<p>Just wondering. Mi child auditioned for and was accepted at his/her first choice music school. Child received a decent merit scholarship but has to wait until March to learn about the amount (if any) of music scholarship money he/she may get. This school is by far the top choice. I think my child would forego the rest of Senior year and enroll today if that were possible! </p>
<p>Is it worth spending money to travel cross country to audition at another school in the hopes of receiving a better scholarship deal in order to have school 1 (which is the only one child wants to attend) in the hopes of getting school 1 to offer more? </p>
<p>We are inclined to save the 2-3 thousand for the trip and put that towards the dream school. Or are we being foolish to not play the game? </p>
<p>My child already has a near full ride offer from our state school with potential music money that would probably make it a full tuition scholarship. But again, the intent is to attend the out of state private school (hooray for kids!). Will that state school offer provide any bargaining power with said private school? </p>
<p>We dont want to disrespect the system, nor anger the folks at the chosen school. But if there really is a way to save on cost that would be nice. Have any of you parents actually done this successfully? And what is the most tactful/professional/successful way to do this?</p>
<p>Not every school will consider appeals to increase merit awards. Some will volunteer an increase if a student they really want starts to walk away. If this is your child’s top choice, and it’s an early admission, it would seem risky to spend thousands for audition trips just on the gamble that those schools will admit your child and offer large awards that might then be used to negotiate more merit money. Probably more prudent to start off by calling and asking the dream school what their appeal process is. If they say they don’t have one, you might stop there.</p>
<p>MovesLikeCobham: Just a few questions… Can your family afford the dream/first choice school without a great music scholarship or financial aid? If no, then have her audition at the state school and and maybe a music/academic safety. If you can afford it, then it’s up to your family whether or not to play the scholarship game. Some music schools will match offers from other institutions especially if they consider the competitor a match or higher ranking school. (Some will even match lower ranking schools if they want the student/instrument.) We found even the state schools upped their offers in April without our asking when son visited. Look through the forum threads for your student’s school and what type of merit scholarships were given. I’d try to PM those posters and see what their experience was at the specific school(s). Congratulations on the admission and merit offer from the dream school!</p>
<p>Momofbassist, do you mean that your child visited some schools AFTER they auditioned and the schools just upped their offer while they were there? Were they meeting with an admissions offer from the music department when these offers were made? That’s a pretty neat tip, if that’s what you mean!</p>
<p>My daughter was also offered admission at her top choice school, but must wait until the financial offers comes through. She too is tempted to skip some auditions. But she will go, because if she is offered nothing she won’t be able to attend. She was also admitted to our local state school, but she doesn’t want to go there. Travel to these other auditions does cost money, but little compared to receiving a very large tuition scholarship, should she be offered one or several</p>
<p>If you are fine financially I probably would not bother with another expensive audition trip. The second offer has to be from a school that is comparable and you don’t know that the extra trip would generate that comparable offer. It woudl be a different answer if the money is critical to being able to go. Then you must have some alternatives. </p>
<p>Has she had a lesson at the first choice school? Is her potential studio professor excited about having her there? When DD was considering offers, her studio professor was critical in the school decision to give her more money. We did not use a state school as a comparable, but if there is a really big gap that they can close a little it does not hurt to ask. I did not ask for a match, just to have the gap closed some. It is not disrespectful, it is negotiating.</p>
<p>Saxlady: He had already auditioned, been admitted, and received merit money from the state schools. We were revisiting during the April break to pick which school he would attend. We didn’t think to ask either state school for more money because they already had made him very good offers. At each school, during his lesson with the studio teacher, they asked where he was thinking of attending and offered him more money. We ended up at the state school which came through with the best offer and a great music ed program. The state school even beat the private school that came up with free tuition. One of his friends had the same thing happen at a private school during that last week. I’m guessing the studio teachers have a good idea of who has committed the near the end so if they have extra scholarship dollars they can use it to entice the “cliff hangers”.</p>
<p>Have you been to the other school that is across the country? If not, its possible that your kid might fall in love with it even more than the one he/she is admitted to.</p>
<p>We appealed the merit aid my child got, and we cited the fact that he had gotten a very attractive offer from another school, but that he really wanted to go to this particular school, and was there anything they could possibly do to take finances out of the equation? That was how I was advised at a financial aid seminar to phrase the request. </p>
<p>They did bump his award up a little, and every little bit helps! </p>
<p>The school had a process and a deadline for appealing merit awards, so make sure you ask about it. If I had not asked when I did, I would not have known, and would have missed the deadline.</p>
<p>@momofbassist: We can “afford it” as much as any parent can afford a new annual bill of 20-30 grand! We cna make it work but it’s just a matter of how painful it will be. We make too much to get financial aid, too little to just write a check without wincing. </p>
