financial aid question

Well one hint (and I guess this could be different at every school, depending on how “combined” the aid is and how transparent they want to be) is whether or not they require you to keep submitting the FAFSA. My daughter’s aid at Montclair is 100% merit since we did not qualify need, so she has received the same award every year since she started (as stated in her acceptance letter), but we no longer have to submit the FAFSA (a blessing).

Not all schools that are considered less academically selective will give more aid, so you do need to do some investigating. University of Cincinnati is considered by many to be one of the less selective academically, but they are very tight with their merit money. An example was discussed recently on the school forum here on CC. This kid is a Cincinnatus Scholar (not MT), but will only be receiving $3000/year plus $3000/year off of the non-resident fee (as the dad states a few posts previous to listing the kid’s stats). http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18232895/#Comment_18232895

NYU Steinhardt used to give academic merit aid to their vocal performance (MT) students. As a matter of fact, that was the snafu that happened with D. She was put in to get academic merit aid by the dep’t head, but when we got our offer it was not there. She had done the summer program and was expecting some merit aid based on a discussion we had with the head of VP. So when there wasn’t a cent in her financial aid package, we called him and he had to fight for her to get talent aid which was the only merit aid they were still allowing. There was a change in policy which he hadn’t been made aware of. He offered her the academic money because of her high grades (and did the same for a very talented and smart boy she knew.) But then they got nothing and he had to appeal for them to get money.

So the system is so confusing and continually changing that the head of the program didn’t even know the status of things.

And not just at NYU. Lots of schools out there change and are misleading about merit aid. Younger D went to an info session at Brandeis in which they swore up and down that they no longer gave merit aid except to local kids from MA and scientists. This was a change in policy since older D got $15K a year for merit aid 4 years earlier. Well to everyone’s surprise, top kids who stuck with Brandies anyway and applied, got merit aid packages when they had expected nothing. They were about $5K a year less than when older D applied, but they did exist. People were doing the happy dance!

So my advice is to try to get a direct answer from the school, but it might still be worth applying if there are even rumors or a past history of merit aid being given out!

PS–My D did a summer program at NYU through Steinhardt and was told she didn’t have to even audition for the undergrad program. She did need to apply and be accepted to NYU academically. (One super talented kid who was also accepted talent wise after the summer, did not have the academics to be accepted.)

But attending a summer program helped D get her acceptance and helped get the merit aid in the end since she had a relationship with the head of the program and he fought for her.

So even though a summer program may be expensive, if it helps with more $ down the road, it may be a worthwhile investment.

I did a little more research on Tisch scholarships and wanted to clean up some of what I wrote earlier in this thread. The “Tisch Scholarship Guide” that I provided a link for in post 28 will take you to a guide designed to teach you were to look elsewhere outside of Tisch for scholarships. Classic. An actual listing of Tisch scholarships you can find on page 234 of the Tisch School of the Arts Bulletin the link to which is here: http://students.tisch.nyu.edu/page/home.html

But the fun doesn’t stop there. This is just a list, not a description of what the scholarships are awarded for. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a document that spells out what each one is for anywhere on the Tisch website, you have to look them up individually. I started to do that but I got bored. Suffice it to say that many of them relate to film, not drama.

Miraculously there is one that actually has drama in the name so let me elaborate on that one. That is the Alec Baldwin Drama Scholarship. By it’s description, “the Alec Baldwin Drama Scholarship Fund will provide financial support for students who, in addition to talent, exhibit an unwavering work ethic, leadership skills, a willingness to collaborate, and an ability to tolerate risk and work with constructive criticism. Special consideration will be given to students who are high performing/high need.” The description goes on to mention that “A portion of his gift will support the Talent Identification Process, the Tisch School’s initiative to find the most academically and artistically talented students regardless of their financial aid needs.”

So I guess one could interpret “regardless of their financial aid needs” to also mean regardless of if your EFC decides you are wealthy enough and have no need but my guess is that may not exactly be what they intend. The Talent Identification Process (TIP) referenced in that description is a comprehensive outreach program that quote: is committed to making it possible for students of exceptional artistic merit to attend one of the premier arts schools in the country, regardless of financial circumstance. You can find information about TIP and also the Dean’s Scholars Program here: http://about.tisch.nyu.edu/object/tip.html

One more personal nugget to close out my participation in this subject. Earlier this spring when I first heard (courtesy of it being mentioned in CC) that there apparently was such thing as non-need non-need merit aid at Tisch, I told my daughter to make an appointment with the financial aid office and “get in there and plead your case for merit” for help with the upcoming senior year. So she did and the nice folks at financial aid directed her meritorious butt to a form she could fill out which largely asked for proof of additional financial need due to things that were not reflected on the FAFSA. Anyway again this is just a sample of one but as a result, I still believe there must be a secret handshake that has to be figured out in order to tap into non-need merit aid at Tisch. Fortunately this tuition weary parent only has one full time and one part time semester left to pay for so I can almost say I don’t care any more and the 1980’s kitchen with the cabinet doors that are falling off that I’m still cooking in might be retro cool by graduation anyway. At least I have a kitchen and am grateful for that. I will be happy for any of you that have a different experience with non-need scholarships at Tisch than we did but no offense, I sure hope my annual fund phone-a-ton donations don’t pay for it. :slight_smile: All the best!

