My son was accepted in early October. Does anyone know when he will receive his financial aid award? I couldn’t find anything on the website. Thanks!
@iamgriffinsmom My son was accepted in August and we have not received an award letter. He did receive a letter about an automatic scholarship a few weeks after he was accepted. I think I read somewhere on their website that award letters are not sent out until February. I hope that’s not the case, because that is a very long time to wait. We need to know if they offer any need based aid to out of state applicants…
My son also received the letter about automatic scholarships, but I certainly hope we don’t need to wait until February! We are OOS as well, and it would be nice to have the official award sooner rather than later! We are visiting in two weeks, so I’ll ask then!
I applied this summer and received my letter late August or early September, can’t remember
Thanks, @nitro11. Are you in-state or OOS? Hopefully we’ll hear something soon!
@iamgriffinsmom OOS
@nitro11 The FAFSA didn’t open until 10/1/16, so I don’t think you could have received your financial aid award letter in August or September. Maybe you received the automatic scholarship letter as well?
@iamgriffinsmom Please follow up here after your visit! Thank you!
@uwalummom you are correct, my mistake.
@iamgriffinsmom - It looks like you are talking about merit scholarship. My son is an OOS freshman at ISU, studying materials engineering. His admission letter was dated July 14, 2015, his $8,000/year Award for Competitive Excellence letter was dated September 9, 2015, his $3,500/year College of Engineering Scholarship letter was dated October 27, 2015, and his First-Year Honors Program admission letter was dated December 16, 2016.
So far, he loves ISU. We have been very impressed with the support he’s been receiving from the Engineering College and the Honors Program.
Our son was our third in three years starting out in engineering. Our oldest is in his third year studying Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M and our next son is in his second year studying BioMedical Engineering at Miami University in Ohio. In total, we visited 21 schools over four years. If I can answer any questions, please send me a message.
Good luck on your visit! If you haven’t booked your accommodations, you can actually stay in one of the Memorial Union hotel rooms. They are not fancy, but the price includes free parking in the Union garage and the location can’t be beat. You can only book through Expedia: https://www.expedia.com/Ames-Hotels-Hotel-Memorial-Union.h12654190.Hotel-Information
Thanks @Beaudreau!
@Beaudreau I’m so glad to hear your son is enjoying Iowa State. Do you remember when you got your actual financial aid award letter? Wondering if this school offers need based aid to OOS students… Thank you!
@uwalummom - I am glad that I kept all my mail. Last year the FAFSA did not open until January. We completed and submitted it around February 1. If I remember correctly, we had until March 1 or so to submit it. The award letter is dated March 28. We did not qualify for any need-based aid, but we did not expect to get any.
Thank you for your quick reply @Beaudreau seems like we have a bit of a wait yet…
I realized that we haven’t received an official letter about the automatic scholarships. He’s eligible for two based after running his stats online. It seems like we should have received something by now. Should I be worried?
It’s possible they are just much busier with applications now, so the turn around time is slower. Do you have a pile of mail from colleges on your counter like we did? The envelope didn’t look like anything important and inadvertently ended up in the giant pile at our house. We didn’t see it until about a month later.
I did wonder if I inadvertently misplaced it, but I don’t think I did. I’ve saved just about everything from Iowa State. He was accepted on 10/11, so I guess it hasn’t been that long!
I remember browsing ISU’s website and learning that admissions there (and Iowa and NAU) were pretty much formula based. I told my son, hey let’s get this one in and done. A week or less later we were admitted. My son really liked having one college admission in his pocket before he even applied anywhere else. Then we had a great visit in October, which really moved ISU up on his list (he still had not been accepted anywhere else). Ultimately, he was accepted everywhere he applied, with merit scholarships: Arizona, Arizona State, Alabama, Michigan State, and Iowa State. We visited everywhere. Ultimately, it came down to ISU and MSU (my alma mater). He did not make his final decision until April 29.
It was the same for us–a quick application and an acceptance two days later. We are also visiting later this month. He’s been accepted to one other school (an in-state public that he has no desire to attend), and he applied EA to an in-state private (cost may be prohibitive but we will see), so at this point, Iowa State is leading! Assuming the visit goes well, I don’t think he’ll even apply anywhere else.
My son received his scholarship award today, so I guess I was worried for nothing!
Congratulations!