University of Minnesota - merit aid?

Applying to College
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My daughter was just admitted to University of Minnesota. No word, however, on whether she will be offered any merit aid (we will not qualify for need based aid but based on experiences of otters we know we hoped she would get some merit aid). Does anyone know if this notification of merit aid amounts typically comes later? Appreciate your help.

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I don’t know the timing of their merit aid, but their Net Price Calculator will provide an estimate of the amount of aid to expect if you enter your daughter’s academic stats.

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Thanks - but doesn’t the net price calculator only address need based aid?

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Merit can come at any point. My oldest kid got notified of a merit award and honors probably within 2-3 weeks after admission in October. My daughter was admitted in October. Was admitted to honors in December and got merit in February.

I’d be surprised if the NPC did well with that since it is holistically applied and varies by college.

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It depends on the state…for MN, Wisc, ND and SD residents the NPC will only give need based aid estimates. For other state residents, it will give a merit estimate based on GPA/test scores. I think the top merit award is $15K, but not sure so check the website. I don’t know the accuracy of the NPC merit estimates.

Section H2A of the 2022-23 CDS shows 913 first year students who had no financial need received merit scholarships of $5,366 on average. https://idr.umn.edu/sites/idr.umn.edu/files/cds_2022_2023_tc_0.pdf

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We live in CA, and the UMN net price calculator did give an accurate estimate for merit aid. However, it took a while to receive a notification of the actual merit aid after my son was admitted.

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Oh ok, we are in state so that makes sense. The Ă­n state kids we know getting merit have been harder to predict. Max award is 15k last I heard, we know lots of students there and one of our kids dual enrolled there last year.

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We heard our kid was admitted many weeks before we heard merit. And they added on an extra $1K of merit in April too (some sort of “research award”). Presumably to induce him to commit? We are in state.

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I ran the NPC for a kid and indicated an income/contribution that would not receive need-based aid and the NPC did give an estimate for the amount of merit aid. Granted, it was an out-of-state student, but the NPC did give an estimate.

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I am in the same position with my daughter (OOS). I researched it and they said merit could come any time, even as late as March! But I think for the most part it comes by Feb at latest.

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S23 was admitted in Oct. I believe the merit package came about 3 weeks later and an additional departmental award came a few weeks after that.

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I am a Michigan resident and was admitted to Minnesota in 2019-2020 school year. I was admitted late November 2019 and received a large merit scholarship in January of 2020. I do not remember the exact amount but I believe it was about 40% off out of state tuition.

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