<p>I did not receive any scholarships from UMD, but I am wondering if setting up a meeting with a financial aid or admissions counselor will help. I really want to go to UMD, but I just don't think I can without any money from them. I got 5k a year from UMBC and a full ride to Howard. I was also admitted to the Scholars program at UMD. Does anyone have any experience with counselors at Maryland? Does anyone know if contacting admissions counselors will help?</p>
<p>Make sure that UMd has all the same information as the other schools. Mistakes can be made, and IF it was a mistake, they will fix it. Good luck.</p>
<p>thanks for the reply! Do you, by any chance, know who I should contact? I’m not sure if I should just call the financial aid office or send an email to them, or contact the office of undergraduate admissions, since they may be more responsible for who receives scholarships?</p>
<p>I’ve emailed some people,they aren’t seeming to be very helpful. All they can tell me is that I didn’t receive a scholarship because of the “competitiveness of the pool”. :(</p>
<p>Moreadventurous…it is def the admissions office who does the merit scholarships, but unless there was something they overlooked in your app or somehow your app didn’t get routed to the right area to be reviewed, you are unlikely to get the merit $$ changed…“competiveness of the pool” and all. :(</p>
<p>My daughter applied to 10 schools and was admitted to all of them. She has good stats but did not get the award money that she might have gotten in previous years with her stats. Every school has talked about the talent of this group of Freshmen. Whether more of the really top kids are choosing to apply to their state schools as a safety and getting that money or whether this is a line they give every year is unknown. I suspect that many of the kids who normally would have aimed for the ivy league schools looked at finances and determined that they needed to cover their bases just in case they weren’t admitted or in case they didn’t get enough financial support to make it possible in light of the economy. I think schools may also be having to cut back on some of the money awarded. </p>
<p>You have to take into account the economy, family finances, and the fact that if you look at the stats of just the people who post here this is a very talented pool and CC posters are just a snapshot of all applicants. </p>
<p>If I had to do it over I would have made my daughter retake the SAT because her 1380 and 2060 aren’t good enough to get the major awards. Her GPA is fine So we take what we are offered and she has to bite the bullet and save a little more over the summers to make up for the deficits. That and keep her fingers crossed that the MD Distinguished Scholar money comes for the semifinalists also.</p>
<p>Thank you for the replies everyone! I think I may keep trying for them to review my application but I will not expect anything. I guess I’m still a little unsettled because I know people who have lower GPA and SAT scores than me but received a scholarship. IT just seems weird to me that I didn’t receive anything… but oh well. Thanks!</p>
<p>@ moreadventurous - I posted this on another thread - If it makes you feel any better, we’re in the same boat as you. Our son scored 1490 math and reading and did receive 5,000 for the President’s scholarship, but nothing else. He was hoping for departmental or something, but came up with nothing else. I did call and talked to someone from the engineering department today and was told that (for the engineering department as least) that if your score was below 1500, then the FAFSA was considered to determine who got what. I am very disappointed to say the least as I’m sure you are.</p>
<p>Yeah I am definitely disappointed. I’ll probably end up going to CP anyway, but I really want to live on campus and I don’t think my parents can pay for that. It’s nice that you got a very specific reason why your son didn’t get a scholarship. I’ve been trying to get that but no one has told me anything other than vague things.</p>
<p>do you guys know when would they would give you the offer for financial aid (grants/loans)?</p>
<p>SAT 1550 and a VERY low FAFSa number due to extended unemployment and one child already at UMD. Received the Presidential for 8k but no other departmental money. Go figure.</p>
<p>RAHRAHRUTGERS - I got my fin aid offer (which was just a loan) through email a few weeks again. I think you can check your financial Aid through the Maryland financial aid website.</p>
<p>^^ this website <a href=“https://www.sis.umd.edu/fastat/?[/url]”>https://www.sis.umd.edu/fastat/?</a> and would my not show up yet cause i was only admitted to spring 2011?</p>
<p>oh, i’m not sure about that. Um, maybe you can try calling the financial aid office and see what they say?</p>
<p>My son enquired with the Engineering department for the department scholarships. He did not get one. His SAT is 1500. I reproduce the reply below:</p>
<p>Engineering only made 205 awards out of the 1800 students admitted to engineering. The majority of the awards were given to students with financial need. You do not have financial need according to the FAFSA results. The rest of the awards were given to students with very high SAT/ACT scores. You missed the cut-off.</p>
<p>This doesn’t jell with what wkwkwk is saying!</p>
<p>I just sent a request to have reviewed in case we fell through the cracks. i don’t expect anything, but i guess the explanation might be interesting. You could have a higher SAT than my son (by 50 points), I am doubtful one could have a much lower fasfa number.</p>
<p>What a lot of people seem to not understand on this site, but what clearly seems to be the trend is:
Admission to UMD is very numbers driven. SATs, GPAs, IS/OOS, etc.</p>
<p>Scholarship money is in no way numbers based. The scholarship money goes to people they are impressed with, not necessarily the people who have good numbers, with high SATs, GPAs etc. They look at the people themselves.
Did this kid go to a top high school, have well-off parents pay for
any and every thing that could give the kid an upperhand and they end up with high numbers and acheivements gained mostly through their connections? Maybe they’re not as impressive as a kid with slightly lower numbers, who made their own opportunities, or did something different than the norm, or had a lower slightly GPA because of other factors.
Scholarships seem to go to kids who either a) did the best they could with what they had or b) have parents who know someone</p>
<p>Basically, they admit a GPA and an SAT score. They give a scholarship to a real person.</p>
<p>“The merit scholarship award process at the University of Maryland-College Park is strictly merit-based: the two factors in our process are the transcript (in its entirety, not just the GPA) and the standardized test scores.”</p>
<p>That was the message I had received through an e-mail asking for a re-evaluation of my scholarship award (2240 SAT/34 ACT; not quite as good as some, but it was worth a try).</p>
<p>That is not true. You can tell that from a survey of the Gemstone dorm where you ask about scores/gpa/transcripts and who got money.</p>
<p>Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, we were not able to award you a merit scholarship. Typically, the top quarter of our admitted class receive some form of merit scholarship. The middle 50% of our admitted class this year ranged from 1240-1400 with an exceptionally rigorous curriculum and mostly As and very few Bs. Those receiving merit scholarship fell above that middle 50%. </p>
<p>so basically, no one really told me anything. I fit into that range. so… basically Maryland admissions counselors are not very helpful…</p>