Hey guys!
This is kind of a rant/procrastinating my hw/maybe relatable post, but couple days I emailed my U of M counselor asking if she had any idea of when I would receive information about scholarships. She emailed me back today saying that it was hard to say exactly when, it would be very unlikely I would be receiving ANY scholarship money. (I read this in class and it really put a damper on the rest of my day, as I would have loved to go there but I’m out of state and basically needed that money to attend there)
Here’s my stats
GPA: 3.6 uw, 4.0 w
Act: 31
Class rank: top 20% (I know this is kinda bad, I like to think I’m decently smart, but everyone at my school is insanely smart omg, so I’m pretty proud of this rank honestly)
I’m in a lot of extracurricular activites, but I’m too lazy to list them lol
Illinois state scholar and NHS member
I wasn’t really expecting to get scholarship money, but I saw a number of posts saying they had similar stats to me and got scholarship money so that kinda got my hopes up, but…
I just kinda wanted to talk about this so I could get my feelings out haha, but hopefully this is helpful to anyone who wants to compared their stats to mine and judge if they think they might get scholarship money or not! 
Thanks! (sorry for any typos, I ended up doing hw and trying to write this at the same time!)
What a bummer! What U of MN college were you accepted to and what are you planning to major in?
@underthegarden
Right on the website so don’t despair!
Scholarship award notices will be sent to new freshman scholarship recipients by the end of March of their senior year of high school.
:D/
S17 got one yesterday - he’s accepted into CLA honors and got $1000/year - already getting instate tuition too
Out of state - DD accepted to CSE
Class Rank 12%
ACT 34
GPA 5+ something weighted
IB Student
Female
Unless there is more to come, we received our “award” package last week, a few days after we returned from our visit to Minnesota - No Scholarships, no awards - All loans and with the tuition hike, this school is no longer attractive.
We were very disappointed
@MamacatTX Too bad about no merit being offered. Was your D otherwise impressed with the visit? Hopefully she has some other good options available to her with those stats.
She loved it - she is very disappointed but with a $41K estimated cost of attendance, not worth it
MamacatTX - I am very sorry to hear that.
We went through the process 2 years ago with my son, and it was one disappointment after another, so I know how it feels. The whole thing is very unpredictable. I hope you have other options available.
Same situation here. OOS son was accepted into CSE, received ‘award’ letter few weeks ago. We visited UMN last week and spoke with Admissions people about addional scholarships/honors college. We were told the ‘aid’ package is different from scholarships. They are still working on shortlisting/ sending the scholarships package and Honor college admission letters. They suggested us to wait until end of March. Good luck
TallGrass - Yes, she has several other options but UNM was close to the top of the list
SNY007 - Thank you for that update - We were in MN three weeks ago and they didn’t inform us there was a difference between the aid letter (which we received after our return) and scholarships. I guess we will continue to hold our breath
Scholarships tend to be merit-based (a few use need as a criterion but are reserved for special situations) and can be offered anytime beginning in the fall. They are subtracted off the Cost of Attendance, and that net difference is the subject of the aid letter. If you qualify for such, then need-based aid will consist of federal grants or perhaps even some institutional grants which don’t need to be repaid. TBH, there are not a lot of the latter at state uni’s. Any remainder will be covered by loans consisting of the Stafford (usually $5,500 and either at a subsidized or unsubsidized interest rate depending on level of “need”) and Parent Plus. No one has to accept any loans, of course, and it’s very routine to offer the Plus, even if the parents have the funds to cover their portion.
Those who are disappointed in the amount of loans on your aid letter: just remember that if it’s not loans, it’s going to be work study. That might sound more appealing till you realize just how much you might have to work at $8.50 per hour with a CSE-equivalent academic load. The Stafford loans at least aren’t payable till your income potential is a bit higher!
Several of the letters we have received from other institutions have included the “Package”:
Merit, Awards, scholarships and work study as well as the balances that would need to be covered by some type of loan - Stafford, Private or Parent or cash payment.
The UNM letters have thus far only been the cost of attendance with a list of the types of “loans” available ie Parent Plus, Stafford etc. as well as cash payment options.
If there is more to come or the possibility of more, it would be nice if somewhere on the correspondences it stated this as at this point we have scratched UNM off the list of potential schools - Too expensive
Does anyone know if college specific scholarships tend to come out during the latter half of March? I haven’t heard of too many people receiving college specific scholarships yet.