<p>My daughter really wants to attend UMD. She got in to their business school and wants to send in the deposit. I am making her wait on UCONN and want her to go to the accepted students day at UMD to be sure. An admissions counselor from UCONN told me that if the student has 1350 or above on the math and reading part of the SAT they get $5000 a year merit. I have no idea what if anything UMD will give. </p>
<p>@pgddad…we are right there with you in the same frustrating boat. We are lifelong DE residents and have 2 recent UD grads and one still attending UD. Our daughters application was sent in mid-October and complete by Nov 1. We applied so early so we would hear back early. I am seeing students on this blog that found out they were accepted before Christmas to the same major my daughter applied for! Congrats to ALL students who have been accepted but UD has really dropped the ball on this C2D thing. I called admissions more than 5-6 weeks ago and they said that her application was nearing the end of the decision process and we would be hearing from them soon. Like I said that was 5-6 weeks ago. My daughter is literally making herself sick over this and momma is NOT happy about that! Frustrated beyond belief!</p>
<p>So much for the “Commitment to Delawareans” that UD trumpets all over their website. I think sometimes UD forgets where a large portion of their budget comes from as a state supported university!</p>
<p>It’s beyond frustrating. I have done the online chat thing with admissions and even asked about the C2D and they won’t even answer my questions regarding it. The last time I chatted with admissions just last week they said they hadn’t made any decision on my D yet but 5-6 weeks ago she was “nearing the end of the decision process”. I realize my daughters major is highly competitive, but after seeing some of the accepted students stats on here she is right up there with them. I have been trying to make sense of this years admission process but I can’t make heads or tails of it. My poor D actually has herself convinced that she isn’t getting in and that’s why it’s taking so long to hear back. She figures if they wanted to accept her they would have done it already.</p>
<p>Accepted into the honors program for biomedical engineering.
-weighted GPA: 4.7 rank: 9/466
State- NJ
ACT: 32
-9 APs, all else honors
-several awards
-hospice volunteer
-I also speak Dutch, Spanish, and French
-Hispanic female
- varsity soccer and track
-good essays and recommendations</p>
<p>*$12,000 a year merit scholarship!</p>
<p>Guys if they said that merit aid will be determined mid-march than it will be determined than. Dont assume that you didnt get any just because it hasnt shown up on your portal yet, it will come mid-march.</p>
<p>With the new admission process it really is difficult to know for sure if additional merit aid awards will be announced in March. My suspicion would be that if additional merit aid awards are announced in March they will be at the lower level of amounts (obviously anything is better than nothing but I would not expect large award/grant amounts). The term “financial aid” as used by UD (at least in the past) generally has referred more commonly to loan awards a student might be eligible for along with a small number of grant award and a small number of "need-based’ awards. Every student who has submitted a FAFSA is eligible for a federal Stafford loan irregardless of income. Unfortunately the Stafford Loan amount for the freshman year is relatively small (I believe only 2-3K) but the amount does increase in subsquent years. If an applicant’s FAFSA “score” is low enough the loan is subsidized while the student is in college (the governmment pays the interest amount on the loan). If not subsidized interest accrues while the student is in school and is added to the loan principle when the student graduates (you have to start paying the loan back 6 month after you graduate unless you enter grad school-but while in grad school the interest keeps accumulating). The interest rate on the Federal Stafford loan is relatively low (I believe right now 4.8%). College loans from most all other sources have much, much higher interest rates and the interest also accrues on most all these other loans while the student is in school. Over 4 years you might think you borrowed 40K but by the time you graduate with the accrued interest you might owe over 50K totally. Just some food for thought. </p>
<p>@Mwallenmd, I agree with your thoughts on possible merit money awarded after the initial acceptance. I don’t recall any students or parents from previous years reporting new or additional merit aid when the Financial Aid packages were released. I will add that my daughter received an additional merit scholarship after her freshman year. That was a welcome surprise.</p>
<p>And for reference, the Stafford Loan amounts are currently as follows:</p>
<p>1st year - $5,500
2nd year - $6,500
3rd year and beyond - $7,500</p>
<p>So for a typical 4-year undergrad education, the Stafford Loan amount would be $27,000. For the 2012 - 2013 school year, the interest rate on the subsidized loans was 3.4% and 6.8 % for the unsubsidized loans. Currently, both subsidized and unsubsidized loans are at 3.86%.</p>
