Emailed UKy and was told Merit Weekends will be March 4&5, March 11&12, and March 18&19.
Can anyone speak to whether they’ve gotten good bang for the buck out of attending Merit Weekend if they had NOT already committed to UK? Looking at the non-refundable portion of the fees (with 2 guests), plus lodging.
Obviously, with a prospective student, we haven’t participated in a Merit Weekend yet.
We are planning to attend one of the weekends because, frankly, there is so much merit money on the table and I believe UKy is full of opportunity.
I’d like to give D a chance to see the other smarty pants kids (said with affection!) who will likely be attending UKy come fall, and see how well UKy organizes and runs the event.
We have been to Lexington to tour UKy once this past fall, and Merit Weekend will be our second look.
I do not think Merit Weekend will increase scholarship offers. By that time awards should be decided. The main advantage is the opportunity to register for classes early. Classses do fill up. By registering early you have a better chance of getting the classes you want at preferred times. It is a good idea to do a little research ahead of time. Look at the UK common core so you can see what courses have been knocked out by AP or dual credit. Look at the UK Bulletin/catalog to see what courses your son or daughter will need for his/her major. Then you can put together a tentative schedule before Merit Day.
The other advantage is that you knock out orientation in March. That leaves summer free for travel, work, or whatever. I think the advantages of going to Merit Day are directly related to the likelihood of attending UK.
Things may be different than when we attended Merit Weekend, but one of the things that we loved was that we could register for classes without making that final commitment. We were pretty sure that this was our decision, but not sure. We did see other NMSFs from D’s high school attend, yet they decided to go to other schools after they recieved scholarships from other schools that were higher on their list.
D’s boyfriend did not attend. I am not sure if he got all of the classes that were his first choice or not, but some were at times not preferred. Neither were Honor College students, which would impact the date one could register. As catlover606 said, one of the best aspects of Merit Weekend is the early registration. We enjoyed our time, which was similar to what other “special day” visits are like at other schools.
@catlover606 Oh! To clarify, we are not expecting an increase in merit aid by attending Merit Weekend. It’s that D has been offered the Patterson Scholarship, and with such a generous offer (already on the table), I want her to take another serious look at UKy.
@Midwest67 Glad you clarified because I did misunderstand your post. The Patterson Scholarship is a wonderful opportunity. My daughter has the Presidential Scholarship because she attended the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program and has the qualifying scores. This offers full tuition, but not room and board. She was chosen to interview for the Singletary, but of course we are still waiting for the results. If we had the Patterson in our pocket there would be no deliberation. As it stands we do have other offers, but UK is by far our first choice.
@catlover606 A big congrats to your D on the Presidential Scholarship. And, best of luck on the Singletary!
Hi @catlover606 - when did your D receive notification about the Singletary? D received the initial highest award for OOS but was hoping to receive one of the competitive scholarships as UK is a financial stretch. She has a 33, 1460 and 3.95UW. She also applied for a departmental scholarship. She received acceptance letter 12/23 and scholarship Jan 8.
Thank you
@FuturePittMom I assume that you are asking when we received notification about the Singletary interview, as we have not heard about the Singletary interview results. My D applied in early September and the interview was in late October. UK is my D’s first choice so she wanted to apply ASAP. For which departmental scholarship did your D apply?
I totally understand how you feel as an OOS applicant. We applied to Miami University in Ohio. Although my D was awarded $26,000, the OOS tuition of $32,555 is a dealbreaker for us, especially since, at a mimimum, room and board is an additional $11,000 per year.
Thank you this was helpful! D applied just before Dec 1st so maybe there is still hope in that it must be a rolling process. She applied for an engineering scholarship-invitation based on minimum score req. UK has so much to offer her in terms of the arts also so we are anxiously awaiting news.
@FuturePittMom I wondered if you had applied to the Thomas Lester Scholars Program. We have applied for that as well. My D is also interested in engineering. Are you planning to attend Merit Day?
