@mojojojo23 plenty chill here!!! Truly hope you get your scholarship as an international student.
@lessonwitch2 —I remember you from last year I think.
What was your FAFSA EFC again? If I recall correctly it was pretty low and your stats were solid but not ACT 33+ solid.
For most of the high stats ACT 33+ crowd applying to TAMU who have no need, are not URM and are not NMF, there will be no merit scholarship.
@carachel2 Then what are the SAT and ACT scores for people who get the scholarships like the average amount of people getting the waiver
@carachel2 We were 33 ACT, 4.45 weighted, 4.0 UW, we had much need, EFC $2600. Great EC, much leadership etc. We received very little merit. Not enough for a waiver. Maybe a 35 ACT is needed for significant merit?
@ggbucks --hard to know what their secret sauce requirement is. The poster above had high average stats if I’m remembering correctly. Apologies if not. They were certainly not elite high level stats. My daughter ACT 34 and #10 in class of almost 700 got $0.00 in merit $$ from TAMU.
Hi @ggbucks. A&M must be super picky. My OOS son is 4.0/36 ACT/1580 SAT and got a $3,500 scholarship offer. We are fortunate that he is NMF, but I was sure he would get something more. Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve been wrong.
This is copied from a posting of mine on the TAMU Blinn-TEAM thread as I thought some of you might not be following that thread.
I have seen students from our HS who have earned several small scholarships from the communities/ businesses that add up enough to really help with the cost of college, but it takes quite a lot of work to find and apply for these scholarships. Not sure where they found the info, possibly online or from the HS Counselor. Even a small amounts can add up. Have your students ask their HS counselor if there is a list of scholarships for your area, and also check online for scholarships. I have heard that there are even scholarships for certain surnames! Some deadlines may have already passed, but it is worth the effort.
Would it be possible for your child to get a Summer job and save that income for college expenses?
I wouldn’t recommend having a job while in college as it is a very stressful time, unless that is the only way y’all can afford for your child to go to college. I put myself through college in the late 70’s/early 80’s. I had great financial need, earned some scholarships and grants as well as I worked in a Work/Study job for my entire time in college. But the W/S job meant less time to study and to participate in the social part of the college experience. I ended up with having to take out a small loan for part of my last year of college, and I also cleaned the house of my major professor (weekly) for cash for clothes and other personal expenses. I wish (both then and now) that I hadn’t had to work while in college, but I didn’t have a choice. I paid off the small student loan, but that also means that payment came out of my income for quite a number of years.
My husband put himself through college and an advanced degree by attending college for his undergraduate degree at a location close to home so he could live at home and save money, plus he worked while in college (but not during his advanced degree). He worked a lot during all of the Summers to finance each year. But again, he didn’t get to experience much of the social part of the “college life”. He took out only a small loan toward the end of his advanced degree and paid it off on time. His parents could have contributed to his college expenses. But they really didn’t want him to go to college.
I would think that it would be very hard to be a TAMU student now and also have a job during college, at least as a Freshman. And having the opportunity to live the Aggie life in Aggieland is a very special opportunity, there is so much to do!
Good luck, I wish everyone all the best!
Maybe what needs to be said here — for those of you waiting on merit offers, they are not huge numbers. Keep in mind the NM semi-finalists are $3000/year. Yes, they too are competing for the extra $1000 for waivers if out of state.
Scholarship ranges are from $100- $12500. The ‘big’ university-wide ones are $2500-$3000 per year. The norm is around $1000-1500 for a scholarship value - the higher ones are more exceptions. If you haven’t, click through the scholarship pages https://scholarships.tamu.edu/FRESHMEN/University-Scholarships to see the charted amounts.
Honestly anything over $2,000 is considered a significant scholarship here – where other schools that isn’t a drop in the bucket but their price points are usually higher ( eg. $60,000 a year with a 25,000 scholarship = 35,000 cost vs. $28,000 at TAMU (instate) no scholarship). So getting to the $4000 minimum is going to be quite the achievement for OOS students but also it is equivalent to a $30,000 scholarship ( 26K + 4K).
Merit awards are holistic – so it isn’t just the scores & rank. Two people can look very similar on the stats listed here, but something in the application package just matches up with a scholarship for one of them. The scholarships are distributed from different sources --they do not all come from one committee at financial aid. That is also something more unique to this school – lots of individual donors that set up scholarships. When you do get a scholarship from a donor you often have to attend a scholarship dinner & meet your donor as well as other donors – sort of a nice networking opportunity too!
Yes, both my kids had outside scholarships while attending TAMU,they also continued to apply each year they were there. There are also scholarship opportunities for various competitions. My oldest earned thousands through competitions.
My EFC was 8343 , my ACT was 30, and my SAT was 1280. I can promise that when scholarships are looking at applicants they only see what you wrote for your scholarship portion on Apply Texas (so they can’t see if you are an URM) unless its for Terry Scholars, Foundation of excellence, and I hear their is a new third one coming out.
