Scholarships (Or Lack Thereof)

<p>Eagles Fan-- Look at the title of this thread
Obviously ( as a Parent who pays for all this ), I'm not the only one puzzled by the seemingly randomness of SYUs awarding of merit money this year.
Sorry if I offended you, but I wonder if your posts would be different if you received no reward. Its easy to tell other students that they should be happy just to be accepted when you have your money.</p>

<p>eagle-
Just beware that your 6K merit plus 20K grant (need-based award that does not need to be repaid) leaves you with 24K in need. Work study not only guarantees you a job on campus (anyone not on work study can get a job too) but limits your earnings, although your am't is pretty good. </p>

<p>Your "35K financial aid package" is really 26K. Just be sure the loans you need will not be overwhelming upon graduation or that your parents' or others' contribution make it affordable to you.</p>

<p>The award is great so hopefully it works out for you.</p>

<p>On another note, I've been on another thread with a nasty student. Please try to keep your cool. We parents of kids who do not qualify for need based aid/grants need to come up with 50K (or less depending on the merit, which doesn't bring the price tag down too much) or forces us to consider other schools due to lower cost.</p>

<p>Syracuse looks like a great place Those of you attending, enjoy.</p>

<p>yea im aware that loans are a big responsibility after college, but its not abnormal for students to take out several thousand in loans in order to graduate from a school such as cuse</p>

<p>and i wasnt being nasty, i posted my stats and what not like everyone else, didnt do anything wrong, then i get all these comments like oh ur package was random, my son had higher stats and didnt get any aid, or u dont kno wat its like having to come up with 50k</p>

<p>im well aware of the financial trouble anyone can go through and the stress it brings, my parents and family have been through everything from bankruptcy to frozen bank accounts to IRS trouble and what not</p>

<p>in the end financial aid is really one of the least important things when choosing a college, u divide the schools u got into, into financially possible and financially impossible, and after looking at all the schools that are financially possible, u pick the one that u want to go to, obviously there are other factors but again financial aid shouldnt be something we spend time debating about</p>

<p>eagle-</p>

<p>Your last paragraph is correct. Most of us are doing just that. We have to weigh the cost of each school after any merit aid or financial aid is awarded. Once that is done an intelligent decision can then be made. (Just be careful how much you need to borrow at SU or anywhere as loans are more difficult to pay off than you may think. Remember, there's rent, car payments and insurance, etc... Figure out what your monthly loan payment will be before signing. Whether it is Syracuse or elsewhere, just make a very informed decision. This really goes out not only to you, but anyone with loans. Try not to overextend yourself financially.)</p>

<p>Sorry to hear about your parents' struggles. This has been a hard time for many people.</p>

<p>For those of us like me (my son), I am sad to see SU off our list. 8K/year just leaves too much for us to pay. In my mind, it is not worth $42K when our son can go to other good schools (and better for his intended major) for less cost. We are in the midst of paying for older sons college costs and then in a year, grad school. so we have to keep this in mind too.</p>

<p>cost aside, its good that u realized that there are better schools for your sons major, this is something alot of people dont clearly see, and going to a better school for less of a cost is even better</p>

<p>eagle- my son is going into engineering. Tough major. He applied to SUNY Buffalo as a safety and besides a 3K merit award which brings the tuition really low it is well ranked in the USNWR top 100 engineering programs. Didn't even find the link to that list until a month ago. Don't know if he'll even like it but he wants to take a look. He has some other good options too (VTech, RIT and more)so it will all come down to fit and cost. He did like Syracuse though (and we'd love to watch the sports on TV and have 1 more NCAA team to root for in our house) but it just didn't work out. It will be interesting to see where he chooses in the end. Glad he has an open mind.</p>

<p>I don't understand why so many applicants like SU. SU has very limited resource for fin aid and is heavily dependent on tuition for its budget. It is for applicants who can't get in good school like Colgate, UR or Cornell but have money to pay. If you plan to be a science major, many State schools are much better than SU even its rank is lower than SU.</p>

<p>thats really not true, i didnt want to go to a competitive ivy league school like cornell, and i wanted to go to a bigger school unlike u of r or colgate, and i dont have the money for syracuse, but fin aid is taking care of most of it, u shouldnt make generalizations</p>

<p>I haven't heard from Colgate yet, but Syracuse was pretty much my safety school. However, newhouse's reputation really attracted me and I think it is a HUGE error for them to grant merit based on the school of acceptance... Give ACADEMIC awards to those with the best academic credentials! I mean, if I knew I was going to get shafted like this, I should have just applied to the arts and sciences school and gotten a ton of money and then transferred into newhouse. WHATEVER. I guess I'll just cross my fingers that I will get into my other schools and that they will offer me exponentially better aid than Syracuse did.</p>

