<p>My S got a letter yesterday from one of the schools he has been accepted to increasing his merit aid from 12K to 15K a year. I had not heard of this before and was wondering if this is common. I am assuming that if he had already committed to the school he would not have gotten the increase so is that a reason to "hold out" until May 1 to make a decision? We are still waiting to hear from most other schools he applied to which is the primary reason that we have not decided but I keep reading that students have sent in their deposits to schools so perhaps that is not the best idea?</p>
<p>Congratulations on the increased merit aid! I don’t think increasing merit aid is common, but I have heard of schools that have increased merit aid in April when they calculate that they are not yielding enough students. It does seem like holding out until May 1 to make a decision is a good idea–at least that’s my plan for now.</p>
<p>Congrats…they must really want your child!!! </p>
<p>Also, maybe they realized that they made an error in the original calculation of what his merit award should be. Or, perhaps the dept he’ll major in is kicking in some bucks…</p>
<p>Anyway…don’t look a gift horse in the mouth…LOL</p>
<p>Congrats.</p>
<p>Great–we had to tell the U our kiddo wanted to attend about other merit offers before they offered to increase his merit award. It’s always great to get a nice unexpected boost – incentive to seriously consider them.</p>
<p>From a school S later declined, he did get a letter offering an additional merit scholarship, on top of the original merit award they extended to him (while he was still considering what school he wanted to attend).</p>
<p>There are many good reasons for waiting a bit before finalizing the choice of U. If your child is **very serious **about one school over all others but hopes to get an increase in merit aid commensurate with other offers, it might be best to approach them sooner than later, to see if they might increase their merit offer (while they still have some uncommitted funds).</p>
<p>OP, did you happen to send an updated transcript? Last year we sent updated transcripts to son’s top choices, because he had gone from the top 21% to the top 19% and I thought that might mean more money. One school said yes it means more money and by the way, when we reviewed the transcript the first time, we missed a math class and two AP classes, so here’s even more money. The offer went up by quite a bit.</p>
<p>We are hoping to get an increase in the merit aid offered to our son at his first choice school. Does anyone have experience asking for more merit aid? Would you recommend a letter or a phone call? (School is in another state). We would have to wait until our April visit to ask them in person. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>We were able to get our S’ merit award increased and my friends were successful with their kids. It helps if you have a written offer from a “comparable” or “competitive” U that also wants your kid to show your 1st choice U. Some will try to increase merit aid to make their offer more comparable while others are unable to. We did it by phone. Friends did theirs by scan, e-mail & phone, while I have heard of others who have done it in person (too large a distance here for us to do it in person).</p>
<p>My daughter had her merit scholarship increased because she had retaken the ACT and the increased score bumped her up to a higher scholarship. It was a huge difference - went from a partial and fixed $ amount tuition waiver (probably not even half tuition) for up to 4 years to a full tuition waiver (especially nice when they announce tuition increases every year) for up to 5 years plus a cash scholarship on top of that for 4 years. She is probably going to take 5 years as she is taking an extra certificate in an area that interests her plus we have encouraged her to do classes that she finds interesting even if they are not part of her major (like American Sign language which she took as summer classes). Could not have afforded that without the full tuition waiver. </p>
<p>We knew that the 1 extra point could get her the extra $$s which is why she retook it. I’d say it will probably have netted her an extra $40-50k by the time she is finished. She hasn’t actually thanked me for nagging at her to retake the ACT but she did once say that she wished she had prepped a little harder and got just one more point as that woild have been an extra couple of thousand a year. Well her actual words after going to the scholars welcome meeting was “darn I could have got an extra $2700 a year cash scholarship if I’d got one more point” (this apparently was a surprise to her despite me telling her about it when I was, um -no other way to say it, nagging her about hitting the ACT prep books).</p>
<p>I don’t think the original award was a mistake because my boyfriend’s daughter has fairly identical stats and got the same award. It will be interesting to find out if her award was increased as well. She attended an admitted students weekend a couple weeks ago whereas my son did not. Yes I believe they did get a mid year report but there has been no change in his GPA. Maybe that is considered a positive since he has 4 AP claases right now. The only other theory I have is that they saw his Fafsa and realized that he would not qualify for financial aid so decided to sweeten the pot. It is still Feb which is why I was surprised since we haven’t called.</p>
<p>Yes we have definitely reaped the rewards of taking the ACT a third time. It made up for the 190 point spread in his SAT score which we ended up not sending anywhere even though he only missed one math question. But this all happened prior to applications. S balked at taking any more tests.</p>
<p>I have to admit my daughter balked big time (hence the nagging). But she balked at just about everyting I said at that point in time.</p>
<p>My daughter is retaking the ACT this Saturday, because I figure that even a one point increase in her score could be financially beneficial. She is balking big time, but it sure would be nice to get more merit aid.</p>
<p>For all of you re-taking the ACT, my daughter took it twice, scored 1 point better, BUT then took the SAT and scored MUCH better (equivalent to a 3-4 point increase in ACT). Something to consider, since dollars are at stake, and if the ACT score is not what you expected.</p>
<p>There have been a couple of posters who have claimed to have gotten more money after turning in FAFSA showing no need. It surprised me.</p>
<p>When we met with financial aid, they volunteered the information on retaking the ACT to earn extra money, so my son took advantage of it. At the end of his senior year, his GPA increased from a 3.48 to a 3.52, so we contacted the school. They gave us more money, even though they had our deposit money at that point.</p>
<p>^^true though my daughter always did better on the ACT (though she never really prepped for the SAT as she was not really interested in going out of state at that point, and our State Us are more ACT based). Her scores were already good but the higher she could get them the better the scholarship possibilities. The difference in Scholarships between ACT scores of 30, 32 , or 133 total of all subscores (weird but true) was quite significant. Especially between the 30 and 32.</p>
<p>My daughter is retaking the ACT this Saturday, because I figure that even a one point increase in her score could be financially beneficial. She is balking big time, but it sure would be nice to get more merit aid.</p>
<p>Yes, one point can make a huge difference. There’s a mom on this board whose daughter had an ACT 29, but was only going to get a rather small scholarship. By bumping to a 30, the D can get a 2/3 tuition scholarship (worth at least $12k per year). </p>
<p>So, for the cost of a Saturday morning and some prep time, the difference is nearly $40,000 over 4 years!!! Amazing!!!</p>
<p>We’ve had two bumps on merit aid with no input from us. Originally Whitworth = $14,000, Willamette = $13,000. Letter from Whitworth +$2000 to 16000, Letter from Willamette this week +4000 to $17,000. Son is 4.00, 2270 SAT.</p>
<p>It makes you wonder how much these schools are aware of what the other schools are doing. I know the LACs in the Northwest all keep a close tab on each other in marketing. It sure makes it fun to go get the mail. Coming down to May one I may try contacting the schools for a last and final offer.</p>