Colleges with good Merit Award

<p>@celesteroberts - you are correct on what is included in the UC award, however a one-time $1500 laptop award is also added. I beg to differ on WSU - you are referring to WASHINGTON State. I am referring to WRIGHT State in Ohio, which has a well-regarded MT Program. I apologize for my ignorance, but I am not familiar with Washington State and its MT program (wrong half of the country for our location and does not appear on the MT college list at heading of this CC topic so I thought I was safe abbreviating WSU).
<a href=“RaiderConnect | Enrollment Services | RaiderConnect | Wright State University”>http://www.wright.edu/undergraduate-admissions/paying-for-college&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Mom4bwayboy, I’m sorry. My error. These acronyms are so confusing. When people use them I tend to assume they are referring to national universities. Wright is probably well-known in Ohio and it’s a very nice scholarship. Oops. I don’t even know if Washington State has MT.</p>

<p>The NMF awards often have some extra one-time tidbit thrown in. At ASU it is a couple thousand for research, though I don’t know that it is listed anywhere in description.</p>

<p>Bob has the Wright State scholarship on his list, but it’s listed as being available for in-state students only. I see it doesn’t say that on the website’s scholarship description. Do you happen to know? If OOS students are eligible, should update the list.</p>

<p>Edited to add- Just checked. Looks like Washington State does not even have MT. If I was an MT parent I suppose I would have known that…</p>

<p>Just to add to the confusion, there is yet another WSU with an MT program - Wichita State University. :)</p>

<p>^^ And they have a large NMF scholarship!
<a href=“http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=merit_scholarships&p=/National_merit/”>http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=merit_scholarships&p=/National_merit/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>celesteroberts - as far as I know the Wright State scholarship is available to OOS, but only covers up to In-State tuition amount - $9500 IS vs. 18,500 OOS, not a bad differential - but I am certainly no expert. Wright State merit scholarship awardees are also eligible for additional honors (competitive) and talent-based scholarships - even ABOVE the total cost of attendance.</p>

<p>While Wright State may not be on the national radar, for those MTers who are also interested in screen/film, WSU has a VERY well regarded film program, and MT/Acting students are often cast in student film productions.</p>

<p>My D (an OH resident) has very good grades & test scores, but not NMF. She didn’t get much of a scholarship from Wright State. However, she got very good merit scholarships from Kent State and Northern Kentucky. KSU’s site is a little vague about their award amounts and D’s offer was actually a combination of a few scholarships (all merit or honors). NKU followed what was listed on their web site. I recommend those 2 as regional schools with MT and good merit. </p>

<p>University of the Arts gives a scholarship that combines academic merit with talent. My D is a great student and got their highest award.
Muhlenberg also gives significant scholarships for academics. </p>

<p>I learned to think of this a bit differently. Great merit aide was only great for us if the cost of tuition wasn’t 45K + no matter how generous the school’s merit aide is we couldnt swing that price tag. We learned this the hard way, Rider does give good merit aide but DC is 56K so that brought the our cost just out of reach. And Robin said the MT talent award was very small. So just my two cents on this one.</p>

<p>One thing that I didn’t realize going in to this is any needs based grants you see on the cost estimators are reduced if you receive talent scholarships, at least at the schools S was accepted at. </p>

<p>^Good point MTMajorCook. Talent or other awards may reduce your “need”, at least in the school’s calculations. Now that we are at the end of this roller coaster, I am so grateful that son’s acceptances were from schools that were in the budget after scholarships, and I consider us very lucky.</p>

<p>Does ASU stand for Arizona State University? If so, don’t they have a really big cut system? I seem to recall this being discussed quite a bit a few years back. If they do, it’s something to weigh when choosing where to apply regardless of how much scholarship a school gives.</p>

<p>The Muhlenberg merit scholarship can be combined with the talent scholarship which is nice. Pace, Wagner, Rider and Muhlenberg all gave good merit aid to our D.</p>

<p>BethsMom, you are thinking of University of Arizona I believe.</p>

<p>Yes that is my understanding as well LoveMyMTGirl. The threads here that I have reviewed talk about a cut system at the University of Arizona. As far as I have found that is not the case at ASU which offers a BM as opposed to a BFA.</p>

<p>FSU has very good awards for high academic merit (UW GPA 3.9+ AND SAT over 2000 or ACT over 31)</p>

<p>LoveMyMTGirl and sopranomtmom - thanks for clearing that up.</p>

<p>This is several years back, but to my knowledge all are still available. These are no-need merit awards: NYU (10K-talent scholarship–VP (MT)), Muhlenberg (20K–in combination with academics and leadership), GW (15K-vocal performance), American ($22k-academics and vocal performance). Depending on the school, with financial need the awards may have been higher (but these were without any financial need.) </p>

<p>My daughter was a decent though not outstanding student, and stats were very average. We did not qualify for need-based aid. I was actually shocked that any school threw money at her. Yet Pace and Wagner gave the most, about $25,000 a year. UArts offered $13K per year, Hartt I believe $9K per year, Montclair $4K per year, and Marymount $2K per year. BoCo offered nothing. (She chose Montclair.) </p>

<p>Coastal Carolina has a generous sliding scale of Merit-Based Scholarship for those who qualify - four levels starting at 3.5+/24.
Also available is the Visual and Performing Arts Merit-Based Scholarship for 3.0/21.
Academic and talent scholarships can not be stacked.
Academic and talent scholarships also available for transfer students.
Honors Program Award includes the use of a new laptop to use while in the program at Coastal Carolina.</p>

<p>Texas State offers a $1000 scholarship to all accepted MT students. For out-of-state kids, this qualifies them for in-state tuition. This is automatic with admission to the MT program.</p>

<p>There are additional merit and need-based scholarship opportunities for in-state and out-of-state students that do require an application that should be submitted with your initial audition application.</p>

<p>*Note: While this seems to be more of an advantage to out-of-state students, it is also an advantage to in-state students who are not competing with out-of-state dollars.</p>

<p>We learned the hard way this audition season the dirty little secret about GPA’s and merit awards. Our D kept a pretty hard schedule (for her) this year - Calculus, Statistics, Anatomy, AP History, Honors English - thinking that the extra weighting would boost her GPA and that the heavy load would impress admissions people.</p>

<p>The sad truth is that of the 20+ schools that we applied to NOT A SINGLE ONE asked for a weighted GPA when calculating merit awards. This meant that D’s unweighted GPA of 3.4 was used when giving her merit awards. Her weighted GPA would have been over 4.0. At some schools this cost her as much as $4,000.00 a year in award money. </p>

<p>This was especially disappointing because going through the busy audition season while doing two musicals made it hard for her to keep up with homework. In fact, when the Calc got to be too much she wrote each of the schools to ask if they cared if she dropped it. The only school that objected was NYU. The rest of the schools asked “why are you taking calc?”</p>

<p>My point is this - research each school to see how they calculate a GPA and what effect it has on the size of the award. Some schools also determine merit by ACT/SAT scores more than GPA. For the school that D ultimately selected she would have received an additional $4,000.00 if she had boosted her ACT by just 3 points! Clearly her time would have been better spent doing ACT prep than taking such a heavy class load. She would have gotten better awards getting straight A’s in foods, basket weaving, and film appreciation and she would have been less stressed out.</p>