<p>OP, as a perspective my OOS D had slightly higher stats than yours coming into UW-Madison as a freshman and got nothing. And this was 2009, when University money wasn’t even as tight as it is now. But she was so enamored of the place that we let her attend, though she had merit awards elsewhere.</p>
<p>We had heard at orientation that while the U. is stingy for incoming freshman, there could be some departmental scholarships down the line for high achievers, GPA & activity-wise, and that’s borne out to be true. Even with only good not great grades, she has received two awards, each over $1000. We were happy to take it!</p>
<p>Hey Barrons–I can only speak for The College of Agricultural Life Sciences (CALS), which seems to have their collective head together more than most.</p>
<p>I also tell them CALS has more aid money than most so if they have the major go through CALS. Engineering and Business also have pretty good aid for students.</p>
<p>Since those are much smaller departments than L&S it seems logical there is less competition for funds. Students should still choose their major on what works best for them, not potential aid. Perhaps one reason to not give departmental funds to incoming students- only those who prove they have an interest by taking courses get the scholarships.</p>
<p>The problem with that is that you lose a slice of the top students to other schools that offer better fin aid to incoming students. Most do not want to bet on getting money in the future. They are working to change that and coordinate aid to future majors in the depts with more $$$.</p>
<p>My son is National Merit Recognized, has an ACT of 34, a GPA of 4.7, and President of National Honor Society. His first choice was University of Wisconsin but he will not be going there due to their lack of merit based aid for out of state students. I fail to understand how not helping a student ranked in the top 1% nationally is benefitting their University. I also wonder how this will effect his and others’ attitude toward the University when it comes time to choose a Grad School program. At this point our son would pay less money at some Ivy League schools than at the University of Wisconsin. I also find it interesting that this fact was left out during the financial information portion of our visit. When it comes down to it I am feeling that is a loss for my son, but more of one for the University.</p>
<p>The top publics generally do not offer automatic merit money to OOS students, presumably because they don’t need to use it to attract top students. One step down and there is lots of automatic money – IU, Iowa, Alabama, etc. With tuition of about $27k for OOS, UW is a lot cheaper than full pay at privates. Students for whom financial and merit aid are necessary to shrink the net price of school need to look beyond the top publics unless they are lucky enough to be in-state at one. </p>
<p>To the OP, on College Selection board (or maybe on Admissions), there is a sticky thread on automatic scholarships – take a look at those, if that is a priority.</p>
<p>Likewise I think a response is due to the disappointed OOS mom. The thread may have started for last year’s students but the same policies hold. Midwestmom… has good comments (too bad I can’t refer to a thread # anymore).</p>
<p>UW does not need her son, whose stats are not as high as my son’s were and my son was not the smartest in his math/physics Honors classes (despite earning A’s)- math being ranked about 15th for its grad school. Plenty of excellent students will choose UW. It is too bad her state flagship is not as good so they could benefit from the same great instate education WI residents can. A fringe benefit of living in a high tax state.</p>
<p>After reading more information like this, my D gave up on UW as she is not likely to get enough FA from it as oos student. I was trying to convince her to apply for the merit scholarships, but she found it not worth the effort as it involves a lot more work than the scholarships from other schools and the chance to get enough FA from oos is very low. I guess she will decline the admission offer soon to open up the spot for someone else.</p>
<p>In response to wis75, “UW doesn’t need to pay good students to come”, I disagree completely. Wisconsin is missing out on a great deal of excellent students because they do not care to entice exceptional students from families that do not require financial aid. My senior son is a 4.0 student, 35 ACT…top of his class at one of the best high schools in WI. UW could care less. Other universities want him. Despite both his parents being UW alumni, he will most likely be going to Ohio State where they have offered him +$18,000 per year…potentially more.</p>
<p>@jalapeno12: Where should the money come from for merit aid? Would you like to pay more in income and/or property taxes so that public universities can give merit aid?</p>
<p>@jalapeno12 your comment was very rude. UW may not have it in their budget being a land-grant public university. You don’t know the situation. If your son really wanted to attend UW, he would merit aid or not.</p>
<p>NEED based aid instead of giving people like my son (equally smart) money he doesn’t need? I quietly did not encourage him to list UW first for NMS so other students could be those recipients. I needed all the financial aid I could get, and translated that plus hard work into being able to afford schools for my son- many more intelligent people do not get as financially lucky I know. I think it is much better to give students aid based on need instead of just for being smart (especially with having well off parents). Who knows how many students would be displaced because money they now receive went to top students whose parents could afford to pay?</p>
<p>Jal… you need to decide if the cost of Ohio State is worth any differences in the academics in your son’s likely major.</p>
<p>It is sadly true that the UW system is in a dismal state financially and has no money to fund merit scholarships. I’m sure there are many in administration who would love to do so, these days especially , but it seems not to ever have been a big priority and now it is impossible. You would think that when they cut professor salaries 10% a year ago that it might have produced some $$, but he-who-shall-not-be-named used that money to close a budget gap.</p>
<p>In any case, it is interesting to see how some of the Midwest publics have fared over the past 10 years in attracting bright students. I’m using the mid 50% ACT range as a gross and imperfect indicator, but easy to find and list. Note that in that time span the mean ACT rose by 0.3. Also due to prep and repeat testing the curve flattened on the right so that to capture the same group of students requires roughly a 1 point increase.</p>
<p>Forgive my ineptness in not knowing how to produce a nice table here. For Michigan they have a glitch so can’t access 2003 and had to use 2002 instead.</p>
<p>At any rate some of these have risen quite dramatically due to very intensely driven campaigns to attract good students and raise the caliber of the university. Almost every school rose at least one point, to in effect stay in place. Except for one. </p>
<p>I initially got interested because my H is always telling me that UW is so much better than UMN and OSU. I was pretty sure he was mistaken and living in the past. He was pretty shocked when I showed him.</p>
<p>Admittedly this is just one shallow measure and a university is a lot more than its students’ test scores. But it isn’t nothing either. </p>