<p>Our daughter applied to just 3 schools. Each application included requests for direct seating to the doctorate program for her intended field of study.</p>
<p>She was granted the seat to her second and third choices; accepted to the bachelors program at her first choice, but denied direct seating for their grad program. Likewise, her first choice gave the smallest merit scholarship in comparison to the others. Her first choice was the most prestigious of the 3 so this came as no surprise.</p>
<p>When we received the disappointing news that she was denied seating to her clear-cut first choice, a friend suggested we request a re-evaluation. We figured there was nothing lose and did so. Lo and behold, it worked! Our daughter submitted new information to strengthen her application and the review board subsequently approved. </p>
<p>Then we thought, why not do the same for the difference in merit scholarships? Wouldn't you know... that worked too! Her first choice school increased her scholarship substantially. </p>
<p>As we're nearing the end of this process with our high school senior, we have every intention to submit a financial aid re-evaluation request should we find big discrepancies once all packages are received. </p>
<p>While I know this may not be the norm, the moral of my story is that if your children receive disheartening news, don't assume the process is over. Hope all of you have similar positive outcomes.</p>
<p>Wow, I’ve never heard of or considered direct seating for the PhD program. Would that be FUNDED? In general, those are highly competitive and require the student to have interviews & a body of work to be considered as funding is a serious commitment for both student & U. Glad your D has had excellent results. Congrats!</p>
<p>Based on PTmajor5’s name, I would guess her daughter is in a direct admit physical therapy program. Direct admit in PT is highly competitive, requires interviews, and, as is the case at the school where my D is a PT direct admit, some programs may extend undergraduate merit scholarships for the graduate program. I don’t know of any that are fully funded but we only looked into six programs.</p>
<p>Fascinating–first time I heard of it being possible to be direct admitted for bachelor’s and PhD WITH merit funding. I guess we didn’t explore that and it turns out to be a good thing because S is interested in exploring other options before he goes for grad school. We’re happy that he will be working for a bit and his employer has indicated a willingness to fund grad studies.</p>
<p>There aren’t all that many PT schools, but I don’t know many who get PhDs in PT, mostly I thought just masters.</p>
<p>That may be because they aren’t actually called “PhD” but “DPT,” or doctor of physical therapy. And I think it’s actually a fairly recent trend that more students are going for the doctorate level rather than the masters level.</p>
<p>It doesn’t hurt to ask. I just like to let people know that it is not an auto yes, so that they do not count on it. We got a bit more merit money by asking with our third child.</p>
<p>The avenue our daughter pursued was a DPT program as CUlater mentioned. Perhaps I should have been more selective in my wording. I used the term “direct seating” as some universities do but it’s actually more of a “guaranteed seat” to DPT programs (assuming the student holds up there end of the bargain by meeting minimum cumulative GPA and minimum science course grades for example). </p>
<p>In actuality, my original post wasn’t meant to be specific to those pursuing PT. My intention was to encourage those whose academic and/or scholarship hopes were not fully met to consider requesting re-evaluations… based on our VERY limited experience, initial offers (and even a denial) were able to be challenged and overcome.</p>
<p>Yea, we did ask our S’s 1st choice school if they could possibly increase the merit award so it was closer/matched the competitor’s merit award. They did! We were grateful, as every little bit helps, especially when it’s renewed, as his award was!</p>