I, too, have never heard of what MiamiDAP reports. Maybe s/he could elaborate.
I do have one codicil to add to Chedva’s report. One of my S’s merit awards came long after his acceptance. The acceptance was early (one of those streamlined, quick action apps), but the merit award came at the time of Regular Decision. IE, the merit award came at the time regular timing applicants received their financial aid notification. So there was quite a lag, but it was still prior to April 1 and, as Chedva says, with plenty of time before the May 1 decision date.
I can’t imagine disagreeing with a statement about merit aid more than I disagree with this one. My D’s experience getting over $900K in merit aid from 14 schools where she submitted applications (3 of which were need-only, one at where she was waitlisted) makes this statement seem horribly misinformed. I do not doubt the poster’s experience. It just isn’t the norm and the generalizations they make are just wrong based on the experiences of ST2, myself, and condor30 (among many, many others). I do recognize and have posted about hidden scholarships at some schools. That’s just gravy folks. You shouldn’t bank on that happening anywhere.
My D’s experience was the same as Chedva’s and jmmom’s. Some at the time of acceptance, some much later at a known awards time or after a scholarship weekend, none dependent on an agreement or statement to attend. I have never heard of what DAP is talking about. I do know that the colleges my D applied to considered whether or not the student was likely to attend if given the scholarship, but that’s just common sense when you only give out 3 (or so) of a particular major scholarship.
I’d like to see a list of those schools , miamiDAP. I will be glad to reciprocate but only by p.m… Our story has been used too often by me as a prop and folks are legitmately tired of it (and I am legitimately tired of pulling arrows out of my :eek: for trying to help. I’m sure I’ll catch heck from somebody for the results posted above, but my edit time ran out and I can’t change it now.). Again, I am not doubting your personal experience, it’s just very interesting that the experiences were so wildly different from those of other cc participants and I’d like to research why.
Her decision was based on acceptance to specific program, not finances. We knew about most awards beforehand and decided that they were enough. However the final list included additional substantial rewards that university gave her after she decided to attend. They were private named awards that we had no way of knowing about. The same happened after she applied for returning students academic scholarships after freshman year. Additional $4000 were added to her admission award list for Sophmore year. The last is not automatically renewable like original list. She is at Miami, OH
I’m glad that there were specific program scholarships available for your D after acceptance. And those second year awards are largely unadvertised as you say. As to the 4 year awards most of what I (and many others) talk about here are freshman scholarships that are not exclusive to any race, creed, state, city, or specific academic program except in larger terms like “science” or “engineering” sometimes as specific as “math” or “english” or “physics” but rarely do I mention the “Edith Crumper Scholarship for Particle Physics” .The Swarthmore scholarship that exists for residents of certain counties on the Delmarva peninsula usually goes unnoticed, too as does a scholarship at William Smith for rural or URM female doctors to be .
Usually we concentrate on more general scholarships. Your posts remind us that there are these not generally available scholarships out there and that is a great point to make. Thanks for making it.
There’s two days of work just in sorting through Miami’s scholarships. LOL. FromHarrison to University Honors, to named departmental scholarships , some of which may be available to freshman (although I’ve not spicifically found that).
Harrison (full ride) accepts only about 43 students and available for Freshmen. My D. is not Harrison recipeint, she did not get any departmental or her program specific awards. I do not know where they got average of $1000 for returning student. Most kids do not apply for them. You do not get anything for Returning students if you do not apply. So everybody should be aware that it is worthwhile to apply as to have your GPA in college as high as possible. However, you would not find much info on internet as you can see since they mentioned $1000 which is too low to be considered in decision making at all.
miamiDAP, maybe I’m crazy but the way we worked involved literally 100’s of hours of looking at ‘net resources. Googling Biology + Departmental awards + Miami of Ohio and many, many variations like that. My kids stats were such that I knew she had the goods to be competitive for anything offered so we scoured the websites, bought every book, looked at general blogs, looked at private and elite high school counselors’ sites that provide lists of scholarships some not (intentionally) advertised (not great security BTW ;)) that the two hour casual researcher would have never found. The geo specific scholarships at Wash and Lee, the William Smith above, the Bristol at Hamilton all came from those high school websites. I’ll try to find a sample and post one.