<p>@electricbassmom: We have visited the other school. Kid liked it a lot. But likes other school more. Closer to home, nicer campus, more networking opportunities, better overall reputation of University. That merit appeal question is a good one. And nicely worded. I will look into that. </p>
<p>Playing the game from what I hear only works where the student is desired by several schools (or is the type of student likely to be wanted by several schools) and thus the program wants to keep them, and IME usually involves students who have excited someone about them going to the school (and please keep in mind, this is in my experience/what I have heard about, it isn’t gospel). One way where I have seen it work is if a specific teacher already has shown an interest in the student, and has gone to bat for them.</p>
<p>If this is your kid’s dream program, if they saw this as their #1, researched other schools, and still wanted to go there, then doing another audition might not make sense, among other things, I suspect that another comparable program probably wouldn’t be all that much more generous with merit aid (unless some teacher took a real shine to them and fought for them there). What I would do if it were my son is look at the financials and if we could swing it financially, forget auditioning at the other place, and then when the merit came through try and appeal it and what happened, happened.</p>
<p>Is there a specific teacher your child has seen, done lessons with, and will be her teacher? If so, you may want to enlist him/her in the process of trying to get better music merit aid, that can only help IME. </p>
<p>You can use the state school, and word it in such as way as to say they are a good program and are offering a financial package that is almost free ride, but that our child feels that your school would be the ideal choice for them and that they offer a lot in return, and we are willing to make the financial sacrifice for them to go here, but as it stands right now it would be very, very difficult for us to afford it"…or something like that.</p>
<p>I personally would not call up stating that XYZ school offered X$ and can they match or increase BUT many of these schools/professors do call the students and/or parents to get a feel of which way they are heading as we get closer to commit time - it was during one of these calls last year that there was mention of additional NEC contact. The merit award from first choice school came within 2 days. Also during this time 2 other schools sent “updated” merit awards.
electricbassmom’s suggestion sounds good too - I guess it is all in the presentation.</p>
<p>The way I worded it was not “will you price match this price from XYZ” - that seems a bit like retail shopping. It was more “our son is so excited about your program, and it’s far and away his first choice, but he has some substantial merit offers from other programs, and finances ARE a concern. Is there anything you can do?” Actually, I’m not even sure I got out the “is there anything you can do” part. The gentleman on the other end of the phone knew what I asking and said he’d look into it.</p>
<p>I, the parent, had that conversation with the right person (find this out ahead of time if you can), letting my son remain the “eager good guy,” if you will. It worked.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for this information!! My S is auditioning now but at one of the schools the professor at the audition actually told my son “if scholarship finances are a concern contact me directly so I can advocate for you” (he had asked about scholarship money at the interview). A unique situation I am sure but it seems to indicate that perhaps contact with both the teacher and admissions might be useful/advisable. Obviously using Jazz/shreddermom’s approach seems the best way to ask with out offending. Anyone else have professor contact as part of an increased offer?</p>
No, your situation is not unique. Every school has their own system. It helps to inquire as to how to appeal a financial aid decision. Sometimes you go through the FinAid office, sometimes through admissions. Sometimes it is enormously useful to have a teacher advocating (some teachers have a specific allotment of merit aid for their studio. At other schools, teachers do not have much pull.) Some schools have a formal appeals process; others consider appeals on a case-by-case basis. And some schools are rigid and will not accept appeals. For my first two kids, it did not occur to me that we could appeal aid decisions. For my second two kids, I tried and was successful at several schools, and unsuccessful at two others.</p>
<p>When we appealed the merit dollars, we had a school that was considered a “direct competitor”. I was asked to send the letter from the competitor school stating their merit award and it was well worth it.</p>
<p>I thought I would be well prepared for college money applications but I was wrong. After dealing with Medicaid spend down for an aged relative, the re-fi of my house and closing the estates of two fairly distant relatives in two different states I thought that the college money process would be easy. Hah!</p>
<p>The CSS/FAFSA is pretty straight ahead, it’s when you get into dealing with a half a dozen different institutions located in several different states, some conservatories, some private colleges and some state universities, that you get clobbered by the differences between them all. And then you get “Calvinball” where certain places start changing what they told you was iron clad just a couple of weeks previous. It’s like being audited by a couple of drunk IRS agents. When is it going to be May?</p>
Thanks for bumping this thread. I was just getting to the point in this process of having to deal with this issue so reading these previous posts will be very helpful. While we are waiting for a few more admissions decisions to arrive, my D (VP) has already received a few nice scholarship awards from some of her schools. I am thinking that her top choice schools are not going to offer as much, if anything, and was wondering how you go about this process. She has not had much contact with teachers yet. That is something else we need to address this next month as well.
We cna make it work but it’s just a matter of how painful it will be. We make too much to get financial aid, too little to just write a check without wincing. </p>