Merit money

I am moving my question over to the more general area of scholarships to hopefully get more help.

What’s the best way to ask for more merit money? My D just got accepted to her top school last week, and we were really surprised there was no merit. I had run the NPC several times (depending on how they may look at the GPA) and each time came up $20k of merit. However, when I ran it again on Friday after she received notice, it came out to $0 - it seems as if they changed how they show merit vs. a few months ago.

So do I call admissions? Should she? Her specific admissions counselor or in general? E-mail? Should she wait, since I heard that if you wait sometimes they may try to entice you more? I just don’t know the timing of these questions, nor do I know if it will even help, but I can’t see it hurting.

We are not eligible for financial aide at all. I realize nothing in life is certain, but she applied really thinking that this money would come through based on the calculator.

Any help would be appreciated on how I should go about this. Thank you.

I think this is a parent call to make. I’d call admissions and very politely let them know that you ran the NPC before she applied and it showed a merit award, but she hasn’t received anything yet from the college. Can they help? Then see what they say. Maybe they haven’t sent them out yet. Or maybe they did change their criteria. I’d ask and see what they say.

@3mamagirls

When did you run the net price calculators? August? September? When a few months ago?

Are you sure the college sends merit awards with acceptances, because some send them later.

Does this school have guaranteed merit awards based on stats? If not…there is no guarantee anyone will receive an award.

Was this an ED acceptance (I hope not)?

@thumper1 Not an ED. I ran several times within the last few months - using different GPA’s. From the people posting on this board, and from a friend of hers, it looks as if the money came with the acceptance letter.

No - it’s not guaranteed. But it was a main reason that I let her apply - it’s very expensive. Going from a total of a hopeful $80k to $0 is quite a difference. I’d be fine if it was anything more than $0.

We could make it work with a lot of pain (this part I don’t need help with) - I just want to know if there is a strategy of when to ask. Can it hurt to ask? I’m in new territory even though it’s by 3rd time around - my other 2 never were close to hoping for merit.

It won’t hurt to ask, but prepared for an answer you aren’t going to like!

Give the admissions office a call…and inquire. It’s the best you can do. BUT you do need to be prepared to say “if we can make the money work, our student will matriculate to your school”…and then make that happen. My opinion.

Sometimes early action money is sent a little later because there is no immediate matriculation decision deadline.

Perhaps the others you talked about applied early decision…as I believe SMU has both.

Are you willing to share the name of the school? Might be helpful for others.

For schools in the US, we have mostly heard about merit awards at the same time as acceptances came out. There is however no harm in asking. I think that this is one of the few things where it makes sense to have the parent ask. This is partly because of the assumption that it is the parent who has to come up with the money, and partly because the parent is way more likely than the child to have ever in the past negotiated amounts of money on this scale.

Be polite and calm when you ask. Mention what you said about in the past seeing a merit possibility in the NPC results. Ask if merit might be awarded later. Be aware that whomever you are talking to probably does not have the authority to give you any money at the time, and that if you do succeed the notification will probably come later.

It probably would not hurt your case if you have an acceptance in hand at another school that is academically comparable for lower cost, and also it would not hurt if your student is stronger than the average student for the school that you are talking to.

@Eeyore123 on another thread, the poster states this is Southern Methodist University.

@thumper1 . ok - so now we am on to something. It sounds as if I should be prepared to say she will matriculate if we can make the money work? I will talk to her tonight, but am 99.9% certain that will be the case. And that would be the best way to try to secure something? Is advice to do this earlier (this week) vs. later?

For sure she talked to people who went EA - as well as people on this board. The EA decisions came out Friday and everyone is posting about their included merit…

I did try to call, and they told me to email, so now I have time to formulate an email and what to say. And since this is now an email, is this something that I as a parent should still do since I’m the one who is paying vs. my D? She is trying to go for one of the scholarships they offer that isn’t as much grade related (leadership) but that’s competitive for sure. I just don’t want to ruin her chances for that by making too much noise.

And all - don’t get me wrong. I was just very surprised because I tried to be as conservative as could be when plugging in numbers, and don’t think we are entitled to anything. Just trying to make it work - just like everyone else.

@DadTwoGirls Our posts crossed. Yes - she does have another school acceptance already and got merit at that one. Should I actually say that? (which is now an email as admissions advised me to do). I really hate giving out stats on this board - but she is certainly competitive - just not the top. And I knew that, but was hoping for the merit based on the NPC which is obviously not guaranteed.

oops - don’t know how to edit. Wrong “dad” was tagged. @DadTwoGirls

@3mamagirls

Schools often don’t care about other school merit offers because every college has its own criteria for awarding merit.

But if the other college is a true peer college to SMU, that might be worth mentioning. If the other college is NOT a peer school, SMU isn’t going to really care about their merit offer.

One thing that happened to us is that the school didn’t have the highest test scores when doing the merit award.

Daughter was accepted in Oct and committed (through athletics) in November. Merit awards were somewhat guaranteed but the matrix was made based on the applicant pool’s stats so came out in Feb. Her scores were right at the edge, so while NPC said she should get the higher award, it was possible to only get a lower award. Honestly, this was the beginning of ‘The Great File Mix Up.’ The coach put in an application with an old set of high school transcripts and scores ‘just to get things moving’, and then daughter applied on a full application (with her whole name and everything!) and current gpa/scores. So everything went along and the award came in Feb with the lower amount. I called admissions and they had me send in the new scores and they resent the award letter. Daughter had send new ACT scores but they never got to admissions.

So make sure they have all the updated info. You said the current NPC has changed so it may be that the school has changed the way they give awards (oh believe me, my daugher’s school changed every year and they no longer even offer the awards she received).

Our woes continued. It wasn’t until daughter went to register for 2nd semester that I figured out that she had two files. Documents had a 50/50 chance of reaching the file, but somehow her official hs transcripts were in the ‘wrong’ file even though we sent them in FOUR times. This school trains rocket scientists but can’t get a document into the right file. I finally figured out that when a letter came from the school with her whole name, it was from the ‘right’ file but when it came with only half her first name on it, it was the ‘coach’s file’ and information was never updated.

Note to others reading this thread…

When you run the Net Price Calculators, either screenshot and save your results (and your inputted numbers). It may help you later if the award is much different. Sometimes there’s a way to email your results as well.

The net price calculators are NOT a guarantee of what your actual award will be. Sure. Save a screenshot if you want to, but it may not get you anywhere at all.

The results you get on the net price calculator does not guarantee that this is what you get nor does it imply a contract, for you to go back and ask the school why didn’t you get X.

Op stated she ran a few scenarios. However, did she run it with her D’s **actual ** numbers?

it seems that this scholarship is not solely based on grades and scores. Unfortunately you don’t know what the institutional mission is and how the school is going to use scholarship to woo students who they believe will fulfill the mission.

It looks like on face SMU does not have guaranteed merit.

Yes - I completely realize it’s not guaranteed. I did not take a screenshot or print out - didn’t think I needed to (note to people in the future) because I knew it was holistic and not based on hard numbers such as an Alabama. I used very conservative numbers.

The point of my thread is how do I go back and ask for more (any) merit money, since initially my D was in the range, and if there are any strategies to use and who do I even talk to?

But I do know how we will proceed. Thanks to all of you comments.