Edit again:
This one is limited but I could find it quickly. You can count on having maybe 1 or 2 that you hadn’t heard of on every list. Takes a lot of time but my life has many periods of downtime that I could spend on the internet and so this worked out to be quite effective for us. Scroll down to college and university scholarships heading.
[Sewickley</a> Academy: Scholarships & Financial Assistance](<a href=“http://www.sewickley.org/srschoolsub.asp?pageid=196]Sewickley”>http://www.sewickley.org/srschoolsub.asp?pageid=196)
First 43 is a really nice number and second, I thought she did get a program specific scholarship, or did I read the posts wrong? Or was it that she was accepted to the program, y’all decided she would attend , informed them, then the money came? I have a feeling the money would have come without the commitment to attend.
I researched a lot but not about financial side. We rulled out OOS, since it is much more costly. I researched availability of the program that my D. was interested at in-state colleges. She applied only to the schools that have it. She was accepted at all schools that she applied with very good academic rewards at each. She had her ranking list for the programs. She did not get to her #1 (althouth university accepted her with large academic scholarship). So she decided to go to her #2. She loves it there, and thinks that it was actually the best match for her.
^^ She was acccepted to the program that she wanted and that was the reason why she went there. This program does not award any scholarships. Her awards are just general academic awards.
I’m just trying to give others the benefit of your experience. Again, from my first responsive post I said I had no doubt that the experience was genuine. I think it is interesting and wanted to expand upon it so some others might follow the breadcrumbs.
I’m also posting this on the college search board.
I see a lot of interesting college web sites but when I read they only offer need-based aid, I look elsewhere. We normally would have qualified for need-based aid but my son has some substantial student assets that makes it appear that we won’t qualify for any, if I am understanding things correctly.
So, I want to narrow down those who offer academic scholarships, and further narrow down to those who offer any full-tuition (or preferably even full-ride) scholarships to be competed for.
Is there a way to do this? I’ve done things like the search on petersons.com but couldn’t get this narrowed down this way. I’ve seen the list on CC of colleges that offer full rides but I also want to narrow down other ways and search.
Is this possible?
Many private colleges look so great but then I find out that even their best merit scholarships don’t come close to paying even half of the yearly cost. I’d love to find some that would offer something more substantial (but I understand most of these deals would be at public universities or such). But worth a try, I guess!
USN&WR Ultimate Guide has a list of schools in the front of that big book that lists schools that give merit money. You can then look up each college in the book and it will give you the averages of amounts given per student. Also going on the college website will tell what merit scholarships are given.
Oddly enough the best deals are not at public univesities, but at the privates. It is particularly difficult to get substantial merit money or FA from the publics with some exceptions.
You are right about merit awards being small for the most part. My second son got a lot of awards but under $5k which was a drop in the bucket when you are talking about private school costs. This last son did get some nice merit money, but again $20K is not even half of a $52K COA. It is frightening. If you are looking for full tuition or full costs, you need to look at some college where your kid is waaaaaaaaaaaaay up there in terms of their stats. You also need to look at some obscure schools. THat is, if you want some substantial offers. I know a family here whose kids were featured in the NYT for their great merit packages, and it is a tough process getting the money they get, and they do pack in those safeties.
my son recvd a full ride scholarship to Washington and Lee University in Va–based on academics and leadership. (soo grateful) Emory also offers merit full rides.
A word of advice to the OP and others pursuing merit scholarships for their kids – it may be important to NOT check the FA box indicating that you want need based aid on the application. Our daughter had very good results in getting merit aid at schools but at several schools she was not even a semifinalist for consideration. Her GC called for an explanantion and was told that it was noted that even though these were merit awards being given out these schools preferred not to give merit aid to kids without financial need.
^ I have experienced this as well pertaining to independent “merit” scholarships. I never could understand how merit scholarship applications had any business asking about your financial status. Maybe they should just say up front that there are merit scholarships for financially needy students and that financially secure geniuses need not apply. :rolleyes:
and second, I thought she did get a program specific scholarship, or did I read the posts wrong? Or was it that she was accepted to the program, y’all decided she would attend , informed them, then the money came? I have a feeling the money would have come without the commitment to attend.