<p>My DD received her merit award letter today from Oregon State and we were surprised at how small it was. We knew Oregon State was not generous but during our visit last February we were told my DD would receive the Provost Scholarship for $7 a year which would make the school affordable for our family. Instead my DD was given the Tuition Grant Scholarship for $3K a year. </p>
<p>I called the Financial Aid office and was told that this was their final offer. I explained that my daughters GPA and test scores which were well over the threshold of what was required. They explained that it could have been my daughter's essay questions. My DD put a lot of time into them and I know they were good because she just won a national competitive scholarship out of 10K applicants writing basically the same essays. My daughter is head of her robotics team which was regional championships and competed in the world championship; a National Hispanic Scholarship winner; recipient of tons of awards; a 3 varsity athlete; a recipient of the Presidential Service Award for over 100 hours of service each year of high schools. She worked full time this past summer in a paid internship as a mechanical engineering intern. She is a world-wide ambassador for Google. She wants to major in mechanical engineering and computer science. Plus she was accepted to Oregon State early after submitting her application just two weeks before notification of acceptance. </p>
<p>What is also confusing is that last year I helped a student apply to Oregon State who did receive the $7k scholarship. This student had only a 3.1 gpa and had been kicked out of her previous high school for cheating which was disclosed on her application. She didn't do close to the amount of EC/CS that my DD does. </p>
<p>Oregon State was a school my dd liked a lot and wanted to attend. However our family needs merit money to attend college and receiving such a small scholarship took it out of contention now. </p>
<p>Did anyone else receive a smaller merit award than what they were expecting?</p>
<p>My son was admitted and recieved an Academic Achievement Scholarship. It’s the equivalent of the Provost, but for instate students and with a lower top award (because of the less expensive instate tuition). His letter did say though that he’d automatically be entered for scholarships that are decided later, including their top award, President’s. Maybe that’s just the max they can commit to now?</p>
<p>eyemg- Thanks for the info. I am hopeful that more money may be coming. I am not trying to be ungrateful for what they awarded but since money is an issue for us we spend a lot of time making sure my DD’s list is a good list. We were told from several sources at Oregon State that she would get the $7k award. Plus it doesn’t really make sense in light of the student I helped last year. Also we are Hispanic so that would be an additional hook. Hopefully my DD will get honors college too.</p>
<p>By the way congrats on the scholarship for you son. I hope Oregon State works out for him.</p>
<p>I’m assuming you are non-resident? We are too and DD did get the $7000 Provost. Your childs ECs seem outstanding. Was there any mention on the Diversity Scholarship? (since you mentioned Hispanic in your post). Maybe they will award more later on. I really don’t know. If it helps, my DD’s hard stats were GPA 3.9 (UW) and ACT 33. Minimum criteria from the website was 3.75 and 26 (which I assume you already know).
The $7000 brings the COA to 31,589 (I think those are last year’s numbers), so it still isn’t cheap. We will wait to compare with some privates and in-states, but won’t get those until March.</p>
<p>Looking at the web site, it seems to be GPA OR test score? My D has not done her application yet, but based on your information as having submitted the applications, are you eligible if you meet the test score but not grade requirement? Or am I just seeing what I want to see: ;-)</p>
<p>Provost Scholarship</p>
<p>Competitive scholarship offered to exceptional non-resident first-year and transfer students. Award amounts vary and are renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study with specific renewal requirements to be met by recipients.</p>
<p>Award amount varies from $7000 to $4000/year, renewable for 4 years.
Minimum Eligibility Requirements: Non-Resident, Entering Freshman: 3.75 GPA or 1800+ SAT/26 to 28 ACT. Transfer Students: 3.75 GPA and 36 or more college credit hours.</p>
<p>And by the way, the scholarship letter we received didn’t say anything about being automatically entered for scholarships that are decided later. Maybe that is just for residents. Also, don’t know if it matters, but she is not applying for honors college.</p>
<p>jbourne- My DD grades and test scores exceed the threshold plus she applied for honors college too. My dd sent an email to our regional admission rep and got no response. I left a telephone message today. I only mentioned some of my DD’s EC’s/Honors. When she was a sophomore Google sponsored her attendance at a summer program at Caltech in computer science and she was selected by the faculty as “top student”. She is very active in SWE and other science consortium for girls in our community and junior was selected as a presenter for our state-wide STEM Summit where she spoke to educators about her STEM projects. She mentors 6 students from the local barrio and is the environmental chair on her school’s community service board and has organized city-wide build a bikes. She just won a national award in computer science. She writes great essays and is modest. In fact she will not let her school announce to anyone her position with google. </p>
<p>We visited Oregon State in February and it was an indepth visit. My DD spent a lot of time with professors; in labs and with the robotics team (she would be there only girl). Her recs are great. </p>
<p>We are just a middle class family who makes just over the threshold for financial aid so merit is extremely important. My DD loved Oregon State but at almost full price it is not possible for our family to pay that amount. </p>
<p>There was no mention of diversity on her scholarship letter but she has received invites from diversity events on campus like LAMSP. </p>
<p>Congrats to everyone else. We will just have to pursue it further.</p>
<p>itsv – notice this post above from the OSU website, “Award amount varies from $7000 to $4000/year, renewable for 4 years.” It looks to me like they didn’t even give the minimum if you only got $3k. I would consider moving up the ladder in the financial aid office because it really does look like a mistake.</p>
<p>itsv – my mistake on the minimum as she didn’t even get the Provost award. What was her class rank? I just had an unrelated discussion with some folks at OSU, and they seem to treat class rank as pretty critical WITHOUT considering the difficulty of the high school the student attends. My son attends a strong HS, so his rank is somewhat low (probably top 7%) , and I suspect when the money comes back, we will be equally unhappy.</p>
<p>ITSV are you in state or out of state?
