I tried hunting around Berkeley’s website, but I couldn’t figure much out. Do they invite you/give you merit scholarships at the time of acceptance or do you have to apply for them separately?
You got accepted to Stanford…why worry about Berkeley?
Something smells fishy here.
They will usually let you know about Regents scholarship (10k over 4 years) at time of acceptance, there is no separate application. Along with the need based aid they are more focused on, most University Scholarships are based on need. Otherwise I don’t know that there are any scholarships for freshmen, I think the department scholarships are for continuing students but you can check.
http://financialaid.berkeley.edu/scholarships
Thanks, @BrownParent . I guess I’ll just wait then.
For the rest, although I’d love to go to Stanford, it’s a pretty pricey school.
Did you try running this?
http://financialaid.berkeley.edu/estimate-your-financial-aid
Yeah, pretty much my only hope is merit aid
For some scholarships, you are invited to compete, or are awarded the scholarship, based on your regular application. For others (e.g. the Drake full ride for mechanical engineering majors and the Alumni scholarships), there are separate applications.
Be aware that most merit scholarships at Berkeley are not that big (with the exception of Drake).
@Stanccepted There is no merit at Stanford.
Are your parents saying that they won’t pay for S?
Will they pay for Berkeley? Berkeley’s aid is mostly need based. Even their Regents award is very small if you don’t have need.
Ah, thanks for the info about Alum scholarships, I forgot about those @ucbalumnus
If you got accepted to Stanford, you have the stats to garner merit aid at other places…but I’m not sure Berkeley is one of them. Did you apply to schools where your chances of merit aid are high…or did you apply only to highly competitive schools that are very expensive to attend?
And this:
You therefore are not a resident of CA for instate tuition purposes. The costs are very high to attend Cal as an OOS student.
I think I have all of the information I need, thanks everyone for your help
^ I’m afraid that just really sounds like you don’t want to talk about the elephant in the room (CA residency).
Did you apply for aid @ Stanford? They have some of the best FA in the country, so even if your income wouldn’t qualify for aid at other schools, they might give you some. If you did apply, have you gotten your aid package yet?
If you get a package that isn’t quite affordable, but it’s close to being so: Freshman = required to live on campus, but if your parents are gonna live pretty close to the school, would you be willing to commute the following years to save $?
Find other schools that are affordable, but also try to work it out w/Stanford as well.
this student apparently got insufficient need based aid from Stanford, and is now hoping for sufficient merit aid to attend Cal.
^Ding ding ding. Berkeley would be a very attractive option if I got lots of merit aid, otherwise I’ll foot the bill for Stanford
^ Ahh I see. Well, as others have mentioned, Berkeley merit = very small. OOS costs for Berkeley = almost as expensive as Stanford, roughly equal if S gave you a tiny bit of aid. If you can’t pay, you’re gonna need to consider other schools, but from the prev. post it sounds like you can?
Eastman Kodak used to have a nice little 3 year merit scholarship for the top Freshman Chemistry student, but I’m guessing that’s gone now.
And, there’s always ROTC.
http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Education/Scholarships/index.htm?CID=go&idhbx=scholarships
Kodak gives cinemtography scholarships…but the applications for now are closed.
And my opinion…one shoild only do ROTC if one is interested in the military.
I thoroughly agree. By the way, ROTC is very good at sniffing out applicants who have minimal interest.