When I went to scholarship dinners some of them liked how “up front” I was in my essays and putting extracurriculars before school and not being a top student. Others said they had seen my application so many times they started to like me . So I guess they just care if your application seems somehow unique. Very few of the kids I’ve met here that have a lot of scholarships only had high stats.
And I will note that a good amount of my awards came in from April to June.
EDIT - Note when I applied; I applied August 1st complete, so scholarship boards did have more time to look at my application
EDIT 2 - I know this is a very applicable to out-of-state students, but after I got admitted I applied for scholarships like crazy locally since I didn’t believe I’ll get anything from a A&M what’s the goal of trying to cover the first year. Cuz he get here and do well, scholarships should keep coming in.
I was so unprepared for the outcome as I’m sure so many of you were/are. Had I researched more, I would have insisted he apply to more schools that would have netted a lower bottom line. He just truly wanted TAMU.
I have a few questions.
- I have applied for the University Scholarship and Departmental Scholarship in the ApplyTexas Application but I submitted it on the 7th December whereas the University Scholarship deadline was on the 1st. Will this hamper my chance?
- the status on my scholarship application is mentioned SENT whereas the main application has the status written as SUBMITTED. Any ideas upon that?
Also since I have already accepted my admission offer will this offer me an advantage over others for receiving scholarships since TAMU knows I will be attending for sure.
@lessonwitch2 I have the exact same scores Would you mind telling how much scholarship you got and were you eligible for the waiver
@ggbucks it’s not the state of Texas’ responsibility to pay an out of state kid’s way through one of our elite universities. We pay taxes and fees here that fund these elite universities. I am confused why you think the state of Texas should waive the out of state portion of charges for your family? We have kids sitting in our own schools with 33 ACT scores who did not even get accepted to TAMU. So, as tax payers, we expect the VERY few OOS waivers available to be used for extraordinary situations. Not saying your child is not great in his or her own right but being salty over another state’s taxpayers not funding YOUR child’s education is a little much to those of us here footing that bill. Doesn’t your state have its own elite university that you can better afford with normal merit and financial aid?
@ggbucks If you haven’t apploed to your state flagships you need to do that TODAY!
We are applying to ZERO state schools except our own & A&M. A&M is just for ‘fun’, my husband is an Aggie.
@tb2000 is exactly right.
@ggbucks You might also try Alabama.
Hello! I am instate and here was my final award letter for merit at the end of July from Texas A&M
Edmond I. Bailey '61 Memorial Scholarship 3000
Bechtel Group Foundation Scholarship 2000
CLEN UG DT Scholarship 1000
Boeing Company Scholarship 400
Foundation of Excellence 5000
Jay H Stafford '48 Scholarship 1000
Aggiebound 3000
But I will admit that this was UNCOMMON among the board. My only reasoning for it was that I applied early and they must have liked something non academic about me.
And I spend a LOT of time in the financial aid office (since I won a lot of outside scholarships as well that require my attention) so I can try to answer some of your questions
They should still read it, but I understand that the scholarship application has the day and time you “completed” your application on the first page. (They showed me my file) So some scholarships (like presidents award) say explicitly say that the deadline is December 1st but others(like opportunity award) don’t have a deadline. But I personally think, how soon you apply matters a lot(I applied August 1st), but I don’t know for sure.
Its synonymous. It is really only different if you apply though coalition where they tend to receive either the scholarship or general application first.
I don’t know about this one. Their are people that back out of their commitments in June so I don’t think they really care. And it isn’t shown on a students scholarships profile if they have or have not accepted Tamu. (I had to look back on mine to see that ! )
I hope I helped !
@tb2000. I’m not SALTY. Just disappointed. I am not bothered by OOS students receiving waivers in my state where my tax dollars fund . Clearly you don’t share the same sentiment. If my flagship university had the program my son was interested in, he would be attending as an instate student.
@lessonwitch2 Thanks a lot for your help! Although I couldn’t really understand the 2nd point but I checked on my AIS where they said my scholarship application has been received. thank u so much
@lessonwitch2 so you think our merit offers could go up by the end of the summer? I am out-of-state and in the engineering program and I also heard that sophomore year it’s easier to get ENG scholarships because they wait until they’ve weeded out the weaker students after freshman year.
@ggbucks your comments were salty- you should re read them.Also, Texas schools have low OOS enrollment because 90 percent of admissions offers go to our own kids- by law. Fortunately- our kids are holding up those high ratings well enough to attract plenty of OOS kids who don’t mind paying the fee. even with the OOS fees, our prices are similar to those of our competitors( top engineering programs, CS programs etc, which are private or cost roughly the same for in state as ours do for OOS). . Try Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma- they all three and even Arkansas are begging our Texas kids to come for free.
@ggbucks, FWIW, I didn’t see any saltiness. Best of luck to your son, I’m sure he’ll land someplace great.