<p>DD was accepted with $6,000 Alumni Scholarship. 3.5 UW GPA (school does not weight and she took a decent amount of APs and honors) 2000 SAT and good ECs. Although Marist's tuition is lower her COA would be higher than more expensive schools that gave better merit aid. I am curious about scholarships that others received. I don't even see the $6,000 scholarship listed on Marist's website. They show $8,000, $10,000 or $12,000. I thought she would get a stronger package. A higher scholarship would have made Marist much more competitive for us price-wise.</p>
<p>I felt the same way 2 years ago when I questioned the amount my son got (34 ACT and 3.8 GPA and a recruited athlete) since he got the $10K Presidential and not the $12K which I thought he deserved. I got nowhere in my request but it came down to where did he really want to go and where would he be happiest/most successful. Since Marist’s acceptance rate is in the low 30s I suppose they can be as confident in their overall decisions until it affects the bottom line. All things being equal my son loves the school and is doing very well and so my decision to just pay the $2k seems like the right thing now, whereas at the time it seemed “unjust” .</p>
<p>Coming from a current freshman at Marist, I applied with a 3.9 GPA and 34 ACT going into the major of Computer Science. Initially I received a combination of a presidential scholarship (similar to what @cdrnole described) in addition to merit and need based grant aid; the result was a cost comparable to that of my local state school (University of Minnesota-Twin Cities). In the end I was offered a full room-and-board technology scholarship by Marist via the National Science Foundation (<a href=“http://www.marist.edu/admission/technologyscholarships/”>http://www.marist.edu/admission/technologyscholarships/</a>); I am currently attending Marist with this scholarship along with 16 other Computer Science/Information Technology freshmen on the same scholarship. Even without the full scholarship, I was pleased with the financial aid that Marist offered. Additionally, finding an on campus job is not hard which can help financially.</p>
<p>When I applied to Marist, the aid money I received was very important because there was no other way I would be able to afford college. What I did was I called the finical service office and worked out a nicer package, but I still needed more. So I turned to private money. There is 5 billion dollars in unclaimed private scholarship money. It is a little harder, but it was worth it because I now am paying what I can afford and I did not have to take out an unreasonable amount of loans. Don’t be afraid of private money because you have to do the research because that is where a student can get the most money!</p>