@idontknow23 My daughter was named a finalist yesterday for the Bison Stem Scholars Program (BSSP) which offers full tuition, room, board, and a $1500 a year towards books and has the expressed goal of helping Howard Stem students reach PhD and MD/PhD levels of education.Hopefully, this means that other scholarship programs for Howard will also be announced soon. As for my daughter, she will be going through a two day process at Howard in March to determine if she is chosen in the 2nd class for the BSSP program.
@ChangeTheGame Congrats! That is truly a blessing. Some days I wish I’d chosen STEM because there are so many opportunities for them. I actually saw someone on twitter get the same news. Question: did she apply for that, or did they just contact her?
She got an email within a week of being accepted by Howard which was an invitation to apply to the program. I believe that anyone with the qualifications and wanting to major in STEM subjects could apply, but no one I talked to even knew the program existed because it is so new.
Everyone! Acceptance packages are rolling in! Couldn’t be more excited!
And I looked the program up and it seems like a wonderful program. I didn’t find any other programs like it. Good luck to your daughter.
@idontknow23 My daughter received her packet yesterday and she looked through the materials for 30 minutes and then held the packet like a new born baby for another 30 minutes. I don’t remember ever getting excited for an college acceptance, especially since she knew she was already accepted! Thank you for the well wishes and hopefully this means the Financial Aid/Scholarships/Grants will be coming in soon.
Still waitlisted. Guess im getting rejected.
Packet received, no notice of costs, merit awards etc. This is getting old
Nothing from Howard, my daughter is so over Howard, she is moving on! I wouldn’t dare send my daughter to an educational institutional that shows this lack of concern during the admission process. To me this is indicative of how other parts of the institution will function. It is really too bad because Howard was initially a serious consideration for her.
@SnowflakeDogMom and @Poobear My daughter applied by Mid-October to 12 schools and there are still 4 schools that we don’t have any financial aid/scholarship offers for, so Howard is not alone with taking a long time. But I do understand why you may be tired of the wait. My daughter has decided to wait it out, and she is hoping that if she can secure a full ride, it will mitigate the Admin issues over the next 4 years. My family member, who is a freshman, is having the time of her life and doing well so it has made my daughter more patient than she would have normally been.
@ChangeTheGame I don’t mind waiting for a published deadline, what I don’t appreciate is all the missed deadlines.
We have moved on, I was not in support of my DD attending Howard in the first place, she chose to apply and did so last August. She has committed elsewhere to a school that manages to stick to their own promises and deadlines.
@SnowflakeDogMom My biggest issue has been transparency. I feel like the information that you find online isn’t current (scholarships), or show information from years past. When my wife and daughter visit in 3 weeks, she is going to make sure they hear about students like your child that move on because of the way they do business. I wonder if they will hear it… Rule #1 is don’t make promises that you cannot keep. My child still believes and as long as she gets the right financial aid/scholarship without losing other opportunities I will back her play. But I definitely get those who say I am done. I know you must be glad that the hard part is over…
@ChangeTheGame Exactly. DD applied because of the generous guaranteed merit she found on the Howard website as well as she loved the idea of a LAC in the East.
Following application, everything changed and here it is March, we do not even know if Howard is a financial option. W we know the University she has committed too has dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s with their transparency. We know exactly where we stand for enrollment and finances. I started reading a lot of the chatter regarding Howard here at CC and unfortunately their inability to communicate or stick to their own deadlines is common and has been going on for a few years. Given their sticker price, IMO there is no excuse for this.
I hope you enjoy your visit and get favorable merit aid. I read of kids who were hearing about aid in the final days of April last year, within hours of the May 1 deadline - that, IMO is inexcusable behavior for a school with such a great reputation.
@snowflakedogmom I agree with you. It is tough and kind of unfair that they are doing this to such loyal students. A lot of us have Howard as their number 1s and Howard knows this. They are able to do whatever they want and enrollment has actually risen over the years. I’m remaining optimistic, but if I don’t receive anything within the next weeks, I’m going to have to move on. I already gave up a full ride to Bethune Cookman. I don’t want to lose other offers.
My daughter just received her financial aid package from Howard at 5:38 pm EST and it was a combo of scholarships and loans. They gave her the Capstone scholarship and they broke it out into two parts (Capstone 12.8K and Capstone Need based 14.5K), with the remaining 18.7K being given out as loans (Total cost of attendance 46.1K). Next week is the interview at Howard for the competitive full ride scholarship and will find out in early April if she is selected or not. Good luck to everyone with your financial aid packages.
I got my email today also. I got some Leadership scholarship and the rest left me with 17.5K in loans. I’m pretty optimistic considering that is the estimated cost. Room & Board isn’t really a set number, etc. Time to get the scholarships going in full gear, lol. @ChangeTheGame I wish you daughter the best of luck.
@idonknow Good luck to you as well. Please keep us posted. I will give an update on Howard (lots of upheaval over housing on the campus along with my daughter’s over night experience and competitive scholarship process for the Bison Stem Scholars Program.
@SnowflakeDogMom I was wondering if Howard sent a financial aid package even though they missed out on your child and if the package was better or worse than expected, if it came?
@ChangeTheGame DD did receive an email with the offerings - this came in sometime friday 3/16 as she showed it to me on Saturday - I don’t remember the specifics but the offer left $18K in loans - we will not entertain loans as she has full ride offers on the table.
The balance due to be paid via:
$5500 in Fed Loan (hers)
$13,000 “parent loan”
Since she applied under the premise that she was eligible for their full ride, she was a bit upset at the bait and switch that took place when they switched up the verbiage at about the same time she applied.
I’m glad it came back the way it did as its not financially do-able and I can take Howard off the table without any regrets.
@SnowflakeDogMom I think they gave us both a pretty much identical financial aid package. Just 1 year ago, our children would have most likely gotten full-rides (family member got more money last year with lower scores/GPA than both your child and my daughter), but I have a feeling that they are most likely “spreading the wealth” amongst a larger group of students. Things tend to work out the way they are supposed to be and it is a good feeling to have options. Thanks for the update and best wishes for your child.
Anyone else heard anything?