^^@toowonderful No problemo.
@Guppie, it’s not quite that simple. To play in the merit/talent sandbox at Tisch, you have to be also designated to have financial need that NYU financial aid can work to gap if they can. Once you are need designated, then absolutely the more “meritorious or talented” you are, the more they are are likely to respond accordingly. But if you are not deemed to have need by NYU’s metrics, they will not point the discretionary merit or talent awards away from people who do have need even if you have equal or better grades or talent. “Need” is the membership card. After that YES discretion comes down to merit and talent.
Thx for explaining how it works at Tisch. Just curious other institutions use the need like that (I like your ‘membership’ analogy).
@Guppie- it depends on the school. Obviously our FAFSA profile and the D’s grades were the same no matter where we sent them- but the $$ results were wildly different, and we were applying to schools that were academically competitive. For both Muhlenberg and Syracuse, D was invited to apply for a significant scholarship based on her stats (it was Dana scholars for M, can’t remember name at Syracuse) which required extra essays, and an interview with Muhlenberg. Both were entirely merit based. She got the one at M (and of course it was one of her safeties, so with other offers in hand she wasn’t really interested.) She did not get the one at Syracuse (which would have been a 1/2 tuition) though she did end up with a nice merit package (about $15k) even without the named scholarship