Agree with above posts. No school HAS to find Merit dollars for any kid when there are plenty who are willing to pay full fare. I do think OOS students with excellent stats get accustomed to State schools at least dropping the tuition down to in state levels for a Merit reward. As mentioned, maybe JMU drops some $ at a later date when they get a feel for enrollment
I didnāt mean my post to come off as if she was entitled. Honestly went into this process not expecting anything but hopeful. I was just curious as to what those who had received merit were applying with. For a 50k school to offer zero after every other comparably priced school offered big breaks was just a suprise. I know itās a super competitive year and colleges are getting way over normal applications.
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No worries. You didnāt. Iāve just spent most of my life in VA and when I read about all these people getting merit here and there, it was really weird at first. VA publics just arenāt like that.
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Did JMUās price go up to 50k?! I thought it was 42k for OOS for COA
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My older son graduated from JMU last May, and my younger son is a freshman there now. Iāve never paid anywhere near $50k. JMU is very reasonable at full price for out of state students.
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Question for you about yields. If you are looking for a musical theatre class size no larger than 20, do you only accept 20 and waitlist anyone else still in consideration? Or do you accept 25-30, predicting that some accepted students will decline? Thank you again 
For musical theatre we aim for a class of 14-16 incoming majors and will admit more and waitlist others to yield that number. The number admitted and waitlisted will vary from year to year.
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My daughter financial page in her portal said 49k and change
Does that 49k maybe include indirect costs like travel, health insurance etc.?
It looks like the 49K amount is likely the estimated Cost of Attendance (COA), which includes (as @Birchwood81 mentioned) indirect costs such as books, travel, and personal expenses.
Still estimates of expenses, but not directly billed by the university.
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Iām wondering if because she has such high stats that JMU is thinking you arenāt going to accept, only applied as a safety, so no need to give merit.
DD got the same package! I was hoping JMU would be a little cheaper than the other OOS schools she has been accepted too. Not the case.
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thanks, kate. i auditioned in january and canāt wait to hear! how many people total auditioned for mt across all four audition dates?
My daughter auditioned for the MT program earlier in the month. She was not told how many were being considered via audition. Good luck to you !! All the MT programs are so competitive and take such a limited number
thanks! good luck to your daughter too!
Us too.
same for us. I was (un)pleasantly surprised at the total expected COA because I was expecting something in the low 40K
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My D23 is not a JMU āhigh statsā applicant. Her preliminary package didnāt offer her any merit money either so I donāt think that āpotential scenarioā is playing into their decision. I think my D23 looks like a very typical āJMU acceptā student
The only merit I have heard of was for OOS legacy students with high stats.
Would you mind sharing which OOS schools came in lower than JMU? My daughter is a junior and we are looking to stay under 43k for COA and JMU has been high on our list of what we thought would be affordable schools based on thee fees published on their website. Thank you!!!
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