<p>Is it true that UT doesn't offer ANY scholarships for National Merit Finalists?</p>
<p>Yes. UT announced that decision about a year ago. They may be offering NMFs other scholarships, but there is no official NMF scholarship any more. Ditto National Hispanic Scholar.</p>
<p>Yeah, it bites, but UT doesn’t offer any NMF award at all. Oh, well. At least there’s the 2.5k from the NMSC.</p>
<p>OU and OSU will give you a free ride for NMF. UT won’t give you the time of day. :(</p>
<p>Alex, I’ll take “Things That Don’t Exist” for 500!</p>
<p>Dolly Parton!</p>
<p>Auburn University will give full ride including housing for NMF. Other really good schools will, too. At a VIP session, the Fin Aid person said that UT preferred to give scholarships more holistically instead of just based on one test score. Makes sense if they are really looking at the whole application. It may mean the NMF’s are going elsewhere so the playing field may be more level for the rest of us. There is still plenty out there for the NMF’s, tho.</p>
<p>It’s kind of a laugh for UT to say they prefer not to award scholarship money based on one test score when for most in-state students admission to UT in the first place is based on one single number.</p>
<p>To a degree, but class rank is made up of years of work, and a lot of people were admitted based on holistic review this year. I know people who are great test takers and put little or no effort into other things, as well as hard workers who freeze up on tests. I had the flu one weekend when I took the SAT, but took it anyway. Luckily, there is score choice so no one ever saw it! Instead of giving the majority of aid to a few people, it’s better to give something to a bigger group ($5K to five people instead of $25K to one, for example.)</p>
<p>A&M is ALL OVER NMF’s and they suck up all the scholarship dollars. I wondered what was going on with that. Now I know.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what % of NMF’s get some other sort of scholarship offer from UT? My D is a NMF this year and while she has full ride offers from other schools she has nothing from UT yet. She was admitted to Plan II which is an attractive program, but still $80K over 4 years is $80k.</p>
<p>I told her I’d buy here a new car if she chose a full ride school. I’d still be about $60K ahead :)</p>
<p>Skeeterpop: Full ride (car included)!!! Why in the heck would anyone walk away from that? Are they crappy schools?</p>
<p>Ha, I completely agree with you. The issue is that my D is only 16 so she sort of wants to stay local (UT is fairly close)</p>
<p>16? Well, that’s a different story. Why isn’t she enjoying high school? Why the push? Poor little girl. I feel bad for her, now! Really bad.</p>
<p>Yeah UT used to have a legit NMF award. Sucks they took it away:(</p>
<p>How about NHRP finalists?</p>
<p>Nada! No NHRP money at all. Not sure there ever was any, actually.</p>
<p>I sympathize with the parent whose D doesn’t want to take the full ride. My son has a full ride at one major OOS university, and a near-full ride at another. The minute he was accepted by Cockrell, however, those possibilities became extinct in his mind.</p>
<p>And how much has UT awarded him? Zip, zilch, nada, zero and bupkis. And none expected. </p>
<p>I know times are hard, but it’s kind of ridiculous to me that universities in other states–both of which are a lot worse off economically than Texas–can come up with scholarship money for good students, but not UT. Sad.</p>
<p>Yeah Minnesota (UMN) i think is ranked like third in ChemE and UT is like 5th or 7th and it seems like i’m gonna get way more from umn then ut</p>
<p>UMN Twin Cities is very generous to its National Merit scholars – although UMN Twin Cities doesn’t offer the flashy full ride packages that are available from OU, OSU, Auburn, Alabama and Arizona State, when UMN puts everything together their packages for National Merit scholars tend to work out to almost a full ride.</p>
<p>UT is doing very little these days to attract National Merit scholars and other high test scoring students who go to competitive high schools and who are thus outside of the top 10%. (It isn’t just National Merit scholarships that UT isn’t awarding – they’ve cut back severely on all merit aid.) These students are likely to do well at UT and would become loyal UT alumni – but they are headed out of state in droves. </p>
<p>I’ve got a child in this exact situation. Hundreds of thousands in scholarships from other schools, zero from UT. She is taking one of the full rides out of state so that she has money left in her college fund for a graduate degree at a prestige school. UT doesn’t carry any particular cachet as an undergraduate degree in her field, so there really isn’t a reason to pay full price just to enjoy the city of Austin and receive a rather impersonal education. I don’t expect her back in Texas after graduate school. </p>
<p>My UT alum spouse has decided to stop donating to UT. He views our taxes as our “donation” to UT since none of our children are likely to attend. If these dynamics are playing out on a broad scale across the state – and on an anecdotal basis I believe they are – then it does not bode well for the academic competitiveness of our state flagship university in the long run.</p>
<p>@payingforcollege</p>
<p>Totally agree with everything you said. I think UT is applying its usual short-sighted approach and making some very poor choices, especially as to merit aid. Supposedly, it quit offering NMF scholarships (those were a measly $2,500 anyhow) to concentrate on helping students with “need.” However, from what I’m hearing locally and reading online, this year’s need-based packages are completely unrealistic. Anecdotally, NMF’s are heavily favored for what merit aid there is.</p>
<p>Anyway, miserliness is nothing new at UT. I got a post-graduate degree there over 20 years ago, and I still have one student loan left!</p>
<p>I suppose it all comes down to supply and demand. The demand is huge and supply is limited. And despite all the grumbling about aid, there is no shortage of parents able and willing to foot the bill. Despite all my grumbling, I’m extremely happy and grateful my S got into Cockrell. UT has been his dream school since he was a little kid, he’ll be in state and not too far away, and he’ll be getting a degree just as good as or better than most of the Ivies–at half the price.</p>