<p>Has any college offered you a significant merit scholarship that you will not accept because you plan to enroll elsewhere? By sharing this information, you may help other CC members who are eager to attend the school youre turning down but who will need to appeal their aid awards to do so. When making such appeals, it might be useful to know that a top scholarship is unclaimed. </p>
<p>While its far too early for final decisions, please post on this thread once your verdicts are in and youre certain that you wont be accepting some big merit bucks that youve been offered.</p>
<p>How would you go about doing this? Just wondering if a student was to appeal, asking for an unclaimed merit award of someone they know, is it acceptable to mention that student’s name?!</p>
<p>You can’t actually “ask” for another student’s aid award (“‘Hotmama93’ from CC said that I can have the $30k you gave her” ) but at least you can go into the appeals process aware that this school might have some wiggle room in the budget. It wouldn’t be out of line, either to mention that you read on College Confidential that a big merit award had been given to a student matriculating elsewhere.</p>
<p>Sally, you have a long posting history here on CC. Do you often find that schools would actually offer turned down merit to someone else? Seems most I’ve dealt with for my S didn’t do that. They said they offer like X scholarships expecting based on history that something like X/2 would accept. Wondering if there’s a chance as April rolls around merit offer would be increased at some of his schools.</p>
<p>My daughter has received 2 full scholarships. She competed for both and won. She may end up turning one or both down - when she hears back from her reach schools.</p>
I’m not sure it works this way. Colleges tend to offer more scholarships than they end up paying out, as they realize that not everyone will accept; it’s like a type of yield. I’ve heard that Fordham (where I got full tuition) gives out a few hundred full tuition scholarships for NMSFs, yet their enrollment of those students is far less than the offers they make.</p>
<p>So if you’re turning down a major scholarship, it’s quite possible that the assumption that some people would turn them down was factored in. It’s like someone turning down admission; that doesn’t “open up a spot” in most cases, as the college has a yield formula for how many people will turn them down, and thus such a student is just a part of that formula.</p>
<p>I don’t really see how a financial aid appeal could be helped by saying that there is someone, somewhere, on the internet who says they turned down a scholarship. And I don’t think a school is more likely to see merit in a financial aid appeal depending on how many people have turned down scholarships. Even if they did, though, I don’t think CC is a big enough sample to get an accurate reading on how many people do turn such scholarships down.</p>
<p>@Sally, I don’t know of any institution that does such a thing. When offers are made, they have a very good idea what their yield will be and if it comes out significantly above or below expectations, so be it. They do not recycle :(</p>
<p>Just like all enrollment-management decisions (i.e., the number of students to admit, waitlist, etc.) college officials will award aid based on the likelihood that an anticipated number of students will accept the offer and others won’t. Some years, of course, more students want the $$$ than expected, but in other years there are fewer. As I noted above, there’s not a one-on-one relationship. If one CC member turns down a top scholarship, it’s not as if another can swoop in and get it. But if the responses on this thread show that the most sought-after scholarships at some universities are going begging this year, it might provide some leverage to those who hope to attend these schools. And it can’t hurt to go into the negotiation process with this in mind.</p>
<p>There is a very good chance that my daughter’s good friend will be passing on a $21K scholarship. Turns out this is my daugher’s 1st choice school and she received $7800. The only way she will be able to attend is if she gets more $, otherwise it’s out of the question. If the friend decides sfor sure that she will NOT attend, would it then be OK to mention ‘a fellow high school classmate has received $21K merit award and will not be using it’?!</p>
<p>It can’t hurt to mention that the friend who got the big merit award will enroll elsewhere as long as you’re not implying that you expect the school will actually hand over the friend’s award to you. </p>
<p>Also, out of respect to the friend, make sure that she has already deposited elsewhere before you blow the whistle on her decision.</p>
<p>Speaking of Fordham, my D was accepted EA last fall. She was happy to get the acceptance, but subsequently heard from other rolling admission schools who offered scholarship money. Then began hearing about acceptances in her major, some also with scholarship money. Months after her acceptance to Fordham, after she had begun bonding with other acceptances, she got a letter offering her a nice merit scholarship. She was puzzled as she felt it would have been more effective to have received it around the same time as the acceptance. I personally wondered whether some students had declined, freeing up some money. Since it had moved from the top of her list, I told her to promptly decline, in my head freeing up the money for someone else.</p>
<p>Several years ago, a friend’s son who had received and decided to accept a full ride at one of our state’s flagship universities was contacted by the other state flagship in May. Because that school’s #1 incoming science major had chosen to attend an Ivy, the school was now offering my friend’s son a full ride, as he was now their #1 prospect. It was all very odd as the scholarship money that they had previously offered was not quite full tuition. I could only wonder why a school of that size had only one full ride for a top (ISEF category winner) science applicant. So, in this case, a scholarship which had been turned down was re-awarded (well, not to my friend’s son because he too turned it down, but I am guessing the school proceeded down their list of ranked science majors).</p>
<p>That is awesome! Glad that they were still awarding it- for someone that was a great surprise. My daughter received a fellowship type honors scholar - that they told her if any of the five turn it down they will award it to the person below them.</p>
<p>It doesn’t hurt. I remember some schools that have said that when answers are received from the accepted kids, perhaps some awards will become available. It would be great if someone could actually snag a known award that was turned down.</p>
<p>This is a slightly different situation, but it might be helpful to some parents of NMFs. My D1 (2 years ago) did not apply to University of Oklahoma, in spite of their very generous full ride offer, which included summer research money, and a laptop I think, in addition to tuition and room and board. </p>
<p>In mid-May, she received a letter saying it was not to late to apply!! </p>
<p>So, if there are parents out there whose financial circumstances have changed in a downwards direction, or NMF students who are re-thinking their list, it might not be too late to get a NMF scholarship even at a school they didn’t apply to.</p>
<p>My kids’ college awards about 10 big full-ride scholarships to those who didn’t qualify for the big NMF scholarships. those 10 awards are funded by a few major donors. </p>
<p>Those scholarships are re-awarded if any of those 10 do not accept. They don’t over-award those scholarships because they don’t have the funding to handle a high yield. </p>
<p>however, the full-tuition scholarships are over-awarded with the expectation that some won’t come to the school. I think the school expects about 500 to accept, so if less than that accept, sometimes a few kids with the needed SAT/ACT but short of GPA get the awards.</p>
<p>To the OP: Yes I turned down every offer from schools that offered full scholarships such as Oklahoma, WSU, Alabama, etc. No desire to go to these places, and not that great academically.</p>
<p>It’s possible I’ll be turning down a Neely (full-tuition) at Lewis and Clark College which I know does in fact re-assign those scholarships because only 5 are given per year.</p>
<p>My D has 2 full ride scholarships (Auburn & Alabama) and 1 full-tuition scholarship (Illinois). She will be turning at least 2 of them down, possible all three, depending on what $$ is offered by her 1st choice school.</p>
<p>My daughter received an amazing grant from her 1st choice school (so far), Barnard…and it surpassed all of the other merit scholarships plus grants received from her other acceptances. We were BLOWN AWAY by her Barnard grant!</p>
) but at least you can go into the appeals process aware that this school might have some wiggle room in the budget. It wouldn’t be out of line, either to mention that you read on College Confidential that a big merit award had been given to a student matriculating elsewhere.</p>