@tripletmama, I’ll raise my hand to do the scholarship spreadsheet. My inclination would be to not include financial aid though, since I don’t think one family’s financial aid award is really projectable onto another family. I would think the relative data points are: (1) school, (2) major, (3) instrument, (4) music merit award, (5) academic merit award. Thoughts?
Great idea and we can Pm you info!
This won’t be altogether useful even broken out because many merit awards are actually need informed. Just unstated. Schools will give higher merit awards to families with financial need than those without. Especially the top programs where they’re not worrying about yield. And it’s just about impossible to sort that out from an outside standpoint.
I believe @SpiritManager is 100% accurate re: “need informed”. It’s also true that a persons academic award may affect the music award and vice versa.
Another thing relating to income that no one will like to talk about is the opposite end of the spectrum…family wealth. Parents and their students are considered potential future donors. Nothing illegal required.
I think it’s totally ok to share, but I hope anyone reading understands that there are sooooo many variables to this and you can’t simply conclude that your kid is any less talented than another just because their award was less.
Other variables that can be considered when some schools make offers:
Home state
*Race
*Sex
Other interests, talents, activities, jobs they’ve held
Minors they may pursue
Personality
*(specifically in combination with instrument played)
I think we are all trying to see any “rhyme or reason” we can in this process, but it’s not that simple.
I understand that people would like a ballpark idea of what is possible in terms of merit aid, but as everyone is saying, it is very difficult to attain that in a really useful, reliable way. Even the number of spots available can influence merit aid, as well as all the factors listed above.
It can be confusing as to what is financial aid and what is merit aid when the financial side does influence merit, even when posters are very careful to distinguish the two.
I hesitate to say this, but many feel quite private about things like merit scholarships. And there is the potential to make others, who didn’t get the same kind of award, feel badly.
It is always possible to check with the school. Relying on info from other families seems iffy 
@tripletmama do you know how they were notified for Blair? like an email or letter in the mail? I am still waiting for merit money (piano)
@lkbux64 - thanks for volunteering!! Let us know what you need in addition to what is posted on here. I think that most folks understand that merit is need informed - probably more so at some schools vs. others. For instance, SFCM told my daughter that they really don’t give any merit since they expect that the musicians are all at a certain level so their “merit” is very need informed. Berklee likes to break it out. All schools are different.
I think we should also try to capture “re-audition” awards and maybe transfers as well (e.g. if our kids hate where they land, how much can they hope to get if they transfer). Just a thought.
Thanks so much!!! I think it will be very useful information that hopefully parents will benefit from and add to for years to come. And regarding “musicians’ feelings might get hurt” - welcome to the real world! You need to grow a thick skin to make it in the music world.
@tripletmama, I will create a spreadsheet with the information presented here and see what that looks like. I’ll report on what I have and if people want more data than what I’ve collected, I will reach back out to the group. This will be a good opportunity for me to brush up on my Pivot Table skills!
Is there a spreadsheet to view somewhere and I’m just missing where to see it? Or is it in a previous post?
@CaraCoMO - the spreadsheet is in process. I spent a couple of hours today culling through the journey thread and this thread to pull the data. A couple of people have also DM’d with additional info. The more info I have the better, but I should be in a position to post initial results this weekend.
Two people reported to me anonymously the following from this year:
Oberlin ($28,000)
Julliard (full)
Can you please DM me the instrument if you feel comfortable reporting anonymously? (trying to help lkbux64 to fill in the spreadsheet).
It’s not about having a thin or thick skin. It’s about how the musicians I admire conduct themselves with peers, with humility and consideration. Music is collaborative in the best sense, or it should be. A thread on merit awards is inevitably competitive, and has a competitive vibe, I think, even when the postings are anonymous.
I agree with compmom. Also, as self-reported, anonymous information it’s not verifiable.
I very much would have appreciated having access to more information regarding scholarships at various schools. We might have made some different decisions had we known that some porgrams offer zero or very limited scholarship for certain majors. We could have used our time and effort to focus on fewer schools and possibly have stonger applications at those specific schools.
This information is not availble on school websites.
Agree any information regarding scholarships should be taken with a grain of salt. However, it could help others decide when to do more research and when to move on.
@Diglass - I completely agree with you. Had we known that Berklee can give out financial aid, our daughter would have applied EA in the Fall and likely not have gone through a second audition in February. It would have saved us a lot of grief and stress. Had she not gotten the financial aid - then she could have auditioned again. Of course, it’s not a given but at least you know it’s possible.
Regarding anonymous awards not be verifiable…why would someone lie anonymously? No point in doing so.
At any rate - I’m sure that the database will have caveats listed on it. I know for a fact that we would have appreciated it immensely. There is a database that you can all access over on “Paying for College 101 FB page” - I think there are around 800 college datapoints for this year alone. Go check it out. I entered our info. over there for Berklee and will do so for the other colleges. Knowledge is power.
@ohdearvickie - Regarding Blair notification - the anonymous poster said : I got notified first by email, then by physical letter. They are a classical sax player.
Please forward your anonymous merit awards directly to: @lkbux64. She has graciously agreed to compile the award database. Thanks!
Oh dear @tripletmama - so, so sorry about the misunderstanding re: Berklee and financial aid. So much needless stress. I’m glad it worked out for your daughter and hope she is fantastically happy there.
Here's an overview, based on my family's experience w/ 3 kids, on how merit scholarships fit into funding an undergraduate degree. There are 2 basic paths.
