure UW is chock full of great students. But also the administration definitely is wringing it’s hands over the difficulty of attracting some of the kids they want the most since they don’t have any scholarship money for freshmen. This comes up in almost every ‘how are we doing’ document of theirs that I find.</p>
<p>Actually, what I’m hung up on is the possibility of getting the one-time $7,000 should D stay in WI. IF they give 52 awards, chances are very good. If they only give out 3, then not so good. There is at least the $5000 WI Academic Excellence award that comes from the state, I guess. Came across that while browsing the West High curriculum guide. Never heard of it before.</p>
<p>I was referring to finalists who don’t get any money, not just those who had a great PSAT scores but perhaps not great grades et al. </p>
<p>Eons ago the state gave a few $200- $800 merit awards per HS for instate colleges (?) and the one time NMS was $1000- costs have increased and so has award money.</p>
<p>Celeste, FYI the WI Academic Excellence Award is an award given to the Val. of the class or the top 1-5 students of the class if the school is large enough. (S1 hs had 100 seniors so they gave out 1; S2 hs had over 500 seniors so they gave out 5.) The scholarship is for $2,250 for 4 years if you make the gpa required at Madison. (I know of a few who received it only their freshman year as classes can be tough at Madison.) I have never heard of any of the very smart kids I know getting that one-time $7,000 scholarship that you have mentioned so it must be very HARD to get.</p>
<p>S1 and S2 were vals of their WI school and National Merit Finalists, but they ultimately did not choose UW-Madison because of financial reasons. Each went to different state schools on full-tuition scholarships and are thriving. UW-Madison is an excellent school that we are still considering for S3 but if your child has the stats that could get them a scholarship at another university, applying and visiting these schools might be a pleasant surprise.</p>
<p>Celeste, I just realized the $7,000 you quoted is Madison’s NMF award. Hopefully your child will get this. FYI, S1’s universities actual NMF award (not including the other scholarships they give to NMF students) is $1000-$2,000 p/year depending on FAFSA (my son as a junior has gotten $6,000 so far.) S2’s actual award is $1,000 p/year (although his first year he got the National Merit Corp.'s $2,500 one-time award so his u is only paying $1,000 for the following 3 years). This is above his full-tuition and board scholarship. Again good luck to your student!</p>
<p>Oh you are right! It’s $2,250/yr. It must have been some really old document I saw that said $5000 total. Our school has some ancient stuff still floating on website, not a very techy school. I also didn’t didn’t know it was doled out one year at a time.Thanks for the correction. At our school there are 500. Usually about 20 get 4.0 and they use ACT score as tiebreaker. If she keeps up grades, she will get it by the tiebreaker if she stays in WI. Twin Cities so far offered $12,000/yr. for NMF and says more may come later. Going to visit there soon. She applied to lots of schools with good merit aid, so she can choose when she sees everything later in the year. Complication at UW is oboe prof retiring, only hiring interim, and not even that until after 5/1. D wants a dbl major in music/math, but can’t meet music prof to see if a good fit. The $7,000 Kemper NMF award seems pretty unlikely unless they increase number of awards, while it seems they drastically decreased them a couple of years ago. If I get better info when they respond to me I’ll post something.I’m glad of any info about schools and process that you have time to share, find this all overwhelming.</p>
<p>Oh you are right! It’s $2,250/yr. It must have been some really old document I saw that said $5000 total. Our school has some ancient stuff still floating on website, not a very techy school. I also didn’t didn’t know it was doled out one year at a time.Thanks for the correction. At our school there are 500. Usually about 20 get 4.0 and they use ACT score as tiebreaker. If she keeps up grades, she will get it by the tiebreaker if she stays in WI. Twin Cities so far offered $12,000/yr. for NMF and says more may come later. Going to visit there soon. She applied to lots of schools with good merit aid, so she can choose when she sees everything later in the year. Complication at UW is oboe prof retiring, only hiring interim, and not even that until after 5/1. D wants a dbl major in music/math, but can’t meet music prof to see if a good fit. The $7,000 Kemper NMF award seems pretty unlikely unless they increase number of awards, while it seems they drastically decreased them a couple of years ago. If I get better info when they respond to me I’ll post something.I’m glad of any info about schools and process that you have time to share, find this all overwhelming.</p>
<p>Talked to UW financial aid. This is what goes on with NMF.</p>
<p>They have up to 70 of the Kemper $7,000 one-time awards to give to NMF freshmen each yr., though they don’t get that many NMF, but anyway give them out up to 70. That is not reported to NMSC so doesn’t show up in NMSC’s annual report. In addition, up to 5 more awards given to kids on very first list that NMSC sends around to colleges of kids who list them first-choice- additional $750-2,000/yr. renewable. Amt. based on financial need. Those are the 3 that are listed in NMSC report.</p>
<p>My daughter received the William F. Vilas Award 3 years ago when she was an incoming freshman. She did not apply for it so it was a nice surprise, even if it was only $400. It basically covered her textbooks. I believe it is awarded to students with high unweighted GPA’s. (Hers was 3.986) You also have to apply for financial aid to be considered for it.</p>
<p>^ Our D2 received the $400 Vilas award last fall without applying for financial aid. All she did was complete the UW application and sent in her HS transcript. She did have a high unweighted GPA.</p>