You may get better offers from other schools.
My first son got some great scholarships from some schools and then USC gave him nothing. We called and wrote but never could figure out why not.</p>
<p>Futureholds and Daddio3- Thank you for your posts. My DD’s school does not rank. Plus my DD transferred schools after freshmen year so it is difficult to give an estimation for her. Her school gives the 25th and 50th class percentile estimation. At my DD’s old school she would be top 10% but at her new school her gpa only puts her in top 50%-the school is really wonderful and offers a ton of ap and honors classes. Because my DD didn’t have the prerequisites she couldn’t take a ton of APs or honors until this year. So right out of the box she had to “battle” to get good grades and get caught up which she did. We are pretty skilled at development of a college list because this is our last child. Her brother got $750K in merit money and attends Ohio State on a full merit ride. DD as better grades and test scores and ECs than her brother yet her merit awards have not come close to her brothers. I suspect that the colleges are seeing her high schools profile and thinking she isn’t very accomplished and ignoring the issue that she transferred. Plus what makes it even more perplexing is that she keeps on hitting on the hard to get national private scholarships. So I figured that we are just going to have to patch together a lot of these private scholarships to make up the gap. I also think that colleges may think we are “rich” because she goes to an expensive private high school but we are not. We just made the decision to cut everything out to afford her school since it had an engineering dept and could offer so much for her. Each tuition bill means digging through seat cushions. </p>
<p>My DD did get accepted into Honors College at Oregon State. The above described merit questions I asked are no longer relevant because DD got accepted to Georgia Tech and has enrolled for the Fall. One thing that has turned me off to OSU is that we never had phone calls or emails returned from the admissions rep assigned to our area. At Ohio State we had such a good relationship with our rep that she almost became like family. It gave me a good sign that despite being such a large school; Ohio State would make sure my DS was okay. At Georgia Tech we have a wonderful relationship with the admission staff and I know they did everything in there power to help my DD gain acceptance. </p>
<p>Good luck to those who will be enrolling in Oregon State. Thank you all again for your suggestions. </p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter, too. It sounds like it has worked out quite well. We are in-state, so OSU is son’s safety school, but unless OSU steps up on the merit aid more than I think they will, I doubt son will attend. He has applications in at several better options for his major and on the calculators, the money looks pretty similar for us. Also, the school is bigger than son wants (which ruled out Ohio State and Georgia Tech).</p>
<p>Update: Today my DD received an email from Oregon State. It said that they did a final review and that they are adding to her scholarships. She will now be awarded the Provost Scholarship in addition to the Tuition Grant she received earlier. It is nice that she finally received the scholarship that OSU had told us last year she would get. These awards now make Oregon State affordable for our family. As I reported in January my DD has decided to attend Georgia Tech. I am posting this in case some of you still trying to determine if Oregon State is affordable for your family. I recommend checking emails to see if Oregon State has awarded additional scholarships. Good luck. </p>
<p>Nice! It sounds like she sort of got “waitlisted” for that scholarship before. And are you saying they stacked them?!?!? That really surprises me. Also, did OSU become more affordable than Georgia Tech (not that affordability is the only criteria you should use)?</p>
<p>Yes they specifically said that the Provost was in addition to her other scholarship so they could be stacked. Oregon State is more affordable than Georgia Tech but Tech allows students to pay in-state when they go abroad so that year Tech less expensive. Plus Tech’s WISE program told us that they would guarantee a scholarship to my DD starting her senior year. </p>
<p>The thing that puts Tech in front of Oregon State is that Google has a special relationship with Tech so that she could continue her ambassadorship with Google while at Tech. Plus Tech just opened a computing and robotics center which is exactly what my DD wanted to do. Oregon State had many positives including the fact that my DD was admitted to the Honors College but in the end she chose Tech. </p>