Path 1 - Your family is eligible for financial aid at a given school.
- Determine if, for a given school, you are likely to be eligible for financial aid. (Since COA at schools will vary, your eligibility for FA will vary from school to school.)
- If you will be eligible for financial aid, the next step as you plan is to determine how close a particular school comes to meeting the gap between COA and your EFC (this gap is your "need".) You can also find out if that percentage includes loans for the student and/or the parent. Some schools famously meet need at 100%, some average far less and some meet need without loans. It's all online.
- Understand that if your family is eligible for financial aid at a particular school, your "need" will be met with a combination of merit scholarships, grants, work study and offers of student loans and parent loans. Except for schools that meet 100% of need, your specific "need" at a school may be met at higher or lower than the school's average.
- How much merit scholarship you get relative to how much financial aid you get in grants, work study and loan offers depends upon how much money a given school has in the scholarship bucket vs. the financial aid bucket. Your student could get less in scholarship and more in grants at a certain school. At another school the student could get more in scholarship and less in grants. Keep your eye on the bottom line of the "package" and how much of what is offered is loans. That's it.
Maybe you can beat your EFC with a great audition - win! But you should do your financial planning based on your EFC. If you don’t want to pay the EFC - keep reading.
Path 2 - Your family is NOT eligible for financial aid at a given school (OR you don’t want to pay the calculated EFC at a given school):
Part 1: Go for the big, big merit scholarship bucks! (Congratulations to the amazing students that receive these scholarships - they are exceptional and rare.)
- Some schools like Curtis have no tuition for admitted students.
- Start digging deeply into the major, non-need-based scholarships offered at music schools that your student is interested in attending. These are scholarships that don't review your FAFSA when evaluating your application for the scholarship. Music schools like Blair, Frost and Thornton famously have these kinds of scholarship opportunities. Note the requirements in terms of when you get your application in to be eligible for them. What's evaluated? This will vary by scholarship.
- Check out other schools that have major non-need based scholarships. University of Georgia, just one example, offers the Foundation Fellowship. Several schools offer Stamps. A music major could definitely win one of these scholarships with the right credentials. There are ALWAYS threads on College Confidential discussing the major non-need-based merit scholarships - those are the key words.
Part 2: Try to pay less than your EFC with merit scholarships!
- Some schools like Eastman make it easy - there's a chart that shows the range of merit scholarships available as a function of EFC. For other schools you'll need to research each school, or make a call and find out what range of merit scholarships are available for families without need. ( In other words, there's probably a chart, it's just not published.) Maybe you can beat the chart if your instrument is needed in a given year and you rock your audition.
- It always comes up so I'll just put this out here: Northwestern is a school that meets close to 100% of need, so are there merit scholarships for families without need? Yes - Beinen gives non-need-based merit awards in order to attract students being offered merit scholarships from other schools.
- Related: Check out schools that offer in-state tuition for OOS students with terrific auditions and other credentials. And don't forget to research schools that have reciprocity with and a better music program than your state school.
Thank you @buoyant ant for such a great post. So helpful!
We went down Path 2. My spouse and I both work full time and have been saving for college since each of our 3 kids were born. We knew we wouldn’t qualify for financial aid so we didn’t apply. However, once we got into the music school application process and came to learn that merit scholarships are available, we made sure to hit all of the scholarship application deadlines so S could be considered. Then, we learned at the last minute that some of the merit scholarships require FAFSA and CSS. So, we scrambled to get those forms ready on a very tight timeframe to make those deadlines. In the end, S was offered scholarships at all of the music schools that admitted him. Knowing what I know now, it’s not surprising that the largest award came from the school that did not require us to file a FAFSA/CSS (USC Thornton).
Thanks @lkbux64. It’s essential to understand the “system” and how your family fits into the system. Many scholarships are need-informed and to be eligible, those schools want to see your FAFSA and CSS.
For the spreadsheet you are creating, the range of available merit scholarships offered by a given school will be slightly more meaningful for families who are not eligible for financial aid from that school. But even this gets complicated across instruments and programs. Maybe someone died and made a generous donation to the strings program that year. Maybe the school is trying to build their jazz program and has diverted more merit funding to that program for the next 5 years. Maybe the voice program went all out to snag a counter-tenor last year and borrowed into this year’s pot of money.
Families eligible for financial aid, should NOT use range of merit scholarships offered ALONE when making decisions about where to APPLY. They should research the music school’s ability to meet need. Picture the admissions person saying something like “Great, this student was eligible for $35K in music merit scholarship based on their audition and for their instrument. Now, where can I find $15K in financial aid dollars to get close to or lower than this family’s EFC because we really want this kid?” Maybe this scenario exists too: “Highly ranked kid and we want them, but since this family is eligible for FA, let’s make the package $15K dollars for merit scholarship and $35K dollars in financial aid dollars, preserving some merit money for kids without need because they probably aren’t coming here with zero scholarship dollars.”
Students ranked higher in their program/instrument coming out of the audition (likely a combination of audition, grades, ECs, needed instrument, diversity - the usual hooks and who knows what else) MAY get the more attractive kinds of financial aid. We can’t really see into this part of the system. What we can see is the result, which is how close, on average, that school meets need.
Thank you for volunteering for this effort, @lkbux64. If people want to disclose their EFC and the merit scholarship offered by the school or how much need was met without loans, perhaps, it would make interpreting the scholarships more meaningful. Data is great, but it has to be interpreted in context of the system that generated it.