S got the program he wanted which was extremely competitive but not honors (he has been offered honors at OSU, UMass Amherst and SUNY Buffalo which are the only other state schools he applied to. He got significantly more merit money as well ($14,000 v $2,000). He applied by the priority deadline. Since he applied his grades have improved (they were good to begin with but he got a 4.0 for the first half of the year which is difficult at his school). As for need, our EFC is fairly low and UMD did not come close to meeting it, only some loans which make it our most expensive option and not an option. We also have ongoing non discretionary expenses which I would include in an appeal letter. They seem to say on their website that everything is take it or leave it. Is that true? Anyone able to appeal anything?
Generally, if you are out of state, applying to a public U, most funding is offered to residents because they are paying taxes to support the U. No appeals will change that, though of course you can try.
The best chance for your best merit and FAid are your instate public options.
I appreciate the thought but I am seeing merit offers all over the place to OOS students (not talking about UMD). I have seen very mediocre applicants get money from other state schools. The thinking goes like this, if OOS is $45,000 and in state is $25,000 and StateU can offer OOS student $10k, then they make $10k on the deal over an in state student and probably get a student with higher statistics (eg OSU Buckeye Scholarship). College is a business. Some states do not such as California, they are upfront that you will pay if you come OOS. UMD does have scholarships for OOS but they do not seem to be very generous with them which is the opposite of what I heard when I had looked into it
@LRLMom You heard wrong. UMD is quite stingy with merit aid. They will not improve the offer either with respect to merit or honors.
UMD also has a requirement to maintain a student population that is 70% in-state. Some other States have similar requirements and some do not
My daughter is OOS for Maryland and got a $12k per year scholarship so I don’t think it is accurate to say that Maryland is stingy with merit aid for OOS students. I’ve seen many frustrated posts from high stat in state students or their parents because no merit aid was offered. So disappointment exists for many students regardless of residency.
What no one knows is 1.) how MD determines which students, whether in state or out of state get merit aid and 2.) how that merit aid is distributed across the in state and out of state populations of students.
But it really shouldn’t be a surprise that OOS schools are going to be stingy with need based aid for OOS students because they get funding from state taxpayers which should rightly be allocated to students from that state. Every OOS public state school I’ve looked at with my kids was very clear on their financial aid websites that need based aid was extremely limited or non-existent for our of state students.