Anyone else assume money would come their way, and find out the opposite? Based on last year’s awards I thought we were on our way! Now I think it’s a no go for us, but of course we’ve booked flights, rental car and hotel for accepted students day…
@JJP23 I can only speak to scholarships as an OOS parent. It seems they may have changed the wording on their scholarships page this year and increased the GPA requirement, but I could be wrong. My son is a freshman and it was pretty clear last year that the lowest tier scholarship for an OOS student required a minimum of a 28 on the ACT AND a GPA greater than (I think) 3.6+ (on the SC grading scale). His GPA got a significant boost because he took 5 AP’s and 8 honors classes in high school and SC’s scale is more generous than our HS’s scale. This year, it looks like the ACT requirement stayed the same but the GPA requirement changed to 3.88 (on the SC grading scale). This change may be the result of a very large and very high scoring freshman class last year (at least that is what they told us at orientation). If your student fits into the parameters, I would call and ask what this issue is.
I have a feeling this years class requirements may be higher than what’s posted online based on our daughter’s award vs. what we saw online for 2018. It was one level lower than we expected, but we were still thrilled.
Yes, we are OOS. I was basing my hopes on the 2018 average award. Obviously things changed…
I was expecting at least the lowest OOS award, and got zip. Certainly the requirements changed – Congrats to you and your daughter. We’re headed to accepted students day anyway as I can’t refund the plane tickets!
What are your daughter stats? Website says mid March for scholarships.
I thought scholarships were already awarded
Not sure how it works. Did they announce that they have all been awarded?
Yes they announced that all scholarships have been awarded
I applied EA in September, and I got offered in state tuition with my acceptance. Last month I received another academic scholarship on top of that, and music scholarships come out this March!
My son was accepted OOS with a generous Merit Scholarship. We took a tour last week and loved the school. Hopefully he will end up at UofSC, as we are waiting on 3 more schools, but I can almost guarantee that he will not receive a scholarship as generous as this one.
My daughter did not receive any merit money either - it’s the only school that she applied to that didn’t give her at least the minimum. We are very disappointed. She is a straight A student with many AP and Honors courses - her GPA is well over 4.0. She has many extra curriculars and leadership roles. However her ACT score is probably holding the scholarship money back. Such a shame as we are OOS.
@NewMexMama I am sorry she didn’t receive any merit aid. Carolina appears to be fairly cut and dried with its merit awards. You need both the ACT/SAT and GPA to receive one and the school does not super score.
It’s just sad for our family that 1 ACT point is the difference between merit or no merit, particularly in light of the Varsity Blues scandal where many kids had artificially inflated standardized test scores.
@NewMexMama I completely understand. We have a friend who’s son is an excellent student, but he couldn’t get above a 27. He was accepted but didn’t receive any money either.
I have a friend who’s daughter has the same exact stats as my child, only 20 more points on the SAT - and they were offered $24,000 in merit…she’s not attending USC. I have contacted the university numerous times and they keep responding like a robot, “that’s all the merit we have”. My question is - if all those merits were offered, and declined, will that money go back into a pool for students who got nothing?
Does anyone have any experience with this? I don’t want to pay to travel to admitted students day if the offer is still going to be 0.
@Lnebayb Colleges don’t usually award additional merit after others decline. They are aware that some percentage of students awarded a scholarship will not enroll and they take that into account when awarding merit. If you’ve contacted them multiple times already, it’s time to move on.
I was on a phone Wed March 27 with about 1000 admitted USC parents . USC admissions gave us a rundown of commonly asked questions and answers . They did say that all the merit money was already given out. They also said that this years students stats were really high . So Sorry.
I was told the same thing that merit awards are non-negotiable and the stats were higher this year than last.
I would just add this - my son applied to 13 schools and South Carolina was very generous in merit money and #1 for merit scholarships from the public colleges he applied to. Plus, many students that obtain merit money also get placed in honors college or Capstone scholars, which are very impressive. We are very thankful he applied to SC.