Scholarship Question

<p>Most likely he is. What are his stats?</p>

<p>FC & Wisteri–</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice. FC-wow, you nailed the org. right away! Impressed…for not-so-trivial pursuit bonus points: Can you guess the state and county? (Hint: think thin and blue.)</p>

<p>She actually graduated last May and has been doing a gap year, working 60+ hours a week. She was so busy traveling during jr. year & fall of Sr. year that there was NO WAY she could fit in SAT IIs in addition to SAT I & ACT–so she had to do all of that stuff during spring of Sr. year. She actually took 7 APs (& 11 TAG/honors) during high school, but didn’t sit for Jr. year APs because she was at a competition halfway across country.</p>

<p>Daughter looked at the CS scholarship app and was quite discouraged. Looks like it’s heavily based on hours. I think she’s trying for DHS instead. She knows she’s highly unlikely to get it because of the GPA, but she was thinking about sending a copy of her project (IF she can pull it off–ambitious project, clock ticking) to Dr. L along with a letter explaining why she would like to get into Honors. </p>

<p>Based on Tulane’s offer, she withdrew her ED app at another school that shall go unnamed. Once upon a time not so very long ago she might have preferred ED school anyway BUT luckily for me they sent an incredibly snotty alumn (recent grad) to interview her, and that was the end of that. (Think of your worst-nightmare stereotypes of witchy sorority girls–LOL.)</p>

<p>So, Tulane is looking pretty good to her. If I had to peer into my crystal ball, I’d say it will might well come down to a choice between a school that will likely admit her to an small-seminar type program but not give her any $$, v. a school that will give her $, but not put her in honors…we will see !</p>

<p>Wisteri: if you decide to petition, let us know. Also, of course, if you get in, let us know how you like it!</p>

<p>Anyhow, both of you, thanks for the advice and kind words.</p>

<p>It would be interesting to see how many Tulane merit award winners also qualify for FA. My guess is the merit award is subtracted from the FA award. Therefore, there is no real extra cost to the award for many students and they get the thrill of a scholarship. Further, it may attract those who are from upper middle class families who on paper would get little $$$, but who find coming up with 50K year for college a challenge. The remaining dollars collected after the award may still be greater than what the university would receive after admitting a high need FA student (if a sizable number of the UMC students say yes). I would like to se the Tulane analysis on this, looks quite creative.</p>

<p>Hi idad - I agree it would be interesting to see this analyzed further. I can confirm that merit award is subtracted from FA need calculations. Only makes sense of course, otherwise you would have situations of making what are essentially low interest loans to people where they would be putting money in the bank. Beyond that, I guess one would have to see what portion of FA comes out of Tulane’s pocket and what portion goes towards Tulane because it comes from the government and/or a bank. It isn’t an area I ever looked into very much.</p>

<p>Your hypothetical situation of a family that would get little or no FA $$ but would have trouble paying $50K a year is very much the case for thousands of families. Especially since this financial crisis hit so many portfolios so hard.</p>

<p>Fallenchemist, you have been extremely helpful with Tulane so I have one more question. Today my ds got his formal acceptance letter from Tulane. There was no mention of merit scholarship in the acceptance letter. You have confirmed that merit scholarship info is sent via snail mail but is it sent separately from the acceptance letter? Or if he got a scholarship, it would have been included in formal acceptance letter? thank you so much.</p>

<p>p.s. i didn’t post my ds’s stats because my DH is a judge and we have to be extremely careful about public info about us. For example, if one of my son’s friends gets in trouble with the law, no mention in paper, if my ds did, it would be in newspaper and on TV. Luckily for us he is a good kid, but I would hate somehow for his stats to be traced back and then made public. I hope you understand but i very much appreciate your help.</p>

<p>S2’s scholarship was incorporated in the acceptance letter.</p>

<p>itsv - completely understand. So hard to maintain privacy in this day and age.</p>

<p>I will just confirm idad’s reply, the award would have been right in the body of the acceptance letter. So I am afraid he did not get one. I hope the acceptance still makes it a glass-half-full (or maybe more?) moment. I am starting to see the kids coming back from finals and they seem to really love their first semester at Tulane. My D took a detour to her grandparents for a few days, can’t wait for her to get home too. She is already anxious to start the next semester though!</p>

<p>Fallenchemist and Idad, thank you for the info on merit scholarships. Since his letter did not contain any offer, I will follow your assumptions and assume he is not being offered any. It is too bad since the priority app with it’s discussion of merit scholarships attracted him to Tulane. He won a national award so he has been offered full-rides to full tuition from other schools and in fact got a $56K merit award from Northeastern tonite. Tulane is a great school so we will just see how things go. Thanks for all the info.</p>

<p>I sadly didn’t get any merit award either, so unless I get an extremely generous financial aide package, I don’t think I’ll be able to attend.</p>

<p>Daughter got her formal letter today one week after online notification on Gibson. Top of letter offered her acceptance as a Founder with $20,000 / year. What’s interesting, though, is you only need to maintain a 2.70 gpa ??? !!! Huh ??? Strange !</p>

<p>I recall a few posters last year saying they got the $24K merit award but did not get Honors admission. I don’t recall how often it happens, but it does happen. I tried to ask my DS about the Honors program as he was blowing outta here to go see Avatar, and he said you can actually register for an Honors class even if you are not in the Honors program, and if you take an Honors class and keep your GPA up, you can petition to get in the program.</p>