<p>Subject says it all...</p>
<p>Do schools award merit aid at the time of acceptance, or do they come during the FAFSA process early in 2011? Or does it depend on the school?</p>
<p>Many thanks, parents!</p>
<p>PSUFAN</p>
<p>In my D’s case, it depended entirely on the school. There was no pattern.</p>
<p>Agree. It varies.</p>
<p>DS had a merit award from one school that arrived about 10 days after the acceptance; no forewarning. Another one arrived much much later - the acceptance was EA; the merit $$ came after all regular acceptances went out, at the same time as FAFSA information was sent. Again, no forewarning that there would be merit $. A third school sent, within the acceptance letter, a statement that merit aid would be forthcoming - however, he returned a “not going to attend” card to that school before any more information could come.</p>
<p>Completely depends on the school. So far, three schools sent it separately, one school at the same time and one school tells us it will be in February.</p>
<p>We saw merit come with acceptance and we saw merit come under another mailing.</p>
<p>Depends on the school, and it can depend on whether the scholarship comes from a dept.</p>
<p>It also seems to depend on whether the school has a separate admissions and scholarship departments.</p>
<p>If you’re wondering about PSU, I think the only merit the school offers is from Shreyers, so perhaps that award comes with that selection process. Anyone know for sure?</p>
<p>What schools are you/your child applying to?</p>
<p>S1 only applied to state schools. He got no merit offers with acceptances. They came a couple of months later. One (that was totally administered by his major dept.) didn’t come until June.</p>
<p>Most schools sent them with or shortly after the acceptance, but the best offer came almost three months after the acceptance letter.</p>
<p>I’m guessing OP is asking about Penn State. Anyone here have any experience with merit aid from them?</p>
<p>Have you asked on the PSU Forum?</p>
<p>At some schools higher level scholarships are notified very early, mid-level at a later date. Departmental scholarships can often be stacked but may not be awarded until spring. Even being in-state or oos can determine the order of notification.</p>
<p>When D applied to PSU a couple of years ago, she was notified of the Schreyer merit award with the Schreyer acceptance. She got an additional letter from her school later on offering a further merit award. PSU also gives a small stipend for National Merit Finalists, and there seem to be a few large merit awards such as Braddock that are hard to get but come later than acceptance. From what I understand, individual schools also give out merit awards to continuing students who have done well, even if they did not receive awards as freshmen, but students moving into Schreyer after freshman year do not get the standard Schreyer stipend.</p>
<p>Whatever grants that come from PSU, I don’t think they’re going to be more then a couple of thousand. [Penn</a> State - Office of Student Aid](<a href=“http://www.psu.edu/studentaid/scholarships/interest_natlmerit.shtml?reload]Penn”>http://www.psu.edu/studentaid/scholarships/interest_natlmerit.shtml?reload)</p>
<p>Ask them!! Most schools are very willing to help you and provide info.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. I should have specified this is in regards to my DS (I’M the psufan). He’s applied mostly to state schools (including PSU). Sounds like the consensus is “it varies” which is what I had suspected.</p>
<p>The specific school in question is Pitt (yeah, yeah, I know… how can a psufan send his kid to Pitt? long story LOL…)</p>
<p>I am aware the Schreyer honors program, but I think he may fall just a bit short of their stringent criteria.</p>
<p>Go to the Pitt subforum, there are several current threads discussing this question.</p>
<p>Thanks, why didn’t I think of that? I’ll check out the Pitt forum.</p>
<p>My S also applied and got accepted to Pitt. I wondered the same thing as you and did go to the Pitt forum. Answer is…depends. Some depts send it with the acceptance some don’t.</p>
<p>I had expected that college acceptances would come with the merit $ defined, but often that was not the case. Some schools had a delay of days or weeks.</p>
<p>I think a lot depends on how competitive the merit scholarships are. If the school is only going to award a few, then it may take more time to figure out who is going to get them…especially if a school has rolling admissions.</p>
<p>It can also depend on what are the last “test dates” that they’ll accept for scholarship consideration. If a school is going to use Dec’s scores (or later) for scholarships, then a school might want to wait.</p>
<p>RPI (a few years back) sent my son an early acceptance and said in that letter that a merit award would arrive later. I can’t remember the exact timing, but I know the merit award appeared well before April.</p>