My out-of-state daughter applied by the 12/1 deadline and Calhoun by that deadline. Her IROAR account recently showed the scholarship amount to be expected based on her stats. Then on the 15th she received an email offering admission to Calhoun.
Now her IROAR shows an additional $5500 of aid but no details regarding the source. Does anyone know if that is likely to be an offer for a standard federal student loan or actual grant money?
@JimQPublic Hi Sorry for hijacking the thread - do you mind telling how you were able to set up IROAR account? Did your daughter accepted admission offer and was given Clemson username? Or is it possible to set it up before accepting admission?
I believe she followed the instructions in the acceptance letter. She didnât have to accept the offer in order to set up the account.
@JimQPublic Hey thanks for the info, son just got his acceptance packet and set up the account. He didnât qualify for any academic merit, but got $5,500 for the 2019-20 also. I wonder what this is for and if itâs recurring or a one-time thing. Nice surprise either way, as Iâm not really looking forward to forking over $200k over the next 4 years 
Ah nevermind $5,500 is just a loan, not free money 
Rats! Same here $5500 loan and no merit. Very disappointed 1410 SAT. School doesnât rank. Not very fair for kids who go to competitive high schools without much grade inflation. High school average SAT score last year was 1331.
This is a tough year to get merit aid from Clemson. My daughter was accepted in November and just received her acceptance to Calhoun Honors. I realize this thread is for OOS Scholarships but Iâd thought it would help to know that its just as competitive in-state to receive merit award. Obviously, we have the South Carolina state awarded scholarships but the money provided by Clemson on top of that was minimal.
My DD attends one of the top three public high schools in the state of South Carolina, graduating class of 530. Rigorous academics and very competitive. Her school has recent graduates at MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, UNC Chapel Hill, Georgetown, Brown, Boston College, etc. I could go on. My point in sharing this is that Clemson is now competing for these same kids at her school with its rigorous academics, in-state tuition, and honors college. More and more of the high-stat, in-state kids are choosing to attend Clemson. I think its just getting more competitive all around for anyone to get much merit award.
Congratulations to everyone for their acceptance! Iâm sure there will be some tough decisions to make in the coming months. Best of luck to everyone on this college journey!
Agree it looks like it is getting more competitive but Clemson should not list the SAT/ACT criteria for OOS scholarships but not the criteria for schools that do not rank. I spoke to the financial aid office and did not get a good answer to how they estimate rank. I am sure it gets some hopes up needlessly. Some schools do not hand out As as freely as other schools. My sonâs graduating class last year of 405 had 122 students with 5s on AP calc exams which means probably half of them were not in the top 15% of their class. How do you decide who made the cut?They have to find a better way to calculate merit scholarships.
@goinnuts Back on post #39, I shared my response from Financial aid regarding merit scholarships- who gets them and how thay calculate rank for non-ranking schools. If you are from a non-ranking HS, they look at your âschool profile, WGPA comparisons with other students applying with similar GPA scales, past applicant info from that school, the strength and rigor of the HS curriculum, the number of As VS BsâŠâ While they state that students not in top 10% with high test scores will be considered for merit, they NEVER award scholarships to those who are not at least in top 15%.
Unfortunately, they do not have a scripted response for every financial aid employee, OR they should post this verbatim on their website.
Had anyone ever had any luck attempting to appeal a merit scholarship decision?
Daughter accepted with 20k merit from OOS. 1540 SAT, 4.0 uw, 4.58 w, 12 apâs with 5âs on all taken so far, 800 subject tests. Very happy to receive that award!
with these stats they better give her a nice scholarship. Thatâs Ivy League category.
@genesmasher Thank you!
They updated my OOS daughterâs award package today and she got another scholarship. Weâre shocked!
Thatâs great @excitingtimes! Did you ask to be reconsidered for additional merit scholarship money? Do you mind sharing stats and more details? Again, congratsâŠsuch a great feeling for your daughterâs hard work to be acknowledged and rewarded with additional scholarship.
Reaffirming the oos non-ranking schools. When we did the calculator, with nonrank, son was projected to be awarded nothing. He was awarded a top recruiting scholarship, however, bc he is within the top 15% and either our hs pushed this info or Clemson pulled it/inferred it. Makes sense to me, regardless of scores that they have to find cutoffs somewhere. This college process has been so interesting to me. Iâve learned so much I feel like I could write a book :).