@catlover606 Yes it was the TLSP. We would love to attend Merit Weekend but this D is beyond heavily involved in several EC’s that make it impossible for us to do much of anything! she is lead in the musical in early March which is why we were hoping to hear more news regarding extra merit and we are 5 hours away. Otherwise we will have to attend in June (which is the week before other D’s wedding-yikes!)
@FuturePittMom Wow! It sounds like you have some difficult choices to make! Please message me if you decide to attend the first Merit Weekend and perhaps we can meet.
@catlover606 Yes, I will do that! The first would be the only option, and thank you again for any information you have shared
Just throwing in another plug for Merit Weekend. For us, it was absolutely worth it for D2 to attend last year. She knew going into the weekend that UKy was her first choice, but as @NaperMom mentioned above your student can register for classes without it constituting a commitment to the school. Even if they aren’t sure if UKy is where they’ll end up, you can’t beat the opportunity to have first crack at having all your first semester classes set before you graduate HS. :-bd
The one sticking point with registering for classes is that UKy won’t give you “presumptive credit” for any AP classes you are currently taking and haven’t yet tested for. You can only use the AP scores you have in hand from junior year to affect what classes you’re eligible for. If they didn’t send AP scores with their application, have them bring an official score report from College Board to their registration session. The people they had on hand (at least at her session) were extremely helpful in giving them guidance. D2 had to make some calls after merit weekend to get approval for a Latin American Studies class that for some reason the system wouldn’t allow her to register for, but it was very easy for her to correct the issues. None of her senior year AP courses affected her first semester class choices, but I’m sure it would’ve been fairly easy to make changes once her scores were in hand last summer if need be.
She also thought it was pretty cool that she and her BF (who also attended MW) were the first kids in their HS to have their college IDs. <:-P
From a parental standpoint, it was great to know that we didn’t need to worry about attending any Summer Orientation sessions (MW replaces these) so she was set from early March until K-Week. Having had our D1 and S go through Summer Orientation sessions at their universities, it was MUCH less hectic and crowded doing Merit Weekend than it was those summer sessions. Spending a couple days in Lexington also helped us to get more familiar with the area shops/restaurants/transportation routes/etc.
If UKy is at or towards the top of your student’s list and if the logistics of attending are workable for your family, I’d absolutely recommend attending. It was even an educational experience for D2. She now knows who Christian Laettner is and why he is “less than loved” in Lexington. :-q
To piggyback on what @Wolverine86 said about registering early, we did sign up for classes that we thought we would need to change due to AP credit. It was a Calculus class that we had to change over the summer once AP scores were reported. The advisors at Merit Weekend told her the process to do that so that it was easy once that score came in.
We also had to take the Foreign Language placement exam, even though D did not plan to take any Foreign Language. She already had credit for AP Spanish taken in junior year. The test reaches a ceiling before this level, but she had to spend time taking it. Not the end of the world, but it took a chunk of time that could have been better spent during the limited time we were there.
Advice to anyone going to Merit Weekend: If you are confident that you will attend in the Fall, get that school ID. The lines once K Week starts can be long. Make sure that the student has a government issued ID (DL, State ID, etc.) with them.
For those who have been through Merit Weekend, did you find your kid was able to navigate the process well on their own with the help of UKy staff? Maybe I should have my D call and inquire about her AP classes and CLEP…
Here is the Policy Guide for Advanced Placement:
http://www6.uky.edu/Admission/sites/www.uky.edu.Admission/files/apchart_0.pdf
D was able to easily navigate the things that she did without us. Many things we did together. There were staff members all over helping to guide people. Also, anytime we stopped to look at a map or get our bearings, UKy students or staff would ask us if we needed any help. Very friendly and welcoming campus.
Ditto for our experience at Merit Weekend. We did some legwork before heading down so D2 had a good idea of what classes she wanted to shoot for prior to her registration session, but she was able to navigate all her stuff just fine. Also agree about the friendliness and helpfulness of the UKy staff and students.