Quick question about asking for a review of merit aid

<p>Have any of you heard of, or had any experience with, asking the admissions office to review a merit aid award to increase it and having the admissions office say no and then disturb/take away/negatively adjust the initial reward in the review? Would a top 40 or 50 national university do this? Simply put, is there a downside to asking for a merit review? Has anyone heard of it negatively impacting one's initial merit award?</p>

<p>Thanks In advance for your thoughts...</p>

<p>Never heard of that before. But if in your appeal you came across as entitled or too demanding they may have decided that you are not someone they want attending their school. </p>

<p>Are you afraid that if you politely ask for a consideration of more merit based on reasons (affordability, new information, new test scores, etc), I highly doubt anything would get taken away. </p>

<p>Yes, it would be a very polite request and I can’t imagine anything would be taken away either but the way the admissions officer said this would need to be done is that one would ask for an ‘appeal’ of one’s merit award, not a review of it. So, to DD, when she heard the word ‘appeal’ she became worried that something could be disturbed with her prior award. Though her grades and EC’s, etc., and everything are still amazing and strong and she has not had any senioritis (thankfully).</p>

<p>The other wrinkle in this is that we’re comparing apples to oranges in a sense because DD has incredible in-state, affordable options at two very highly ranked and well-respected schools, but prefers an OOS private university, which would be a better fit for her for sure. She was awarded very good merit aid at the OOS, for which we are thrilled and grateful, but we would be looking at trying to get a small increase to make it more affordable for us. So, not sure how that would go over with the OOS school. Not asking the OOS to match the in-state tuition, but rather asking for a small bump in merit. Don’t want to appear greedy but the extra bump would keep her tuition within budget. So, not sure what we should do…</p>

<p>How much of an “extra bump”? If you are looking for $500 or even $1000, that’s maybe something they could do. But if you are looking for $5000 then, likely not.</p>

<p>The thing with merit…it is based on a criteria for receiving merit awards by THAT college. The criteria vary from school to school. It may be that this OOS private has a higher criteria for more generous awards.</p>

<p>But nothing ventured, nothing gained…but really, you on,y have until midnight tonight to get this resolved. How will you do that?</p>

<p>You are right thumper that I am pushing it time-wise. The director of admissions may not be able to get to my request prior to DD having to commit to enrolling. I am definitely looking at under a 5k increase…but you are correct in that I have no idea what criteria the OOS university used to grant her the initial awards, since there are no published criteria. I am in the dark here. DD has been hesitant to commit to the OOS because she wants to be respectful of our budget and knows that her in-state option is also a great school and very affordable–hence the conflict and confusion. But I really agree with her and think the OOS is the place for her, even over the higher-ranked, in-state option. So, I figured if I could point out to the OOS, her additional accomplishments/great grades/further athletic accomplishments, perhaps the OOS would review her award and offer her more. But it may be too late at this point, since I have no idea if her request would be reviewed in time… </p>

<p>My son called his first choice college some years ago and just flat out told the admissions director he wanted to go there but that there was a hang up with is parents with cost and was there any way his merit award could be increased so that he could just commit and go there. In his case, the school did cough up some more money. He wanted $10K more ideally, they gave him $5K more. He said he’d work with that, and it was a done deal. It was still short of what he needed to make ends meet with what we said we’d pay, but he figured with loan money (the $5500 Direct loans) he would make it work and also decided to work crazy overtime at a job, took a bussing tables at a restaurant job and hustled for as many private swim lessons as he could get. He also unexpectedly got a couple grand from an outside award, so he was actually good that first year without that loan.</p>

<p>The next year, he got hit with an increase in tuition costs, more expensive housing for upperclassmen and that outside award was only for one year. He was going to take a loan then, but he decided to hold off on it until second term, and then found a job on campus that was ideal and he could stash half that money away that he earned, then came upon a windfall, in winning a major grant. The school permitted him to put a portion of that money towards his second semester costs. Starting junior year, he cut costs a lot by living in a cheap dive off campus with 5 others and preparing most of his food, as well as working the job he got So he did reach an equilibrium of sorts with that start,</p>

<p>I wish we could do this over the phone but they only consider written requests for merit increases submitted via email–so that slows things down some. </p>

<p>Captain–that was incredibly mature of your son to call the admissions director directly! I think I would have been too intimidated to have done that at 18 years of age! </p>

<p>You know, I was so strung out then and so ticked off at him, that I just told him he had to do it because I really felt he should take a more affordable option that he did not want. So he called his admissions officer and with the open honesty of an 18 year old unused to any negotiations or slyness or strategy, he just bluntly told them the situation. I think that’s what did it. It still was not enough, and that sophomore year was tight for him especially, but it worked out.</p>