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@Dusing2 Right, I understood all along that theaterwork was looking for merit based and not need based aid. But my post earlier was more in response to a post by theaterwork about the worth of the price at NYU and the comment that only wealthy can afford it. I was just commenting that my D’s scholarship, which we were told was a combination of BOTH merit and need, brought the price down quite a bit and that students like mine attend who are not wealthy. Later, I commented simply that my D got a better scholarship offer from NYU than from CMU. Threads can take on new tangents or points, even though I totally understood theaterwork’s initial query regarding non-need based aid.
For those who are new to this process and may be reading, NYU/Tisch states:
Sorry. Since you commented right after my remark comparing Tisch and CMU scholarships, it appeared that you were responding to my comment. Anyway, I think it needed clarification for Theaterwork.
Does anyone know of any Tisch students that have received a Talent or merit scholarship without qualifying for need based aid?
My D got both merit and talent $ from Tisch - no need based aide. I tried earlier but it my phone apparently ended up deleting what I had meant to post
@Dusing2 So to clarify, the award that your child got was from Steinhardt, too?
You did very well. D was told that the max to ever expect from NYU was $15K for merit. She ended up with $11K, but there was a mix up with her scholarship and the department head had to appeal with the provost to get her $. So I always felt she may have done a bit better if there wasn’t a snafu. But over $20K is high for them.
I am frequently asked by families in my neighborhood about Tisch and Steinhardt. Still very curious about whether merit only awards exist for Tisch’s theatre and film programs.
I am not trying to offend anyone about saying NYU is expensive…I know a lot of theater schools are. My daughter is an only child also so I also dont have to send anyone else. Trust me my daughter would love to go to NYU. She really would want a NY school. We looked at Pace also and Marymount Manhattan. Yes, everyone’s path and decisions are different. Do I want my daughter to get a world class education and have those opportunities that NYU would provide, well of course. But unfortunately for us, even if you got a $20,000 financial aid package at NYu for instance, it is still $50,000. No, i guess you do not have to be “wealthy” to pay $200,000. I get that if you have the money and /or take out loans for the rest then that is your call. I guess in saying that the price for some of these schools is “ridiculous” I am referring to the fact that the colleges can charge these prices and get away with it. We all know college tuition is way out of hand at some schools. Needless to say I am a believer that my D will end up where she needs to be when we start the process. She may end up in a small school in VA or somewhere and that will be ok because we all know in the long run it all comes down to the talent in the audition room.
I fully respect your decision, @theaterwork. I just was sharing our decision and the fact that not everyone who attends NYU (or some other expensive school) is rich and some do qualify for aid. By the way, my D graduated from NYU in '09 and so the bill wasn’t as high as it is now (though everything is higher now). I recall that before scholarships, it was in the $50’s and so a $20,000/year scholarship brought it down in the $30’s. I don’t have the numbers handy, but the total cost was not $70K/year.
NYU is expensive. There is nothing offensive about stating the obvious. No way is it worth it to pay that amount for an education unless you feel there is something that you will get out of an NYU education that makes finding the money or spending the money worth it to you. It’s as simple as that. If you are considering NYU and can’t figure out what your meaning of “is is”, don’t do it. If you can, may the force be with you. Non-need money is tight.
Were it not for toowonderful’s daughter, I would have sworn that non-need based merit and talent scholarships did not exist in Tisch at all unless you are of a specific population (ethnic, etc. see the link to the scholarship guide below). Certainly the administration implies awards go hand in hand with need at every chance they get. My daughter, who was a high stats, non need not ethnically or otherwise on the list for anything mentioned in the guide below bears that out but obviously she was a sample of one and though I had not previously heard of other examples, we don’t know everyone in Tisch Drama and nor is this a subject that just comes up everywhere except sometimes in these forums. It’s best to just ask the administration what the deal is. Chances are they will tell you what they told us but there are apparently exceptions if you know the secret handshake. 
http://undergraduate.tisch.nyu.edu/object/scholarshipguide.html
“Scholarships are awarded on a competitive basis and may reflect academic merit as well as demonstrated financial need.”
This is from another page on the Tisch website regarding financial aid/ merit aid. They make it clear as mud.
For Steinhardt, they say the following: “Artistic Scholarships: A small number of scholarships are awarded to entering freshmen who show exceptional promise in music or studio art.” This is the award that D got. And I believe Dusing2.
And there is this merit award for tippy top students to NYU: “Martin Luther King, Jr., Scholarships
Since its inception in 1987, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Scholars Program has awarded over 400 need-based and merit scholarships to incoming freshmen at NYU.”
So yeah, @halflokum, learning the secret handshake helps! And a friend did ask directly at an info session last year and was told Tisch only offers financial aid that considers the students merit in terms of talent and academics. (But your D and toowonderful’s prove otherwise.)
