<p>I am a parent of triplets that will start college this coming Aug/Sep. Accpetances have been coming along with some merit scholarships. How can I go about negotiating or enhancing the merit scholarship being offered when the kids do not qualify for needs based aid?</p>
<p>Secondly, are merit based presidental scholarships truly "needs blind"? I don't believe they are as I have has some recent experiences that indicate the opposite being true. I have found this to be extremely frustrating. </p>
<p>I do not begrudge anyone that needs financial assistance from getting it. However, it seems like the sacrifices made by me and my wife are a detriment to getting decent or substantial merit based scholarships. We both work and have sacrificed and saved to make our children's lives better. Yet, it appears that this approach hurts when it comes to receiving any aid, need or meirt. I would be curious to get some opinions on this matter.</p>
<p>Whether or not the ‘merit aid’ has a need component depends on the particular school. At schools which have automatic stat-based merit awards, there isn’t any need component. Awards that are not automatic may have some explicit calculation of need, or may leave the qualifications nebulous enough to give them flexibility.</p>
<p>Some are definitely not need-based. My son has one of them.</p>
<p>There are some merit scholarships that have a “need” attached to them. However, depending on the college, some don’t consider need at all.</p>
<p>For instance, both my kids have big merit scholarships. We’ve never filled out a FAFSA or CSS because we know we won’t qualify for aid. So, we included schools that award merit based on stats only.</p>
<p>It sounds like your triplets’ schools may consider need when awarding merit.</p>
<p>With 3 going at the same time, what is each of their EFCs? What schools did they get scholarships from?</p>
<p>One thing that may help…if your kids received any larger merit awards from “equivalent” schools, you can sometimes use those to “inspire” their chosen schools to give more money. Usually you have to fax a copy of the better offer (or scan it in and email). I also hope that some understanding FA officers might make some exceptions to the fact that you have triplets going at the same time.</p>
<p>Are you sure that your kids don’t qualify for need-based aid? Have you filled out FAFSA to see what your EFC is? I would think with three kids in college at the same time, your EFC might be lower than you think. (But if you have already looked at this – well, never mind!)</p>
<p>I agree with doing a FAFSA for each to be sure. </p>
<p>But, maybe you have and perhaps your savings/assets give each a high EFC.</p>
<p>I don’t know which Presidential scholarships you’re referring to. My son rec’d a Presidential scholarship (full tuition) and need was not a consideration (the school has no idea of what our assets/income is.)</p>
<p>My biggest annoyance with scholarships is those which are vague about their criteria.</p>
<p>The donors might like to leave it nebulous, so their options remain open. However, filling out these applications is a lot of work for kids who are at a very busy time in their lives. It is frustrating to go to a lot of work for a scholarship that you may be wasting your time on.</p>
One only needs to read a few threads from parents and students who have not been as fortunate as you to have saved and have incomes to support even 1 year of college. You have choices where most do not. </p>
<p>
In these tough economic climes, You are more likely to be accepted than otherwise. </p>
<p>I just want to add one point that I don’t think has been covered yet. You ask what you can do to negotiate scholarships, and I believe that is a non-issue. I am not aware of any instance where students can negotiate a merit scholarship – they either meet the criteria or they don’t. As to how to enhance the possibility of obtaining a merit scholarship, I guess the best answer is to look at schools where the student is over-qualified and thus, stands out, among the others.</p>
<p>My son received merit scholarships at several schools and we never submitted any financial aid documents, so no – I don’t think merit is geared towards those who are in need. There might be some schools who do so, but none we encountered.</p>
<p>For merit awards, IF your child has received a merit award from a “comparable” “compeitive” university, some schools will re-evaluate their merit award to your child (tho it’s not called negotiating, which most say they do NOT do). Our S received merit offers from two schools who both wanted him. One of the Us offered him an extra $2500/year than the other. The school he wanted to attend said they don’t negotiate but still bumped up his merit award to match that extra $2500.</p>
<p>A friend had her S accepted by nearly all the schools he wanted to attend & he showed the one he most wanted to attend the merit awards he was offered by comparable schools & they were able to increase his merit award as well.</p>
<p>The schools I am aware of that matched other merit awards are all private Us; they have considerably more latitude in their merit awards than state Us, I believe.</p>
<p>My D had a similar situation where she wrote a letter to the univ. she wanted to attend, explained that they were her first choice and why, enclosed a copy of the other offer, and they increased her award.</p>
