Hi. My son was just taken off the wait list at the University of Delaware and when I spoke to financial aid they said there was no more money to be handed out. My question is, I know for a fact that 2 of his friends were offered some money and recently decided not to go there. Do I try to pursue and ask 1 more time? Do they just take all the merit money not used and apply it to other children next year? When I went to a financial aid meeting at my son’s high school the head of financial aid at Monmouth University said to always ask and they will always find something. Anyone have any experience or suggestions? Thsnks
Merit money is merely a tuition discount. Being placed on the waitlist usually means by definition that a student is not a top applicant, the ones who will receive merit money.
Congrats to your son. He wasn’t denied anything…he just didn’t receive something.
Certainly you can ask. But your son was accepted off the waitlist. Typically merit aid goes to top applicants…and usually those applicants get accepted regular decision.
Schools usually award more merit than they expect to be accepted…they have formulas they use to determine this. Where my kids went to college…there really wasn’t “extra” merit money hanging around…because the college expected some students NOT to accept these awards.
Just because someone else got aid from Delaware recently does NOT mean there is money left for all students accepted off the waitlist.
But sure…ask.
We were told by a certain school that they always give out more money than they have because they know some students will turn it down. My guess is that UDel offered merit money to the students that they were trying to attract, knowing some would say no. There is no extra money- although you could ask of course.
This is not surprising to me. Tuition discounting through what is commonly called merit money is generally used as a tool to attract students in the early part of the admissions cycle. The wait list by nature is for kids that really wanted to go to the school but were not admitted during the regular cycle. Congratulations to your son for getting in, but merit money, by nature, would not be part of the offer but heck it never hurts to ask!
Yes, thank you. He really wants to go there., He got merit money at all the other schools and got a fairly large offer at University of Vermont and Syracuse, which both believe it or not ended up being considerably less than UDEL and initially had way higher price tags. We loved Vermont and were hoping he’d end up there. He says it’s too far. We will try and make it work…ugh. Thanks for the input.
If you’re taken off the waitlist, don’t expect any merit aid.
As already mentioned, schools tend to offer more merit money than they have available, knowing that a certain percentage of those who are offered the awards will decide to go elsewhere. There’s no harm in asking, but I suspect your son will not receive any merit aid coming off the waitlist.
Is there a specific program/major at UDel which makes it so much better than University of Vermont or Syracuse?
No, all business schools. I really think he loved Vermont but it just came down to being a very long way from home. he definitely would have gotten into Delaware if he hadn’t originally declared his major to business. I’ve compared his GPA and SAT’s sports, clubs and volunteering to many that were accepted regular admission. I wish his guidance counselor actually had navigated him along better…lesson learned and will go about things differently with our daughter.
As others have said, said waitlisted students offed admission are not typically offered . Many waitlist are not need blind.
Stop comparing your son to others. That won’t benefit you at all. TBH…you might not even have the full story on the kinds of aid these students actually received.
Remember too, some merit aid is awarded because of some special talent or need the school wants to fulfill. The stats bar only gets you so far.
True story,my son was denied acceptance to UMD-CP. his stats were WAY above those of accepted students in the RD round. At the end, his stats were still in the top quartile for accepted students according to their common data set. He was originally placed on the waitlist, and was eventually rejected outright. It was what it was. As an FYI, he graduated from Boston University.
Certain colleges give out merit aid off the WL, and some don’t. I would look on the U Del subforum and see which is usually the case there.
For example, Private schools may make use of a WL to keep their “yield” up…but public schools may offer admission to the top students (not worrying about yield as much) and then if they don’t attend they go down the list.
Can the difference in price be applied to extra trips home on breaks or long weekends if he wants?