<p>Wien International Scholarship 43,010
Wien Housing Grant 9,726
University Employment 1,500</p>
<p>Total Awards 54,236</p>
<p>I <3 Brandeis!</p>
<p>Brandeis has limited funds for merit scholarships, especially following the Madoff scandal. Therefore they can only award those who really stand out and not everyone with “pretty good” stats. Everyone who gets into Brandeis is amazingly bright, but not everyone can get a scholarship for it. I don’t think an appeal will work but here is the website for Student Financial Services: [Office</a> of Student Financial Services | Brandeis University](<a href=“http://www.brandeis.edu/sfs/]Office”>Office of Student Financial Services | Brandeis University) .</p>
<p>P.S. VictoriaChen - even though it doesn’t come with much money, the Lerman-Neubauer fellowship is highly prestigious and it is a great merit program. You and your son should be really proud (they do only offer 20 a year, I think).</p>
<p>I applied for FA and got admitted, but they told me that I didn’t qualify for need-based aid, because of the value of my family’s 2 apartments. I’m surprised that they take real estate assets into consideration because we can by no means sell our apartments (the more expensive one is our home.) At last, I got $0 for aid, and I cannot go to Brandeis. I finally realized “demonstrated need” is determined by them instead of my family and me. Funny and sad.</p>
<p>I appreciate the input and perspective on the Madoff scandal. Living < 1 hour from Brandeis, I’m tempted to make an in person appeal. Right now in hand we have $12K/year merit from Syracuse (and admissions to Crown Honors program), and nothing from Brandeis. Still haven’t heard from Colgate/Middlebury/Dartmouth/Princeton, but they have no merit awards in their charters.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted to Brandeis and her packet included scholarship information. She received the Dean’s Merit Award for $15,000 per year. We don’t qualify as “needy” so this was a nice surprise- but she has great grades and 2200 SAT 33 ACT.</p>
<p>I got $15,000 a year from them. I don’t think I have any demonstrated need. </p>
<p>It is still something =D</p>
<p>Understandable that accepted students not satisfied with any merit aid award would be disappointed. I believe Brandeis has allocated plenty of funds to merit aid, so I doubt it is the 'Madoff Scandal" that folks repeatedly are referencing. Brandeis’s endowment has rebounded nicely with the stock market rebound and fund raising has been geared to financial aid with millions raised. Also, remember that Brandeis had no funds invested with Madoff, although some of its traditional donors did. Other schools, Tufts for one, did lose money with Madoff.</p>
<p>VictoriaChen, I got the Lerman-Neubauer too, but I basically can’t afford Brandeis. My parents are going to call, I expect :)</p>
<p>I got a Presidential Scholarship, which came with my admissions packet. Basically, I would get $25,000 per year if I attended, which is seriously awesome.</p>
<p>@BillysDad2014</p>
<p>You can certainly try appealing in person for more merit aid, but I don’t think the merit offer from Syracuse is gong to help much.</p>
<p>Syracuse is not a school that typically competes with Brandeis for students because they are so very, very different.</p>
<p>That also raises the question that considering they are so different, would you son be happy at either of these schools or is one of them really a better fit for him?</p>
<p>Brandeis is a better fit based on his stats (SAT 2170, ranked 9 out of 400 in HS, many leadership ECs, etc), but in Syracuse he’s in the honors program (top 3% of admitted students) and the merit scholarship. Leaning towards Brandeis, but the extra $50K over 4 years is hard to take.</p>
<p>Major Political Science, with probable minor in Linguistics.</p>
<p>@BillysDad2014 </p>
<p>I totally understand about the $$
(I’m a father of a college-bound son myself and we are walking away from a pretty big pile of scholarship money as well).</p>
<p>I’m a Brandeis grad and I have some family members who’ve gone to Syracuse. Syracuse is a fine school but it’s not even close to what he would encounter at Brandeis. There is a reason why schools like Syracuse need to have an honors program to attract kids like your son. </p>
<p>However, if the big school with lots of sports and fraternities is in any way appealing to him, then he actually would probably fit in better at Syracuse. Like I said before, they really are polar-opposites in terms of what they offer in terms of student experience.</p>
<p>The other thing is that the greater Boston area is one of the truly great places to spend four years studying. Upstate New York… well let’s just say less so.</p>
<p>Good luck in any case.</p>
<p>Soze, if you don’t mind me asking, and I’m asking from pure curiosity. Is your son going to be attending Brandeis? I only ask because you always speak so highly of it.</p>
