When are financial aid packages for RPI being released?
In post #151 I’m puzzled about the parents’ income being under $60k. Mom has a PhD in Immunology and has worked at some fine institutions.
@besteffort123 - Many, but not all, accepted students have received their aid packages. Those who have not should over the next week or two.
@a20171 It depends on the grant. The leadership award and Rensselaer grant are entirely merit based. Anything else is probably need based (except the Medalist award).
@tawhidkhn62 I’m an average RPI student in terms of SAT score and I scored only 100 points lower than you on the SAT. I also got roughly the same SAT II scores as you, had a perfect GPA, but took more APs and got better grades in them (nothing below a 4). P.S. How did you get a 3 in AP Chem and expect to get money from RPI? Doing well in basic high school math and barely passing AP math and science exams puts you sub-par in RPI’s ECSE department to say the least since kids that get 4s and 5s on AP exams can end up getting C’s in RPI intro courses. The same isn’t very different at the other schools you applied to. Another thing: there are MANY students that speak many languages. Out of 19,000+ applicants it kinda happens… I’m trilingual and it didn’t really mean much in college admissions.
Hate comparing my stats to current applicants, but just because you’re a national merit scholar doesn’t mean you’re entitled to scholarship money. We have plenty of URM’s at RPI that are national merit scholars or students that have slightly lower SAT scores that have better ECs. In fact, 2% of the student body were national merit scholars last year, which is only a little less than Darthmouth and more than Columbia in terms of quantity.
Also, I highly doubt the inventor of the GPU, microprocessor, email, MRI, VP of Bank of America, President of Marvel, President of Motorola, and many other CEO’s and famous alumni from RPI were ‘sub-par students.’ Check your entitlement since if you display this when you want to get an internship or a job, they’ll smell it from a mile away and it won’t work out well since anywhere you go you’ll end up working with kids from many universities that you consider “safety schools.” You may even end up working with state school kids in the same office… you can do well at any university. The difference is how many students reach that point since the “bar” to get a job in terms of GPA or to get your foot in the door might be a bit lower at more prestigious schools.
@joedoe Don’t feed the tr0ll. He was obviously intending to provoke. 
has anyone gotten an acceptance letter in the mail yet?
@buddy16 - no, my D didn’t receive a snail mail acceptance letter yet.
She did receive her financial aid this afternoon. She received a $21,500 leadership award which is about $10K less than RPI’s NPC showed but which is consistent with others on this thread who don’t qualify for need-based aid. Not yet sure we are willing to pay $50K/year for RPI…
@fatherofsam - Twinz :-c
@aquapt - agreed! Maybe triplets with @thshadow’s D!
We will be deciding this weekend whether my D heads up to the accepted student’s day. We already visited but will probably head up anyway since it has been 9 months since she was there and she has visited her other top picks more recently. PM me if you plan to be there.
@fatherofsam (and @theshadow - hi!), I think we’ll be starting with the girl-specific webinar for now:
( http://admissions.rpi.edu/undergraduate/events/index.html )
Tuesday, March 21, 2017 | Webinar
Exploring Rensselaer From A Female Perspective
For accepted female students
6-7PM
We’ll see if that dials up my D’s interest level at all. At this point she is more drawn to Northeastern than to RPI. Not only is it a long trip out there from CA, but the RPI and NU admitted students’ days are on the same day. (And it’s the first day of our spring break, so not a lot of lead time to get there.) I would like to give the DIS/PDI program more of a chance to sell her, but I’m not sure the campus-wide shindig would accomplish that anyway. Let me know if you learn anything interesting on that front!
@fatherofsam I am also waiting for my financial aid, how did you receive it? by mail? email?
@buddy16 - We didn’t receive email or postal mail. We just checked every afternoon to see if there were any updates. Yesterday the financial aid was posted on her portal.
@fatherofsam - Yes, I agree, I’m not inclined to pay $50K either.
@fatherofsam were you satisfied with the $$ ?? We are still waiting on notification of any merit from RPI. We did not qualify for financial aid, but when they contacted son about fin aid, he replied back saying he wasn’t going to file but would appreciate being considered for any merit awards. Still nothing as of this AM.
I hope they release info soon, as my son is trying to make a decision soon and the only piece of info we are missing now is this.
It would be nice if during the application process they would inform everyone how their process works so we all don’t have go about with this guessing and speculation.
@RightCoaster Here’s how it works, quoted from a post earlier in this thread:
If you have any direct questions about the status of your award package (directed to everyone) please contact the financial aid office over the phone and simply ask what the status is and direct any questions like this - I know I did and they got my package out pretty quickly after. I promise that they’ll be very receptive to answering any questions you may have and they take these things very seriously.
"There’s no formula for merit scholarships and it’s based entirely on your application. In addition, to be polite, I have to say that RPI is very much not a product, but a community. They also could care less about enticing any individual to go. They’re trying to build a community more than anything else of individuals that uphold certain things the school is looking for.
The time at which you receive your aid package also does not matter. The committee reviews accepted students for merit aid on a rolling basis as their financial information is finalized, and each student’s information is considered ONLY after their acceptance to ensure fairness in the process. There’s no “marking up” about it, considering many students that are admitted don’t even get scholarship money in some cases.
I know this since the admissions/financial aid office was very transparent when I posed these questions last year and they walked me through the process step by step as I just did now. It makes a great deal of sense, at least, in my opinion after hearing the logic behind it and the methods they use to do everything."
Hypothetically, one person didn’t get enough merit aid? Too bad, there’s someone better than the individual that deserved to receive more money. It sounds heartless, but what they care most about, again, is the community and how the individual will interact with the community/contribute. It’s about how much the accepted student can contribute, not what the school can do for the accepted student since the answer to that is quite obvious - it’s the reason the student applied in the first place (or at least should have) That’s what makes RPI more than just a product and most people don’t see that until they attend the school.
I know students that are going to RPI and paying $0 a year and others that pay a lot to go here. It really has to do, again, with the application and many other factors that come into play relating to the application. There’s a reason they’re called “merit” scholarships. There’s a very clear correlation between the strength of your application relative to other applicants that have been admitted and the amount of money you receive. Strength is determined holistically and isn’t always about grades either, or gender, or geographic location. It has to do with what your activities, your personality, interest, etc. In addition, there are also need based awards for those who qualify."
@buddy16 received the packet with acceptance letter in the mail today. No updated Finaid though. LOL
@Michthebeech Call and ask on the status of your package, they’ll at least be able to tell you when it’ll go out
So we visited RPI recently and during the admissions info and Q&A session the lady giving the talk basically said everyone at RPI will get some merit money except for the international set. She said like 99 percent of US based kids will get something merit related.
Well, apparently this is not true as son was told via email yesterday that he did not qualify for any merit award from the school but congrats for getting in. Son’s stats right in the middle, but in a non stem field. They were very nice, prompt and helpful in their reply.
So, if some of you are holding your breath that you might be getting some $$ soon, you might want to have a plan B lined up.
My son was really considering RPI, and hoping to get a little merit to make it more attractive than another school, but it probably has fallen down the short list. Oh well.
S17 got his acceptance package in the mail yesterday. But still waiting on the FA and scholarship package. We are planning on going to the April 8th accepted students day to visit the campus.