If you received a merit aid and you thought it was just right, congratulations, very likely you deserved it. If you did not receive any or received a small amount, you wonder why the shortcomings and what exactly did go wrong in that process!
Would be helpful to come along and list what you thought was the factor for your merit award, and if you did not receive any or you received a small amount, what did you think your handicap was?
D received $12k merit from Rochester. Aid from three other top choice schools ranged from $27k to $35k. I think Rochester came in comparatively very low, as the other schools are ranked near or higher. She had expressed a lot of interest, visited twice, etc. So I was hoping to be closer to about $18k. I think they have a formulaic approach that my D just didn’t quite fit into, perhaps because she doesn’t have a super high SAT. No hard feelings here, as one of the schools with higher merit was her dream school.
D received 5k after an appeal process. I thought it was on the low end and there are a lot of posters with high merit aid numbers that makes you think twice! Her SAT’s were not that great, but everything else was pretty much as good as it gets. I know there is a table with all kinds of related awards per criteria… it would add up much higher than the 5k, so it can’t be it!
My son was accepted, and didn’t receive any merit aid. A good friend of his who graduated from his high school two years ago said he received a very generous merit award from UR (though ultimately matriculated elsewhere). The friend told us that he thought that my son would do even better on the merit aid front, since my son has a higher GPA, higher class rank, took the same AP classes, and iirc had higher SAT’s, and better EC’s. We were hopeful, but it didn’t happen.
I don’t know why he was overlooked for merit aid, but I suspect that his SAT’s, which were weak by UR standards, were probably a factor. He didn’t take any SAT II’s due to scheduling conflicts, and that might have made him appear to be a bit of a slacker. He also attends a tiny rural public high school, and their AP offerings are limited compared to most other schools. He took as rigorous a course load as was offered (minus one AP class unrelated to his chosen major that simply didn’t interest him), but it probably paled in comparison to most applicants’ class schedules. And though his GPA and class rank are respectable, they’re both adversely impacted by his heavy participation in winter sports: he misses (with school permission) about two days of school per week during January and February, and this has been the case throughout high school. That’s the sort of schedule intrusion that simply doesn’t come across clearly in a college application.
It probably also doesn’t help that he’s always been a fairly humble kid. After his interview at Rochester (his first and only college interview) I asked him how it had gone (“I think it went well”) and then asked him what he had talked about with the interviewer. He said that he had talked about his passion for winter sports, and his study plans for the future. I asked him whether he had mentioned that he was about to have an article he had written published in an enthusiast’s magazine about his experience in a hobby that is an unusual one for teenagers to be involved in. “No, doesn’t that seem too boastful, Mom?” I suggested that if he had a change of heart, he could send a link or a scan to the admissions offices as a supplement to his application (a suggestion that his high school guidance counselor seconded), but he didn’t want to do so. When a relevant NYTimes blog picked up on it and interviewed him for a short piece published later that fall, he still refused to self-promote. I’ve been “hands off” with my kids’ college applications, so I didn’t push the issue. He did get need-based aid, and it’s enough that he will be able to attend.
As for the table you’re referring to, is that the 2011 interview? If so, I read that article as well, and based on that information, my son would have qualified for some decent merit aid, even with the fair-to-middling SAT scores. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that that article is fairly dated, and that I would imagine that things change quite a bit from year to year depending on the strength of the applicant pool. Much as it was nice to read that article and consider the possibilities, I don’t begrudge the FA office if things have changed in the past four years and they’re no longer able to offer merit aid based on very dated criteria.
So does your son plan to enroll? If so, you might want to ask for a reevaluation by financial aid, specifically noting the achievements they don’t know about. It could perhaps result in some aid.
The table I referred was not the 2011 interview - it was something that used to be on their website but they’ve taken it down. It included a number of “real” student profiles and their financial awards. They intended for prospective students to try to figure out where they fit in relative to the student profiles to give them an idea of the amount of merit aid they would receive. Perhaps they took down the table because they’ve changed their overall approach.
I get the impression that many of the Ivy League applicants are using URochester as a safety school, so they may be offering them larger merit awards to entice them to enroll and bring their overall stats up.
My Son was a good match for Rochester, right in the middle of the stats range, so he was just expecting to get in if he was lucky enough to be one of the “middles” selected. He had an interview on campus which went well. We were shocked when he received a merit scholarship a few days after his admission. He was given the Prince Street Scholarship for $13K/yr for his commitment to the arts. He does have some impressive ECs around his music stuff (heavy metal bands, production and DJing, he’s not a classical musician!!), and definitely stressed that in the essays, but he was not applying for a music major. We were very happily surprised. Just another example of admissions being a total crapshoot!!
@jmek15, yes, my son plans to enroll. If his need-based package had left him unable to attend, then I would have suggested that he appeal the decision not to grant merit aid to see whether they would provide a bit extra there. I wish I knew whether or not he might qualify down the line if he does well academically. If this is his only chance, then he might want to ask for reconsideration, if only so he doesn’t eliminate his chances down the line. As for the graphic and the student profiles, they’re actually still on the website, but merit-based information appears after you’ve run the NPC. I hadn’t noticed, actually, that you had alluded to it; Fatmoose had also referred to a “table” with “awards by criteria”, and that sounded a bit as if it might have been the list of things from the 2011 article.
@Camerson121 - My S’18 will be thrilled to learn your son was rewarded for his involvement with heavy metal bands!
Made comment in wrong place, sorry.
I was referring to Jonathon Burdick blog where he had mentioned a list of accomplishments that is tied with reward money as part of the merit award amount, the link no longer works. I do have to complement the office for reconsidering their original position and awarded an amount (albeit small) as a merit aid.
Need-base seems to be a lot easier to get only if you qualify which we didn’t! that leaves us with paying roughly the full amount. I guess it doesn’t look fair from a distance especially when you make sure your finances are in order for college and having to pay close to the full amount, while others with less future planning and a bit of a financial mess come out even and the same at the end of the day! Just the system in general is a shocker and not UofR in particular.
@Fatmoose (great name!), this link seems to be working: http://enrollment.rochester.edu/blog/what-kind-of-scholarship-can-i-get/
Same here, @Fatmoose. We don’t qualify for need-based aid, so were are completely dependent on merit aid to make any of the private schools feasible. Because Rochester came in low we had to cross it off the list.