UW is my son’s #1 school. He really wants to get in and get some merit scholarship money.
Here are his stats:
School:
GPA 3.889uw/4.0w
ACT 32 (English 30, Math 33, Reading 32, Science 34, Writing 26)
Rank: 27/402
Taken 3 AP classes so far (AP US History, AP Lang, AP Gov)
Taking 3 AP classes this year (AP Litt, AP Calc AB, AP Chem)
EC:
NHS All 3 eligible years - Officer this year
Varsity Swimming - All 4 years
Marching Band - All 4 years - 2nd in State and 3rd in State - Section Leader - 2 years, Field Conductor 1 year
Wind Symphony - last 2 of 4 years (Top band, State level honors)
Symphonic Band - first 2 of 4 years (Middle band, First Chair, State level honors)
Northern Colorado Honor Band - Regional Honor Band - 2 years (3rd year not yet selected)
Colorado State University Honor Band - Regional Honor Band - 2 years
Boy Scouts of America - Eagle Scout, Bronze Palm - Multiple leadership positions including Senior Patrol Leader (2), 150+ hours of community service
City of Loveland Youth Advisory Commission - 4th year. City Government position. - 100+ hours of community service
He is undecided for his major. The merit scholarship money I am refering to is exactly that, scholarship based on his performance in High School. Many schools offer it (OSU has the Buckeye Nation scholarship - merit based, up to $13,500 per year), Our FAFSA is too high for financial aid.
There are no substantial automatic merit scholarships that UW-Madison awards to incoming freshmen based on high school performance. Be prepared to pay the full $50k cost of attendance.
Oh, right - I’ve read about that though it remains to be seen (thanks for posting the link). A 32 ACT, while excellent, is at the bottom of the top quartile of admitted students so may not be high enough for whatever merit aid UW plans to start awarding. Maybe an applicant needs to be a NMF or 35-36 ACT.
I applied last year and went through the same phase. I believe when you are waiting for admission or once you get in, you can apply for various scholarships on your UW account. As long as his application essays are average, he shouldn’t have a tough time getting in at all.
Getting the scholarship is merit, not need based. The amount received could be reduced if other scholarship money used would make the amount received exceed the amount owed UW. This was happening eons ago as well/ I remember deferring a private one time scholarship to max out on some one time awards (seem to recall at that time there were WI honor scholarships- the max amount seems ridiculously low by today’s standards, but so were costs).
The wording in the link seems to indicate that UW receives money via NMS for a student based on other money received (from other scholarship money for the student). btw- only 5 UW sponsored NM scholarships- would not count on that. You would need to find out your D’s chances of getting a MN NMS- the school needs to be ranked #1 on its form. Since we could pay for son’s schooling I chose to not encourage him to rank UW as his #1 on the NMS forms- I figured another student could use the money instead of him (if he were chosen). I also had wondered how much I would have gotten from UW decades ago if I had ranked UW # 1, I desperately wanted to leave town and tried to get one from an OOS public U- only had a one time NMS award from a private company.
Perhaps others would know if public U’s favor instate students for NMS awards.
I see where UW is falling into line with offering more merit money than in the past because they may be losing top students to other schools. Constantly changing admissions processes.