I’m not sure if this is true at many/all schools, but our experience might be relevant to the question of merit versus need-based aid at NYU (ie @halflokum’s discussion). For the past two years both of our kids have received very large named scholarships at Northwestern. Both got fancy letters about the huge honor in receiving the talent/merit award and each involved an upscale dinner and ceremony, plus the letter specifically stated the award was based on their special talents (one in MT and one in science), which they both absolutely do possess, and should be included in their resumes.

Taken at face value, we could easily construe these as pure talent/merit awards, and in a sense they are, but we assume from our D’s first two years (full tuition) that as soon as we are back to paying tuition for only our S that somehow his scholarship-worthy talent will magically disappear.

So in some cases people may believe an award is talent/merit based, but there may also be a need-based criteria underlying eligibility.

@uskoolfish I also got merit aid from Brandeis! About $12000/year I think. But it was still not enough. When we did the aid calculator on their web site, the price was MUCH lower.

@MTVT2015 If you did the aid calculator at Brandeis and the price was lower than the actual offer they gave you, it seems to show that using the first calculation there must have been some need based aid that they were giving.

Brandeis seems to still give true merit aid to some students. The merit aid I am referring to is for student whose FAFSA is above the cost of attendance. Many of those families do not even bother filling out the FAFSA at all…and yet they receive merit aid anyway.

@halflokum The link you gave of named scholarships at Tisch that are awarded for merit once a student is already attending the school…seems connected to what I think I may have mentioned on this thread in that when my daughter was a senior at Tisch, 3 named scholarships appeared on our bill that we had no idea existed and my kid didn’t apply to them. They were each on the small side, but every bit helps (and she already had the significant four year scholarship). At graduation, some of these named scholarships were in the program for Tisch graduation and there were quite a number of them awarded to drama students besides my daughter. Not sure they were on that list in the link though.

My D got her financial aide update ( and of course bill for next semester) yesterday - and her merit $$ is listed simply as “Tisch scholarship”. It is slightly different from last year (about $200)

@toowonderful, I’m even more confused now on how Tisch handles their merit scholarships. At most colleges the scholarships awarded at freshman year usually specify that they are for a predetermined amount of $$$/yr, and usually remain constant throughout the 4 years (Exceptions to this are when the scholarships awarded are for full-tuition, half-tuition, or some fraction. Then the amount varies with the cost of tuition.). Merit scholarships that change in amount from year to year are usually the types that are tied to financial need, and therefore need reevaluating each year. Is this what your daughter has, or does Tisch REALLY not guarantee non-need based freshman merit scholarships?

@dusing2 - I am afraid I cannot offer any clarity on NYU’s thought process, but I can promise that husband and I did not qualify for ANY need based aide at any school. I spent most of last year listening to my husband’s rants about fafsa’s opinion of our EFC (which is my entire salary, but I’m a teacher)

@toowonderful If your EFC was under $72k this year, by even a bit, NYU would consider you as qualifying for financial need. That might explain a variation in her aid. Once you qualify for any aid, NYU will give you more or less money depending on how much they wanted D to attend. When older d attended NYU she recd an $11k talent merit award (through Steinhardt). Our EFC was above cost of attending and the award didn’t vary year to year. When she was awarded the scholarship we had not even filed our FAFSA. Steinhardt’s website discusses these merit awards, whereas Tisch say they only give $ to thise with need.

My EFC is above the full price cost of NYU. (Fafsa is not a fan of two income families who have avoided debt - until now). I feel like I have created controversy- and I apologize. I was trying to clear things up by saying “this is real” but without posting a screenshot of D’s Albert account and my Fafsa I don’t know what to do- sorry

Lol. Just thrown that they would reduce a merit award. Personally I would question them.

The scholarship my D got upon being admitted to Tisch was for all four years, the exact same amount. No variation based on any changes in need. It was a four year scholarship.

@toowonderful How about doing nothing and just letting us thank you for providing details that none of us should be privy to. I in particular appreciate your candor both here and privately and your willingness to be transparent.

:slight_smile:

Point park offered generous talent scholarship and so did The Hartt school. Definitely worth auditioning for these programs, especially the Hartt school.

Although academically less selective hartt does not stack scholarships. You receive all financial aid from the hartt school and it is exclusive of any aid offered by the university to the general population. As an example, the university may offer a diversity scholarship for minorities. However, if hartt does not have a corresponding one, you will not receive the university diversity scholarship, regardless of your minority status. Another example is academic merit. There are large scholarships offered by the university for academic merit. However those are not given to hartt students, they only receive talent scholarships. There are named grants and scholarships that hartt offers, but to my understanding those are offered on a yearly basis. So don’t count on getting the presidential scholarship for $14k because of your gpa in addition to your $15k talent scholarship. And you can’t elect to receive the $14k presidential scholarship in lieu of the $5k talent scholarship they offered…just the way they work.