<p>I will give my daughter’s student loan servicing company some credit - they have made it easy for her to make interest payments on the unsubsidized portion of her loans. That should help avoid the bubble after graduation.</p>
<p>Fauster:
Thanks for providing up-to-date info regarding Stafford loan amounts and interest rates (they change as per the whims of the US Congress). At least the total amount is a little higher than when our D was at UD. Unfortunately the total amount is still relatively small but I certainly I would take this loan before just about any other college loan. Our D (actually us) also made the interest payments on the unsubsidized portion of her Stafford loans while she was at school. At least this way you can avoid paying interest on the unsubsidized interest over time. We just paid the interest every 6 months when she received her Stafford loan statement. I also would recommend doing this if possible. </p>
<p>Hey guys, I was accepted into the honors program two days ago. How can I tell if I got any type of scholarship? Do most kids in the honors program get something? Thanks. </p>
<p>DG, for honors merit based aid I got a separate letter for it ~5 days after my acceptance package, both via snail mail. From what I understand if you know your website ID though it should be online though? If not, the wait’s not bad. And it does seem like A LOT of honors kids get aid… </p>
<p>My OOS from NJ is still waiting. Applied end of October. He did get a letter in January saying they wanted to see his midterm grades. I am a UD Alum and this is killing me. He got into TCNJ today and I didn’t think we would know anything until April 1. Can’t believe he still has not heard from UD. He doesn’t seem to care because he is in to Loyola and TCNJ which he says are his top 2. I think if he got into UD he may consider as well.</p>
<p>@crazysoccermom my D is waiting since oct we are oos never got the letter for mis year grades although when i called 3 weeks ago to find out what the heck was going on they said thats what they were waiting for lmao so who knows whats going on over there been having some conversations with others also waiting it seems they really have not treated this system fairly and are going to lose some good kids if they wait to long . I also think they are waiting to see how many deposits they may or may not be getting</p>
<p>same @crazysoccermom OOS from NJ applied Oct 14th… several changes to his portal but sent mid term grades only because we had not heard anything and read on here several had gotten requests from UD. Turns out they were waiting for his as well. My D is a sophomore there now so my son really wants to get in. He has several options but would like UD as a solid highly ranked choice. </p>
<p>My OOS Son applied at the last hour on the last day. Did not apply to honors. Received admission notice by snail mail yesterday. </p>
<p>Previous post: January 28
My daughter’s portal was also changed yesterday to “official notice via mail”. Hopefully something in the mail soon.</p>
<p>Previous post: February 17
We have not seen anything in the mail yet, but this morning I looked on her portal and she has “acceptance” She applied with first choice “Marketing” and second choice “Business Undeclared” but it now says “University Studies”. That’s not the end of the world. She will attend. </p>
<p>Daughter received the yellow acceptance envelope in the mail yesterday. </p>
<p>@bjkdad- did your son’s portal ever change to anything other than under review?</p>
<p>we didn’t know about the portal. just signed up for it ten minutes ago.</p>
<p>FYI: My D applied to the honor’s program in business at the end of December. She received a response February 17th thru email. Two days later we received the official offer thru snail mail. She was accepted into the honors program for business. Her stats are 4.25 GPA weighted average and 32 ACT. She also has amazing EC from captain of sport to student council and CS. However we did not receive any type of merit scholarship in the email, snail mail, or the portal. I ended up calling admissions twice. First time they told me that merit scholarships for recent recipients were not coming out till mid-march. I called again today just to verify that I was asking about merit scholarship and not need base scholarship. Again they told me it was not coming out till mid-march. I’m a bit confused because so many people have gotten merit scholarship notifications even recent acceptances. Guess all we can do is wait and see.</p>
<p>scw123:
So it does appear that additional merit aid awards will be announced in mid-March with the new admission procedure. With your D’s admission to the Honors Program combined with her stats I can’t believe that she would not be awarded some decent merit aid (based on awards already announced on this thread). Perhaps there is some delay in finalizing and coordinating the merit awards with the acceptances so UD decided not to wait any longer about at least announcing the acceptances. Just my thoughts. Congrats on your D’s acceptance. </p>