First of all, I fully realize that there are no standard answers to this question and everyone’s personal experiences are just that, their own experiences only. Still, I’d appreciate feedback if you have it.
For those of you whose children were accepted to several stand-alone music schools/conservatories (e.g. Berklee, Oberlin, Jacobs, Thornton, UMich SMTD, UNT, etc.) did you find that merit scholarships were generally consistent across the schools, or were they wildly different? And I’m speaking specifically of merit scholarships for music only and not for academics if going to a school like UMich, Northwestern, USC, etc., or need-based financial aid. If they were different, which schools were more generous?
Also, when making a final decision, did your kids consider the amount of scholarship offered, not just for financial reasons but also as an indicator how “wanted” they were by the school?
FYI, Northwestern doesn’t have much in the way of merit scholarships, music or otherwise that are not also tied to financial need. You are more likely to find merit scholarships for music at non-stand-alone schools, where the music is a hook, or where it is part of a larger, better-endowed-than-stand-alone-conservatory, university.
Wildly different, from school to school and student to student. There is no good answer here, except for Northwestern and USC where the music merit is typically quite small. (Not to say those schools are financially unfeasible, however, if one shows need - they both offer solid financial aid and USC has a lot of academic merit funding.)
Yes, I’m aware of the general reputations. To be honest, I’m not looking for schools – that’s already done. I’m curious about what actual experiences have been in terms of the range of merit scholarships offered to the same applicant.
DD had one almost match another when we appealed. The others were pretty disparate. Not a lot of pattern or consistency. Depends on what they need and where you fit in.
My D was recently accepted to Berklee with no merit aid. Still early in the process for other schools, she got a nice academic scholarship offer from her safety school, hoping for music merit after her audition.
Wildly different! The most generous school unfortunately was the least communicative - the second most generous had the favorite professor and a lower price tag overall. Win!
Not recent experience, but very mine received different offers, not always lining up with typical measures of the “quality” of schools in question. In talking with others entering more recently, the situation hasn’t changed.
As regards an offer indicting the “wanted” factor - I’d be careful here. Schools have different ways of looking at money - even merit money. Some schools do consider the parents’ ability to pay and adjust accordingly - no matter how much they want the kid. One of my kids was wait-listed once and when later confirmed for admission, the money was the highest we’d ever seen - and this was a major, very competitive conservatory. We think that more money came available late in the game as their enrollment numbers became known. I’ve also known those who claimed they had full tuition from major places to “buy them away” from other major places. Hard for me to definitively validate those claims, but I suspect it’s true in a couple cases. I would choose a school that is the best for the kid and is also affordable for the family without trying to read “signals” into merit offers. And, good luck on those offers!!!
My S received merit aid offers ranging from 50% to 100% tuition. Most schools offered actual amounts, while a couple offered a percentage. Many of his peers in jazz performance had similar experiences.
First be aware that even if you are not eligible for financial aid most schools will require you to complete a FAFSA in order to be eligible for merit money. Also it is not always easy to separate merit money from financial aide because of how the various funds used for scholarships are managed.
Another thing to be aware of is that merit money can vary from year to year for reasons unrelated to the quality of the students. Four years ago when my son and his peers were applying to Berklee, Berklee gave out zero full-rides because they were in the middle of a capital campaign to support the new building that was going up. 2 years later the landscape was very different and they were again offering full-rides.
Also with our son the amount offer changed due to the landscape of admissions and what instruments the school needed. My son went from being wait-listed at one institution to getting offered a generous scholarship which then kept getting increased as he became the primary candidate for his instrument.
“Equal” schools offered different amounts. I second @Momofadult, some schools do adjust merit based on need. Therefore, I would not use the amount offered as a guide as to how much the student is wanted.
Using the scholarship amount as a recruitment indicator is something that was suggested by two jazz mentors. Maybe it’s something that’s more prevalent in jazz as the programs tend to be smaller and there isn’t as much leeway in balancing instruments.
My son’s was all over the place. We do not qualify for any aid so this was important to us too. Im hoping you applied to a few financial safeties just in case. There was no way we could afford any of the big name schools even with generous merit aid so good luck!
It is going to vary, as others have said and two equivalent schools might come up with wildly different numbers. From what I know of the major conservatories, they tend to tie merit aid to financial aid as well, so if you are not eligible for need based aid, it is likely that unless the kid is some sort of music god, that the merit aid will be pretty small. I am also pretty certain there are schools trying to make a name for themselves, or where you have a ‘hook’ (like a teacher or administrator who really wants to recruit a student) that you can get more aid out of them, for example there is a pretty well known conservatory my son chose not to apply to, that I am pretty certain he would have gotten decent merit aid because the head of one of their programs really wanted him to go there (and take that for what it is, speculation, since you never know with aid). Programs striving to increase the level of their music department will often offer a lot better merit aid to kids who can get into the ‘big’ conservatories, to try and get them to go there, but that can be tempered by what instrument it is on and so forth, too, so there are no guarantees with that.
In the end, what others have said is valuable, that you really can’t predict what is going to happen, one year a school may have a lack of merit aid because they have a lot invested in current students, another year because the current roster of students are more full pay or near full pay, they may have more money. When endowments that support merit aid are doing well, because let’s say the financial markets have been going up, they likely will have more aid to give (among other things, because schools are non profits, the IRS gives them an evil eye if a certain percent of their endowment is not being used, they don’t like non profits sitting on endowments that aren’t doing anything, which basically represents the rate of return on the investments that make up the endowment).
One thing is if you are disappointed with the aid, you can always appeal it, and though there is no guarantee that will do much, it can’t hurt. In my experience, based on what I have seen and heard, the level of the program will affect this, I suspect that a top notch conservatory, one of those with low admit rates, will be less likely to adjust aid then a program that is trying to attract more high level students, but that is not hard and fast either.
He had tentatively, and very reluctantly, picked one with rolling admissions but it turns out that Berklee just accepted him with enough money for us, so I guess that’s now his safety. It’s not his top choice but he had a good visit, liked it more than he thought he would and says he’d be fine going there. Can’t ask for more, really. The stress level in this house a month ago, as he was trying to write his essays, finish the applications and do the prescreens was pretty miserable. Amazing what that first viable acceptance can do to change the outlook. Whew!