<p>My D was just awarded the Medal for 2010. It's $15K - great - but that doesn't begin to make RPI affordable. It says on their web site that they don't combine merit aid. Does anyone know if that means they'll not offer any more aid? Or are there other packages that offer more and this is nothing but a lure to get juniors to have a look at them?</p>
<p>Also, my D is being recruited by two coaches there. I know they don't have athletic scholarships - being DIII - but can the coaches help enlarge the package?</p>
<p>I know a lot of people on here have said they haven’t received any other aid, but it’s about the negotiation.</p>
<p>My brother, also a medalist, received various other forms of merit aid, including a leadsership scholarship, and his laptop (which they require you to have) was fully paid for, and a discount was given for his room and board as well. By the time all his merit was accounted for, it would have been more expensive to go to a state school than to RPI.</p>
<p>They won’t hand it to you, however- you need to really sell yourself to them to get them to consider giving you more aid.</p>
<p>I just won the medal as well, and the advice my brother gave to me was to attend a state school for my undergrad and then apply to RPI for graduate school if they don’t give any more aid. He has a friend who did that who turned out very successful and happy.</p>
<p>I believe the Medal Award is not considered “merit aid” therefore they can award more without necessarily violating that policy. Also what Jell said is true, the financial aid office starts “rewording” aid into other categories instead of merit. Some of my daughter’s ended up under housing aid. As for athletics- a couple of my daughter’s friends went to D3 schools for what you would consider “athletic scholarships” but like you said, since they are D3, they end up being called something else. They were considered some type of academic scholarship but they are requested by the coach.<br>
So- certainly is possible. One of them is a rower and one is a lacrosse player. Certainly is a possibility. We went back to financial aid twice asking for more. It’s done frequently :)</p>
<p>Does anyone know if the 15k scholarship can be combined with FINANCIAL AID? say I qualify for 25k in financial aid. Does that mean I can get 40k in aid?</p>
<p>In your case, I believe you would get an additional 10k of financial aid (the 15k from the Medal plus another 10k would bring you up to your 25k).</p>
<p>About a year ago I felt the same way. DS was awarded the medal, and like you I was a little disappointed to find that the $15K would not reduce our family’s EFC. (Like you it was about $25K.) However, that was before we started the whole applications-and-financial-aid three ring circus. </p>
<p>One thing a lot of people don’t understand is that many (most?) schools don’t meet full need. That means that the college can ask you to pay whatever it wants. They can, and do “gap” you, meaning that they expect you to pay more than your EFC.</p>
<p>The second important thing is that colleges can also package your aid in a variety of ways. Some (many?) colleges add a lot of loans and work study to your aid package. In my mind this isn’t really aid, because it’s money you will have to (eventually) come up with yourself. Grants are aid – loans aren’t.</p>
<p>So, now that we’re at the end of the application madness (DS is enrolled at RPI for the fall) here’s how our financial aid packages looked:</p>
<p>UCal Berkeley: The entire aid package was Stafford loans, work study and parent PLUS loans. Cost to us: $55K/year. There were no grants.
Carnegie Mellon: there was a $9,000 gap on top of our EFC. In addition, DS would have had to take work study jobs and take out Stafford loans.
RPI: In addition to the $15K for the medal he got a $10K grant originally. He will have to take out Stafford loans, but a larger proportion of them are the subsidized version (less interest).</p>
<p>DS also got an offer of a full ride scholarship at Stony Brook. While he was on the fence between RPI and SB he called the RPI financial aid office. With proof of the other offer, they added another $1k to his grant and offered him a free laptop. (Because of this we have agreed to have him only take out the subsidized Stafford loans, which will reduce his debt when he graduates to something very manageable.)</p>
<p>So, yes, actually I think they do treat their medalists fairly well, considering how other schools financial aid packages look.</p>
<p>That’s assuming you get anywhere near the medal amount. I’m number 6 in my class (at RPI) and I get no where near the medal scholarship in grants.</p>