<p>SU may only has a 500M endowment with around 13,000 students. Its student demographics is determined by its financial situation. You will find out when you get here.
BTW, I graduated from SU and live in Syracuse.</p>

<p>At this rate, looks like I won't be seeing.</p>

<p>Also, thank you "hello5" and others for backing me up. I haven't intended to insult anyone and, if anything, I feel like I and others who are confused about their awards have been the ones being insulted, painted as though we didn't do "enough" and perhaps are lacking in other areas. But anyway, I've really never been a fan of internet bickering and I never expected this thread to turn into that, so I've said my peace (or is it piece? I'm never sure haha) and I hope people who did get not ONLY merit awards but grants and work study will be grateful for what they got and empathize with those of us who got nothing.</p>

<p>Empower20,
I would have to disagree that SU is very limited in financial aid. It's apparent from the posts in collegeconfidential that many students have not received what they expected but from my experience as a current student, a great majority of people that I know are here with the help of the generous aid from the financial aid department.
And as of June 30, 2008, SU endowment was valued at 1 billion but I'm sure the recent economic troubles have impacted our endowment to some degree.</p>

<p>I don't think I got a merit scholarship but I got a loan. But yeah...I kind of wish I got a scholarship.</p>

<p>I'm pretty satisfied with my SU fin aid package (double it for my twin), but I'm still waiting to here back from the plethora of other schools I applied to.</p>

<p>Founder's Scholarship (12k a year)
Syracuse Grant Aid (17900 a year)
Pell grant/ NYS assitance program/ACG 1st year/ Federal work study- around 5k a year
Subsidized/unsubsized loans- 6k a year
total- $42,150</p>

<p>im very surprised to see the amount the some of you have gotten cause i have lower SAT scores then alot of you and was given a large majority of the price of attending SU. I suppose alot of it was need-based but i know i got a pretty large merit based scholarship and some grants.</p>

<p>My point exactly</p>

<p>I never set up a myslice account or anything but found out I got into Newhouse @ Syracuse today through a financial aid email. Did anyone else get this?:</p>

<p>"Congratulations on your admission to Syracuse University! The Admissions Committee has selected you as a Syracuse University Scholarship recipient. Each year students who have distinguished themselves through outstanding academic achievement are chosen from the entering class to receive this honor.</p>

<p>We believe that you will bring many talents to Syracuse and look forward to your contributing to the intellectual vitality and diversity that characterizes Syracuse University. Within the next week you will receive a notification of this scholarship in the mail. Please note that students who receive tuition funding through other programs (such as Athletic Scholarships, Tuition Exchange, etc.) are recognized as scholars, however, they are not eligible to receive the monetary value of the scholarship. "</p>

<p>Is this a standard thing? Do many people get this?</p>

<p>Background: I applied after the deadline and I'd say the writing I submitted to the school was awful. But I also just got into NYU for journalism, got into PSU's Language school less than a month after applying, won a very large, nationally known writing contest where SU was a major center for judging (school sent me ~$200 in prize money, encyclopedias, etc. just because), and have been ranked multiple times for sports in the state. I also never sent SU ANY financial aid information</p>

<p>I live in Syracuse, have double legacy---SAT 1400/2130, GPA 3.86UW, accepted to Whitman.</p>

<p>Founder's Scholarship-12,000
Syracuse Grant Aid-9,200
Federal Work Study-1500
Subsidized/unsubsidized loans-5500</p>

<p>28200---not bad, considering our EFC. SU is still one of the most expensive schools on my list though.</p>

<p>I got:</p>

<p>$39,000 - $7,500 loans</p>

<p>The schools cost:</p>

<p>$50,100</p>

<p>I have an EFC of ZERO. No assets and no money in banks, apparently my dad doesn't do that. <em>sigh.</em> He supports a family of 5 with 24,000. I work at his store to support us!!!</p>

<p>:(</p>

<p>This is the second school who has given me a gap of over 10,000... I'm so worried. :(</p>

<p>I got 14.5 k, half of which is scholarship money, and have about a 3k gap. Needless to say, I will not be attending Syracuse. It's really irritating when you work hard in school for four years to make options available to yourself for college, only to have them unavailable because of the ludicrous cost of attendance these days at private schools :(. My parents are willing to pay but I'm not going to let them shell out that much for school, especially with the economy the way it is. Really shouldn't even have applied beyond my state school, I guess. It would've saved a lot of trouble.</p>