We received the WUE email as well but our portal info has not changed. My understanding is that the WUE is considered a scholarship and will not be combined with other merit money. You can however apply to other scholarships that aren’t considered merit based.
They updated their scholarship page. So much has changed. Check it out.
https://financialaid.utah.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/freshman/
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Mine says the same as well but I did submit our FASFA all the way back in October. Would love to know what you find out.
Wow, huge changes. No full OOS tuition scholarships any more, just $20K OOS presidential (out of ~$30K cost) plus an undefined room and board subsidy (hopefully the $5K it was in prior years), $14K flagship and $10K academic.
They are trying to heavily motivate you to stay for residency, because you can switch the scholarship to the resident rate ($12K, $12K and $5K respectively) and the difference is far less than the OOS supplement of about $21K per year (based on 15 credits per semester), in fact both the presidential and flagship will then cover your full tuition and fees unless you overload hugely on credits.
Hopefully the qualifying criteria for the presidential scholarship have been reset to make them more achievable for OOS students, because if they simply map the prior academic excellence scholarship (full OOS tuition excluding fees) to the new flagship scholarship then it will be a lot less attractive when you have to pay about $15K in tuition and fees the first year.
WUE is about $10k a year, right?
This is incredibly disappointing. We had been planning a visit and holding off as merit kept being pushed back from March 1st to early March to mid March to who knows when. What a huge bait & switch especially for oos applicants. I don’t think we would have spent the $ to apply if Utah would have been honest in the fall.
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15 credits is currently $4209 resident tuition plus $624 in mandatory fees per semester. So WUE will be $12627 per year plus $1248 in mandatory fees plus what is likely up to $1000 or so per year in course fees (i.e. roughly the same as the UCs). About $1000 less per semester if you do 12 credits and $1000 more per semester if you do 18 credits.
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I think that the OOS Presidential looks like a better deal overall than the prior OOS 4 year Academic Excellence scholarship (in particular the ongoing housing subsidy and the ability to convert to resident rates makes it pretty attractive after the first year). The question is whether there are a meaningful number of them on offer and what it takes to win one. If it is still easier to win an Eccles scholarship than an OOS Presidential scholarship (which was the case in prior years) then that will definitely feel like a bait and switch.
Taken literally, that statement implies that merit offers have been sent out, because the website is now updated.
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They replied back they do not have my FAFSA. My FAFSA was submitted in October before I applied to the school. They were one of my selected schools so it should be there. I suspect when you send it early it doesn’t get linked to your application. I’ll let you know what they say next.
They found it. Social security didn’t match. I need to figure out if wrong in application or FAFSA now.
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Hmm it says UofU download my app Oct 8. I submitted FASFA the same week. But perhaps it didn’t get linked somehow. Do you mind sharing who you emailed? TYIA!
Contact financial aid office. They found mine. Social security numbers didn’t match and I need to correct.
financialaid@utah.edu
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I am going to hope someone mistyped. My DD has not received anything (OOS East Coast), and I expect something. She did apply for Eccles. I was hoping they would have been competitive with the Arizona merit we received, but I am no longer optimistic. We are visiting Arizona on the 3rd, and I was going to add a leg of our trip to Salt Lake City if Utah is financially plausible.
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I think in past years Utah has always required significantly better stats than Arizona to get decent merit aid. In particular 4.0UW and ACT scores in the 30s were very important. Last year a single B was enough to knock you out of consideration for the four year full OOS tuition scholarship. Utah’s advantage has been in residency qualification which makes it really cheap after the first year so merit was oriented towards subsidizing the first year OOS premium
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I am hoping the same thing I have not received anything. Has anyone received any of the scholarships (presidential, flagship, academic)? This will go a long way to helping us decide before April 1st.
My son has not received any information on scholarships either. We are OOS and from the East.
My D here in Colorado hasn’t received anything. I’ve got some FOMO right now. lol
Actually that’s slightly reassuring since she should have been offered WUE at the very least in CO.
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