We are still holding out hope. I have been told that the Financial Aid office will be communicating decisions next week and by March 1st at the latest. Perhaps they will be generous with aid, we shall see. At the end of the day, we don’t really care where the assistance comes from… as long as it comes and the total cost comes down in line with other comparable institutions.
For those of you that have better financial aid packages from other schools that you think are on par with USD, you might be able to talk to USD about it and see if there is more money you might qualify for. Some schools will look at aid packages from other schools and will reconsider. But the schools need to be on par. Good luck!
@Whit99 sure her states are:
GPA UW 4.0 W 4.56; SAT 1270
(we understand her SAT is not as high as others)
Lots of EC’s with leadership roles
Class Vice President
4 year Tri-Sport Athlete (captain of all 3)
Lots of volunteer activities
Catholic and active in the church.
She did not interview, probably should have 
I spoke with her admissions counselor she said “sorry she didn’t get any merit aid”.
@collegemomjam we tried that with D17 - USD wouldn’t not budge. D17 did get merit but we were hoping they would match or at least bump it up a little to be closer to the merit she got from a Jesuit school with similar admit rates and stats. No dice.
When will decisions be released today?
I’m not really sure where to post this to get answers, but does anyone know what merit scholarships could be used on besides tuition, meal plans, and room and board? Based on how things will be looking out for me, I believe I will have around ~$20000 leftover from the Alcala scholarship.I know that excess will be send back to USD but I was curious if it’s necessary to pay for anything else.
@ppooba I believe they can be used for mandatory fees, books and supplies. Will the leftover money be all 4 years? If not maybe the left over funds can be applied to your 2nd to 4th year.
@letsshare Yes, it should be for all 4 years as long as I keep my grades up haha. But those things do make sense and I am glad that can most likely be covered. I will contact the office of financial aid sometime later just to make sure though.
My son got his FinAid letter yesterday and even though we are EFC 0, USD would expect my son to take out over 21K in loans per year, to make it work for the college. And that is counting 21K in Merit Scholarship and 19K in FinAid from Pell and CalGrant, and another 19K in need based from USD. So if that’s the best they can do we will likely have to take it off our list of contenders. At least he’s also got an offer from UCI, just waiting to see what kind of FinAid he gets there.
@ThatKidsMom
Maybe your math is off? 19+21+19 is 59 (k). So if the combo of scholarship, school grant and federal grant totals that much then the cost is much less then 21 k in loans per year (loans which he will likely not receive).
Am I wrong somehow?
@ThatKidsMom I’d take a 2nd look at the offer if your son gets 21k in merit aid plus 19k in need based grant from USD plus 19k in Pell and CalGrant that is 59k which almost completely covers directs costs of tuition, room and board (I think their direct costs are just over 64k). When they figure out ‘total cost’ they also include the non direct costs like books, travel, personal expenses etc. They also can’t have 21k in loan for the students listed, the max loans for the student are 5500 freshman year, any loan above that would be listed as a parent loan. Did he get any work study? That might be a good option for offsetting what he is short. If he got 59k in merit and need based aid and takes out a 5500 student loan that would cover his direct costs. Which is probably correct with an EFC of zero.
Lol not sure if any of that made sense.
USD has a merit calculator based on SAT/ACT and GPA. Assuming that is correct, there is merit for kids that achieved higher scores. Does anyone know if there is additional merit on top of that or if it is all need based? https://www.sandiego.edu/admissions/undergraduate/tuition-financial-aid/net-price-calculator.php
@suburbiatexas my daughter and I ran the calculator before she applied and actually just ran it again after she got her acceptance letter and found out she was offered no merit scholarship. It still says “congratulations you qualify for the Alcala Award, 25,000” but she got zero. I understand they are just an estimate but to go from 25,000 to 0 is disheartening.
@hermom1 do you feel comfortable calling and asking what the next steps are to get the scholarship since it says “you qualify”?
@letsshare I did call and I got “so sorry she didn’t get any merit aid”. There is a disclaimer on the net price calculator that it only gives you an estimate but we were shocked when she got nothing.
Wow, I am so sorry to hear that. Seems a bit irresponsible to get a letter congratulatory letter saying she qualifies for the highest merit scholarship then not offer anything. Gosh that is so frustrating!
Edit: Seems to me they should just not say anything until the student gets awarded the scholarship.
@letsshare i think maybe you misunderstood, we didn’t get a letter saying she qualified for the highest merit scholarship, my D ran the net price calculator on their website (someone posted a link above) and it said 25,000 back in November so we thought she’d get offered something, When she didn’t get offered anything at all we ran it again a few days ago to see if maybe we had input something in wrong and it again says Alcala Scholarship 25,000. You are right it is irresponsible and sad but my daughter has been blessed with 25,000 merit scholarships at other schools and I just keep telling her it’s their loss because she would have been a great addition to their student body!
Anyone else still hasn’t got their acceptance update?
@hermom1 sorry I misunderstood. It is disappointing, but I do love your attitude and what you are telling her. Congrats on the big merits, those are amazing offers!
I was admitted last week with the 21k Trustee Scholarship, but still haven’t recieved a financial aid update - is anyone in the same situation? I assume they’re uploading financial aid individually then sending an email to notify you?