<p>Two scholarships that were available as of 8/15 on the scholarship page of the miami website have now been pulled as of today? The cached version shows it. The website today as of today does not?</p>
<p>Ohio Merit Scholarship $1,500-$3,000
Ohio residents admitted as new first-year Oxford campus students who scored a 29 ACT/1290 SAT (Critical Reading + Math) and have either a top 10% class rank or where specific individual rank or school decile is not provided, a 3.85 GPA on a 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>Miami Scholars Award $1,000-$5,000
High school students generally have 27 ACT or 1200 SAT I and rank in the top 15% of their class, with demonstrated academic merit and financial need</p>
<p>Can anyone or a Miami administrator explain why they pulled this? My son was counting on this (Ohio State has similar awards). </p>
<p>Miami/OSU fence sitters may want to take notice of this sleight of hand.</p>
<p>OP, Please be careful to not jump to a judgement so quickly. “Slight of hand” seems like they are doing something dishonest. Note that even the former wording did not indicate that the merit aid was automatic based on certain scores or rank. The amounts varied, and the requirements were guidelines. Best bet is to apply at a number of schools, fill out those scholarship and aid forms, and see what happens. </p>
<p>I called and talked to the aid office, and they told me several things. The website is in the process of updating, and the scholarships are being revised and some re-named. Merit scholarships will still be offered. However, the former mentioned names were based on state funded programs. According to the aid office, the same state funds are no longer available to any Ohio school due to the poor economy. But, there are other funds which will be offered for merit aid. </p>
<p>I didn’t feel they were trying to cover up anything. Like all colleges, they are concerned about the economy, and the state budgets, and doing their best to balance.</p>
<p>The wording on the Ohio Merit Scholarship sounds pretty “automatic” to me? </p>
<p>My problem is that my son had a “tangible” Ohio Merit award (that we were hoping to combine with the award below) and now he is totally at the whim of the scholarship folks for any additional merit aid.</p>
<p>He was offered the Multicultural Leadership Program scholarship ($ 5,000 per year - which has also disappeared and been removed from the website —type in MLPSI in the search box and you’ll see that these pages have been removed too) and the Miami folks at the conference said that the award was “stackable” with other merit aid. </p>
<p>With the elimination of the “tangible” awards, I think it is pretty easy for scholarship folks to ignore any additional merit aid now since they know he already has $ 5,000 coming.</p>
<p>OSU’s provost ($2100 for 29 ACT) and Trustees ($1050 for 27 ACT). Ohio U’s Gateway and Bowling Green’s Freshman scholarships (based on gpa and test scores) seem pretty objective and not subjective.</p>
<p>It just seems that the elimination of “tangible” awards gives the scholarship folks more wiggle room. I guess the state of Ohio’s funding for higher educations has dried up?</p>
<p>Our experience is 2 years old, but difference between what Miami and OSU had offerred to our D as Merit package was substantial with Miami practically covering her tuition with numerous Merit Scholarships. Miami also gave her additional $6500 her Sophomore year after she applied for returning students Merit Scholarships, which covered more than half of R&B. However, I do not know the financial situation of Miami vs OSU as of this year, which could explain the difference.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Miami, but I was talking to someone at Ohio University’s fiancial aid department and they were telling my mom that they lost quite a bit of public state funding because of the economy. If that’s the case, one could only assume it’ll be back when the economy rebounds, whenever that’ll happen.</p>