Just curious I have searched this forum with a fine toothed comb and still haven’t found any pertinent information on Need based aid. Most other schools have posted or informed Accepted Students in this matter. It is all fine and good that Uof Maryland is sending us info almost daily about such issues as Accepted Students Days and so forth. But the reality to parents is 'how much $$$$ is being offered via scholarships, grants and need based money" It seems to be rather late in this game and UMCP website states by April 1 2015 okay does that mean April 1 or not? I understand the stress and extra work being put on both the Admissions Office and the Financial Aid office but really how are parents from out of state or in state for that matter make plans for these visits without thorough evidence on the actual cost of an education at such a great institution. This whole last minute stuff is dizzying .Couldn’t Maryland be more specific in such pressing matters having both students and parents alike having to make life changing decisions in such little time defeats the purpose in my opinion. When contacting UMCP office I seem to get a prompt card response of "Both scholarships and grants and financial aid packages will be released by April 1 . Okay its March 30th does that mean within the next 2 days or is this just another fictitious date ?
In addition I cannot get a concrete answer on whether or not it is done through the portal or email or snail mail does anyone else have anything to share ?
We’re anxiously waiting, too. We are OOS, and really trying to figure out if the trip down for Admitted Students day is going to be worth it. UMD is the only school we have yet to hear about any type of financial aid/ info.
Thanks @tedysmom and good luck .We are in the same boat fingers crossed!
Have you seen my posts about financial aid?
If you haven’t, Google umd financial aid and the first link should have a page that has a link to where you can check your financial aid status online. Sign up for that and I’m pretty sure they’ll post it tomorrow or Wednesday.
If you want, you can email their scholarship coordinator person, and they’ll tell you if you received any merit scholarships. But they take about two days to respond so you’ll probably know by then through the financial aid status page.
@KyloRen will do thank you very much
Financial aid has been posted.
Guess we won’t be visiting after all
Financial aid is nothing but loans in my opinion a loan is NOT aid it is a loan which is minimal at least. Why does it say x amount is family contribution? where does the other 34K come from very hard to figure these out. Why is it even called Financial Aid it should be called lower than prime loans.
Again it looks like the working class American gets screwed as usual. Very disappointed .The “old boys” system lives on under a different handle.
@orangewhite22, that’s all our “financial aid” showed too. Like you said, how is that considered aid?! I thought by having 3 kids in college next fall we would’ve been given some type of “aid”, esp since our efc dwindles down with each child. Oh well, glad she has other choices that she’ll be just as happy with. And I guess we’ll save money by canceling our hotel reservations we made for the admitted student visit.
Yes indeed @tedysmom we too are in the same boat hopefully next life we will be really rich or really poor because working for a living is not all it was cranked up to be Good Luck to you and yours
Zippo was our child’s reward also. We are out of state. Applied to 10 schools (only two were in state for us), got accepted at all 10. MD gave nothing but loan package. Every other school gave merit and financial aid. We have a child also already attending UMD and now are worried what they will do with that package. UMD has made it plain they are in a fiscal crisis. OOS is probably a factor in many of these aid decisions we see.
It would have been nice logistically having both kids in same school. But now it is not going to happen without any aid for child number 2. “OrangeWhite22” you are in good company with the rest of us middle class working fools. Remember the middle class is the majority and we always pay for our own benefits. Just not enough rich and poor folks out there to pay for us. We always told our children to work hard and excel in school (which they both did) in order to get into a good college. It is the only way to stand out from the majority. Sadly we now have to somewhat eat our words to them. Child #2 is STEM major and did better with acceptances and merit aid than child #1 who is Humanities major. That was a lesson, too bad we don’t have another few kids to utilize all the lessons we have learned in this process.
We probably will also skip UMD accepted students day this Friday.