Scholarship

Hi Parents,

Can you please provide any input about requesting a school for scholarship.

If student’s top choice college has not offered any scholarship, but most other schools offered good scholarships, then can student request top choice college for a scholarship? will colleges get annoyed with scholarship request?

Can Student mention other scholarships and if so how should the wording be, without sounding like bragging or like the college selection is based on the scholarship.

Should permission be taken from college “A” before sending their scholarship offer information to other college “B”?

who should the email be addressed to? to admissions office or financial aid office? or directly to admissions counselor who generally replies to all student’s questions?

Any advice is appreciated.

Is this a merit scholarship or need based financial aid? If it’s merit scholarships, some schools have a no appeal policy so you would need to check on that.

Are college A and B peer institutions? If not, you can probably stop right here. It’s typical for less competitive schools to offer more aid to attract top students.

You don’t need permission from college A to talk about their offer.

If it’s merit based aid - that is usually through the admissions office. If it’s is need based aid, then the financial aid office.

For both kinds of appeals, you need a reason why you are coming back to the school. If it’s to reconsider merit aid, have the student’s grades improved? Won a new prestige award? Recognized for something that wasn’t on the common app? If for financial aid, has there been a change in income?

@learning19

You have several threads on this forum regarding financial aid.

In one, you say the most you can pay is $30,000 a year…but you also allude to having a $50,000 EFC…and your kid applied to and got accepted at OOS publics in engineering…as well as an instate one she doesn’t want to attend for some odd reason.

I would suggest you read this thread…

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2129823-how-do-i-go-about-leveraging-scholarships-for-more-merit-scholarships.html#latest

This other poster has the same question as you. I think you should at least look at the responses on that thread.

@thumper1 -

regarding $30,000 - one of the in-state costs that much and that is the amount I told my D that I am willing to pay yearly for any OOS school. student worked hard and has high stats and hence expectation of merit scholarships.

not attending an in-state is a personal choice. in-state almost is like an extension of high school in our case. lot of students from D’s school do not prefer that in-state school for this same reason. It is not such an odd reason after all.

As long as the OOS school COA is almost same as in-state school, it is fine.

It is the top choice for a reason, right? Which school is it you want to get money from?

@learning19

How close are you to meeting your $30,000 price point with the aid your kid has already gotten?

It sounds like you are hoping one of these more preferred colleges will give your daughter more merit aid.

Does she have any additional major accomplishments that would make schools feel they should offer her more aid?

Are the schools that offered her less aid more competitive schools with more competitive merit aid potential?

How much more do you need? $2000. $20,000?

Is this her list of acceptances?

Adding…from reading your other posts…it seems your kid has applied to a lot of OOS public universities. Please consider that the first responsibility these colleges have is to provide awards to the tax paying residents of their state who support the colleges there. You don’t.

In addition, VA Tech, Michigan, UIUC, GA Tech, UVA, UNC, Pitt and the like have extremely highly competitive merit awards…nothing guaranteed.

Did your daughter apply to and get a merit award from Alabama?

IIRC she is a NMF…right? Alabama has amazing merit aid. @mom2collegekids is it too late to apply for this?

If you want to request additional merit aid, this is typically done by contacting the admissions department at the colleges.

Keep in mind…there are plenty of colleges out there that do not “negotiate” scholarships based on what others have offered at all. Penn State is one of them (read that thread I linked…the quote from them is there).

But you certainly can ask.

@thumper1 -
with some of the merit scholarships, COA for some of these colleges is anywhere between12k/yr to 40k/yr.
Alabama (so far scholarship given was ~26k/yr. D is NMF. not sure how to apply for full ride scholarship or if it is automatic).

UMich, Purdue , Gatech are couple of top choices with no scholarship

I read the other thread you posted.
I am not sure how to determine if colleges are peer colleges or not.

How to ask admissions office for a scholarship?
if a top college in-state fee (with no scholarships) is around 40k/year, will umich match that COA if requested?

@mom2collegekids

Is the NMF scholarship at Alabama automatic or does this applicant need to do something to get it?

@learning19 I seriously doubt you will see significant increases in any kind of aid from Michigan or Purdue.

Do any of these awards she has received come close to your needed net cost of $30,000?

Your instate flagship has offered full tuition which would definitely leave you with a net cost of less than $30,000 a year. What’s wrong with that college? In another thread, you describe it as “elite”.

                   Your kid has some nice choices. Why is Purdue seen as any better than your offers with merit money though?

You need to really look at the COA as these numbers are with little context. What is your home state school?.

If any of the schools in post 6 are your instate choice with full tuition…that would be a great choice.

Any of these your instate choice?

And adding…there is not a flagship university in this country that is “like high school” or where your kid will even need to see high school classmates if she doesn’t want to. I’m not trying to convince you to send your kid to your flagship…but the reasons you have posted for not doing so are poppycock.

          One of your thread references an application fee waiver, but you are full pay enough not to fill in FAFSA? Is that right? And concerns about application costs of a $10 difference? Are you clear on your EFC from NPCs at the schools in question?

@Sybylla if I were guessing…I’m guessing the fee waiver was for applying early or visiting the school…not because the applicant is low income.

No. I don’t think UMich will match scholarships, but it certainly isn’t going to match the instate tuition of another school. If UMich wants to give you a scholarship or other FA, it will, but it won’t do it because Wisconsin would only cost you $40k. GaTech give very little FA to OOS students unless you win a Stamps or other named scholarship.

I think you can approach the school and say it is your first choice but financially not going to work. You can show them the other offers, but usually the big flagships aren’t going to match anything. Might come up with a small department scholarship but not going to get you $20k. I also don’t think UMich cares what Mich State is offering or GaTech is going to match any UGA offers.

@Sybylla ,not at all need based. that school wanted D to apply and they waived the application fee.
ya i checked the net price calculators, it is always showing varying numbers between 50k to 60k.

I don’t have anything else to contribute since I think you’ve tossed this around before. Let us know where she lands? You guys are in PA, right?

@twoinanddone - thank you for your reply. much appreciate your input.

If I understand your situation correctly you’re in a difficult position. The NPCs are showing costs $20-30k more than you can spend. Your reason for wanting more aid isn’t due to a sudden job loss or uncovered medical expenses. You just can’t/won’t pay. Colleges don’t offer extra money just because parents won’t pay.

What does your daughter have to offer that makes her worth $80,000 to $120,000 to these OOS schools? You need a convincing answer to that question if you hope to get additional aid. If you already have financial aid packages it’s highly unlikely that they’re going to award her an extra $20-30k/year.

If your in state public is what you can afford you may want to rethink your opinion of what it has to offer. College isn’t an extension of high school. I hope your daughter has some affordable options.

I don’t see that Alabama offers any full ride scholarships.

From Alabama’s [Out-of-State Merit Aid page](https://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php):

Presidential Scholarship
Requirements:
32-36 ACT or 1420-1600 SAT score, minimum 3.5 GPA

Award:
$26k per year

Presidential Elite Scholarship
Requirements: 36 ACT or 1600 SAT, 4.0 GPA

Award:
Tuition for 4 years (Current tuition is ~$29k per year)
Housing for 1 year (~$9k, board not included)
Small yearly stipend (~$1500/year)
$2,000 one time research stipend

Since your daughter has a 1570 SAT I don’t think she’ll be eligible for the Presidential Elite scholarship. The awards don’t say anything about being a NMF. Is the college affordable with the scholarship she did receive?

I found this…

https://scholarships.ua.edu/nationalscholars/

Hoping @mom2collegekids pops in to clarify!!