@uskoolfish, my daughter’s situation doesn’t prove a thing and is fairly typical. The only financial assistance she received were loans (and yes… she has them.) Toowonderful’s daughter (whom is very accomplished obviously) is the one that knew the handshake because she received both merit and talent scholarships though by her account she was not need eligible. So in answer to the question asked above several times, non-need scholarships must exist in Tisch for somebody outside of that which is detailed in the Tisch scholarship guide. How one accesses them - no idea.
My daughter’s freshman year roommate was an MLK Scholar. Lovely and deserving young woman who met the criteria for the award which is pretty specific.
@theaterwork if you are from Via, I’d like to suggest you look at JMU which is a public school there that I’ve heard great things about Also Shenandoah is in Va and from what folks say also has.a wonderful program.
halflokum and uskoolfish- no secret handshake, or if there is, we did it accidentally and have NO idea what it looks like. This is PURE conjecture (frankly I have never asked questions) but I think it has something to do with the NYU summer program she did in HS. I say that b/c I “know of” (from anecdotes - nothing official- info comes through D who is not asking kids the same kinds of questions a parent would) 4 kids who did that program, and then came to NYU (including mine) who have had various things happen in ways that are outside the traditional Tisch parameters. Halflokum and I have discussed this at LENGTH - but I have no explanation for it. As much as D loves NYU, and as much as I am obviously a cheerleader for it here (where is seems to be the whipping boy of the BFA world, and I really do understand why, it is expensive, and VERY different from any other program out there) I will freely say that as an institution NYU is incredibly obtuse - and it often seems to be impossible to find a single definitive answer to questions. Maybe that is b/c of their size and diversity- but it has been my (limited- others have been around far longer) experience that you can find an person who is an exception to almost every rule at NYU. I guess that includes financial aide.
I don’t know how scholarships work at NYU either. We did apply for FA and qualified and was told that both aid and talent/merit went into such a scholarship. However, it can’t be all about need because, for example, the $20,000 per year scholarship didn’t change based on need over the course of four years like it would at a college who just awards grants based on needs only. So, in our case, because we had two in college, our needs increased. BUT in my NYU’s daughter’s senior year, her sister was out of undergrad school (though was in grad school that we were funding, but I don’t think that counts). Yet, her scholarship stayed the same in senior year at Tisch. Further, in her senior year, there were THREE NAMED additional scholarships she received (none of these scholarships were things we knew about ahead of time or applied for). These were all nice surprises, even the original four year scholarship.
We knew others who got some scholarships at Tisch too but I can’t say definitively if need was or wasn’t a factor in their scholarships. And I recall here on CC, several people posting in the past about getting some scholarships from NYU/Tisch, and I am pretty sure there were people who said they didn’t qualify for need. So, who knows? We opened these envelopes and our eyes burst wide and we had no idea and never questioned. My D never attended any summer programs at NYU or any college.
Most schools broke down the scholarships between need, talent and academic, NYU did not. They also requested the CSS profile, so they may have a different criteria on what financial need is. Don’t rule out a school based on the sticker price, you never know. Point Park, Rider, Hartt, Emerson and Tisch… The best fit and least expensive school… Tisch. Two of the first four on this list offered work study, but all other awards from this group were talent and academic; not need. So how much of the Tisch scholarship is due to need we may never know, but at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter. Apply everywhere and worry about getting in. Have a talk before about how when picking from the acceptances that cost will be one of the factors, and see what happens.
Rider and Hartt were both less expensive for us than NYU since we did not qualify for need, but my kid received very good merit and/or Talent scholarships to Rider and Hartt.
I’m glad @toowonderful has been able to confirm that Tisch does indeed award non-need based talent scholarships to incoming freshman, that will be helpful to those looking at schools in the future. It’s a shame that Tisch chooses to keep that so secret. Even when calling their recruiting offices inquiring specifically about that, they continue to confirm that ALL scholarships are a combination of need, talent and merit.
NYU reports on the Common Data Set that they do give out Non-Need-Based Merit scholarships:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=436
^^ Nice find, @EmsDad!
One thing to keep in mind is that more academically selective colleges tend to either give less merit aid or no merit aid at all (as the majority of incoming students have good stats/merit). For example, the Ivies and other highly selective schools like Northwestern or Tufts, do not give any merit aid, but they give need based aid. Often, for those who are chasing merit aid,the wisdom is to seek out colleges where the student is at the higher end of the “stats” of admitted students. This is not that hard to do for a MT applicant because many of the MT programs are located in universities that are not highly selective ACADEMICALLY speaking. A very strong student is more apt to get merit aid at Point Park or University of Hartford, which are not too selective academically speaking, than to a school like NYU, which is pretty selective on the academic front for the entire university.
NYU is organized into 20+ schools, colleges and institutes. Some of these branches are known to provide non-need merit scholarships. For example, uskoolfish pointed out that those scholarships do exist within Steinhardt and are even mentioned on that school’s website. The common data set speaks for all of NYU. It doesn’t necessarily reflect what goes on in a particular school never mind a program within that school. With respect to Tisch Drama, we are still left with what the administration says and what the website implies. What happens beyond that I guess is case specific and hard to quantify.