<p>Some publics will match other similar publics’ merit offers, if they want that student. </p>
<p>There is a poster on this board whose daughter got about $12k/yr from one public, but her D wanted to go to another public. However, her ACT was one point below the requirement to get the 2/3 tuition scholarship (worth about $13k/yr). The mom faxed the one offer to the desired school, and that school matched it within 2 days. That may not always work, but her scores were close and she was from a desired region of the country (which may have helped).</p>
<p>I am not sure about your references to being penalized for having saved. Many parents have persuasively shown on CC that savings do not reduce your chances for need based aid even remotely as much as income does, so I do not follow your belief that saving has hurt you.</p>
<p>I would also think that, given the enormous cost of having 3 kids in college at once (assuming you do not already have other kid in college), for you not to receive need based aid, your income must be well above $200,000 a year. </p>
<p>To be sure, there are disagreements about what affects need aid–and disagreements about what should affect need aid. One parent argued recently that the formula which gives a 10% reduction to parents with 2 kids in college at the same time was unfair to her family because they were, in effect, being penalized 10% for having waited longer before having their second child.</p>
<p>yabeyabe2, that is not always true! High assets and a modest income will result in a high EFC. From 2007 to 2008, our income remained the same, but with the stock market drop in 2008, our EFC was dramatically lower the second year.</p>
<p>I do agree with 3 kids at the same time, they should file FAFSA and see what they get.</p>
<p>Many parents have persuasively shown on CC that savings do not reduce your chances for need based aid even remotely as much as income does, so I do not follow your belief that saving has hurt you.</p>
<p>While it may be true that there is some asset protection for parents up to a certain amount, and that above that amount, only a portion can be assumed for education, if the savings were put in each child’s name, then it might be a different story.</p>
<p>Many colleges have students of exactly equal stats and profiles on their waiting lists who will happily attend…so be realistic about how much a college “needs” your son or daughter. My son graduated from Duke and I am pretty sure that they have thousands of equally deserving students on their wait list, and would not have done a thing to try to keep him interested if he hadn’t accepted his offer.</p>
<p>That said, if a college has gone to the trouble to admit you, they will often just out of graciousness review matters at your request and sometimes good things result. </p>
<p>Secondly, my advice is to stay “fluid” up to the last day of the month if you feel that there is a shot at improved financial offers at a college that is a top choice among your offers. I do know of a couple of kids who got bumped “up” to merit offers that were “taken” until about April 29th. It is perfectly human for kids to stall around till the last minute before accepting a more expensive offer and dropping a full ride or merit offer elsewhere…thus possibly “freeing” dollars for your son or daughter. This is not at all true at all colleges…many will not offer a thing after the initial rounds and have no such “play” at the end of April.<br>
Lastly some people will still drop out of their merit offers as late as in the summer when they have a change of heart. This is pretty rare. But some signature type named scholarships can be awarded to the “next” kid in line when the first kid declines.
When in doubt, stay polite and stay fluid is my recommendation till your full 30 days of consideration are up.
If you know what your son or daughter has decided, have the decency to inform everyone so that others might benefit from your decision to let an offer go elsewhere.</p>
Actually, the formula divides the EFC between the two kids. We paid essentially the SAME AMOUNT with two kids in college as we did with JUST ONE in college! The small increase was due to second kid’s summer earning contribution and personal assets. ;)</p>
<p>Many colleges have students of exactly equal stats and profiles on their waiting lists who will happily attend…so be realistic about how much a college “needs” your son or daughter. My son graduated from Duke and I am pretty sure that they have thousands of equally deserving students on their wait list, and would not have done a thing to try to keep him interested if he hadn’t accepted his offer.</p>
<p>True for schools with Duke-like rankings. </p>
<p>However, the OP didn’t state that his triplets were applying to Duke-like schools since he was talking about merit scholarships and Presidential scholarships. That suggested to me that he was asking about mid-tier schools that offer more of those types of scholarships. </p>
<p>Many mid-tier schools might be more willing to offer more to a student from a desirable region. Schools like to state that they have students from all 50 states. Mid-tier and 3rd tier schools have a more difficult time making sure that they have kids from all 50 states. </p>
<p>Another consideration is stats. If a child’s stats are in the upper 25%, his/her stats helps compensate for another student’s stats who are lower.</p>