<p>@Eliyahu2123:</p>
<p>Thanks for asking.</p>
<p>I love(d) Brandeis and I can’t imagine having gone anywhere else. It’s truly a special place, but it’s not for everybody.</p>
<p>On paper, my son would have looked like a good fit for Brandeis (in fact his guidance counselor pushed pretty hard for him to apply) , but I know Brandeis and more importantly I know my son.</p>
<p>He wasn’t really in love with Brandeis and I didn’t think it was a good fit for him, so he didn’t apply.</p>
<p>It the moment, it looks like he’ll be going to Washington University in St. Louis. I’m pretty happy with this choice and I think he’ll be happy there.</p>
<p>soze,
I appreciate your input on the choices. My son would fit in at either university since he’s pretty adaptable. I don’t thing he’d want to join a fraternity, and I don’t think that would be an issue at SU (first hand experience on that). He’s very much dedicated to his studies - in general, he’d find a more similar student body at Brandeis. But you can get that at SU based on who you end up with in study groups and clubs - again, first hand experience. One big plus at Brandeis, is the fact (from what they say and what I’ve read) that most classes are taught by professors, and there is easy access to them throughout the year. At SU, it was heavy on TA’s, with less access in general.</p>
<p>WU in St. Louis - same div III sports circuit as Brandeis. As a previous Brandeis grad, do the students rally around their teams when sporting events are held at the school? Regardless of div I/II/III, if there’s school spirit revolving around the sporting events, that would be a good thing. SU may be over the top on that, but I don’t know how it is at Brandeis.</p>
<p>@BillysDad2014:</p>
<p>Brandeis has lots of school spirit, as far as rallying around the sports teams, I think it’s a mixed bag. When I was a student the soccer team made the national tournament and they got big turnouts for home games. In recent years, the basketball team has been doing quite well and I think Brandeis joining the UAA has really helped develop some nice sports rivalries (vs. NYU, etc).</p>
<p>But… if your son is looking for anything close to a big-time sports scene, Brandeis is not going to offer that.</p>
<p>Our family is not huge on sports. We watch some playoff games for Boston home teams, and some regular Patriot games. So the sports thing hasn’t been a big deal. Happy to hear Brandeis has “…lots of school spirit…”, regardless of the focus.</p>
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<p>I find this Monday morning quaterbacking, so to speak, of merit aid to be so interesting. I wish I had the time and ability to consolidate the information and try to tease out any patterns for future applicants.</p>
<p>My son was accepted to Brandeis, great grades with a 2350 SAT, 35 ACT, recs that read like I wrote them, etc and was offered no merit aid. We were a bit surprised but it’s so hit and miss. </p>
<p>He has chosen to attend Northeastern University; they offered full tuition, honors college and he really likes the idea of the co-ops. Plus he’s achieve his goal of getting out of Texas and up to the Northeast! Brandeis is a wonderful college and I wish every student there nothing but the very best.</p>
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<p>Similar situation here as the above post. Daughter with 2300 SAT, in the top 5% of her class, extensive EC’s and excellent teacher recs. was accepted to Brandeis with no merit aid. She had visited the campus more than once and had interviewed on campus. FWIW, we had read in The Justice, and it was later confirmed by the admissions staffer who interviewed D last summer, that Brandeis was going to significantly cut back on offering merit aid in favor of need-based aid, so D knew that this might happen. While it was disappointing at first, D has also received very good offers from other schools, so her Brandeis outcome is now water under the bridge, and she’s moved on. Best of luck to all the students who will be enrolling there this fall.</p>
<p>All these posts about the great kids who did not get any merit aid this year at Brandeis is actually making me feel better. Brandeis was both my D’s and my first choice, and her stats were out of the charts: perfect 2400, 104. something GPA, ECs, sports, independent research, you name it. She got in, but no merit aid. Got full scolarship to Boston University, though. So, now I am emotionally torn between spending a trackload of money and letting her go to Brandeis or being able to pay later for the Grad school, where she will most definitely go, </p>
<p>Any comments on comparing one BU to another BU? (Boston U vs Brandeis U)</p>
<p>BTW, as I think all who posted here by now know, appealing the scholarship decision did not help any.</p>