<p>A common theme on this forum is that there are many smaller scholarships that may come in april after the decisions along with the deans. However, they are not listed on the freshman profile. </p>
<p>for example from the top scholarship thread madbean says "From personal observation, this isn't always the news many applicants would wish for, but many of the excellent candidates who are not interviewed will actually be awarded a Dean's Scholarship, a notification which comes with the end-of-March admissions packets. A Dean's is worth 1/4 tuition for 4 years. There are other, smaller, scholarships which are also awarded at that end-of-March date as well."</p>
<p>Looking at the profile for simplicity lets assume 1000 candidates are invited to interview and there are 489 that enroll out of the presidential on up. That is a yield of roughly 50% for the scholarship awardees. Taking that same yield for the deans and the other scholarships that is 412 other scholarship deans and otherwise. Divided by the 27000 I think applicants that applied before the merit deadline is a small scholarship award rate of 1.52%. Which is not exactly a ton of scholarships and even within the other scholarships some of those are awarded to other scholarship awardees so it is in reality even less. I don't really know what my point is but I guess the question is are the other scholarships people talk about departmental? Otherwise the chance of getting any merit money if you didn't get a big packet or are NMF are even smaller than the original 3.7% or so of applicants that get the big packets. </p>
<p>edit: Looking at the scholarship PDF it says that 250 deans are awarded. I originally interpreted those numbers on that PDF as the -estimated- amount that usc wants to enroll not the number that are offered to the students. For example there are more mork and trustee in the freshman profile than there are on the PDF. The presidential gets complicated with the NMF so those numbers are strange. But for the deans only 156 enrolled last year and 100 the year before which leads to me that the yield for the deans is significantly lower, around the general 31% or even lower than that because many applicants would get that amount in FA anyways and many applicants that would have gotten are high caliber and might have better offers both school wise and financially elsewhere and the 1/4 award is not enough to woo them. So I think the number of deans awarded is actually around 500.....</p>
<p>yale, see my post in the other thread CONGRATULATIONS. You are not considering all the steps (#Finalist Invites, #Finalists who come to interview, #Finalists who are awarded Scholarship, #Finalists who choose to attend USC). Also Presidential 1/2 tuition does not have nearly the powerful draw that full tuition Trustee does for the caliber of student who is likely admitted to ivy league schools as well. The yield seems to be quite different and of course USC knows this and factors all these numbers when deciding how many finalists to invite. They are trying to get close to the yield number in their budget and that is listed as an estimate in the scholarship PDF.</p>
<p>So, the most likely scenario plays like this:</p>
<p>300 are invited for T; 240 come to Explore, 180 are chosen for Trustee/Stamps/Mork (50 offered P; 10 offered D or lower); 140 take the offer of Trustee (we can’t guess how many of the P come because they are swept into the reported P number, which also included NMF P–much too hard to suss out). So, starting from 30,000 applicants before Dec 1, 300 (1%) are invited to interview for Trustee and approx 180 are offered the award, and about 140 say yes, I’m a Trojan.</p>
<p>It is harder to predict the Presidential invites and outcomes because the number of matriculating P includes NMF, but we have seen about 500 invited to Explore (2%) and I would guess that about 400 (80%) get the award (with a few bumped up and some bumped down). Of those, perhaps 100-150 matriculate–again, this is really hard to guesstimate since there is NMF crossover and so on.</p>
<p>The students who are offered Deans Scholarships and decide to attend USC may be happy with the great gift but may be a little less motivated strictly by the cash. They are often those who have found a true match at USC, have found an excellent major in their field, have other USC connections that make them value USC above other top schools, and feel grateful to get 1/4 scholarship as they might otherwise be full pay at any top private. </p>
<p>In addition to all of this, families who are considered low EFC (high need) by USC may get even more $$ from FA with or without merit awards. Since USC does not gap, and guarantees full need (remember – they determine that amount based on FAFSA and CSS), the merit awards may be a little less important in the final decision to such families.</p>
Yes, there will be departmental awards as well as many, many, MANY “University Scholarships” awarded in April. Most of the University Scholarships later become named scholarships. The change is simply that the item that was once listed as “University Scholarship” on your award suddenly becomes something like “The Jane Doe Endowed Scholarship…” The amount is the same and it still is for four years. My assumption is that because of yield they don’t know who will and who will not accept the scholarship so they wait until all the dust settles before specifying who has what. A heads-up for current and future students: If you get an email notice saying that a change was made to your award and you log in and see no change, check to see if it was that the name of your University Scholarship changed!</p>
<p>In most cases, University Scholarships typically range from $1,000/year ($4,000 total) to $4,000/year ($16,000 total). The most common University Scholarship I have seen is $2,500/year ($10,000 total). Departmental awards may be any amount, but I have seen reports of $2,000/year ($8,000 total) to $5,000/year ($20,000 total). If other current or former students have seen other amounts, please add that info!</p>
<p>Agree with alamemom. Actually, I’ve seen Departmental Scholarships that were $6,000/year ($24,000 total) and those can be awarded on top of University Scholarships. So it is possible for a student with no FA to receive the Dean’s (1/4 tuition) + a University Scholarship ($2500) + a Departmental Scholarship ($3000) for about $17,000/year. This is not at all guaranteed, so you simply have to wait and see if you get some extras. In addition, each School has many continuing student scholarships which are awarded after freshman year. These must be applied for and your School will send you information with deadlines and requirements. These can be as high as $10,000/year but some Schools have more $$ to give–depends upon donors I think. </p>
<p>The FAFSA and CSS/Profile are not required for merit aid consideration and are not used in merit aid decisions. The FAFSA, CSS/Profile and tax info are required for need-based aid.</p>