<p>First off, let me thank all of you that post information to these forums. We're new to the college financing process and have found a wealth of useful information that has helped to make the process a little less painful. Thank you!!</p>
<p>A question we have regarding "university wide scholarships" that all students who apply to an institution are considered for: Although these scholarships are not need-based, if a student already has other merit-based scholarship money will that hurt their chances of getting additional "university wide" money?</p>
<p>Specifically, D1 has her heart set on attending the Univ of Minnesota and pursuing a Doctoral degree in Pharmacy (probably 3 years of undergraduate followed by 4 years in the College of Pharmacy). We live in Michigan (go figure based on the username) so we're looking at OOS tuition rates. Middle class with average savings/investments so we're sure she won't qualify for any need-based aid.</p>
<p>D1's stats:
GPA - 4.15 on 4.0 scale (top 5%) - straight A's in AP (Stats, Eng, Calc, Chem, Physics)
ACT - 36
SAT - 2400
EC's - Average (not competitive for Coca-Cola, etc. scholarships from what we've read)
NMSF - based on her SAT we're fairly sure she'll make NMF</p>
<p>Assuming NMF happens, the gap between what Minnesota guarantees for NMF and OOS costs is about $15,000/year for her undergraduate years. We've spoken with an admissions officer there and they seem to want her there as much as she wants to attend, but the only way to close the gap is through external scholarships or additional money from their "university wide" pool.</p>
<p>Has anyone had a similar situation, and if so are colleges inclined at all to funnel discretionary scholarship money towards students they are interested in or will her guaranteed NMF money cause them to bypass her with university wide funds?</p>
<p>Any helpful suggestions, experiences, etc. would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>in or will her guaranteed NMF money cause them to bypass her with university wide funds?</p>
<p>You will have to ask UMinn, but I can tell you this…</p>
<p>At my kids’ school, they give a big NMF scholarship and really the only other scholarship that a student can get additionally is an engineering one that is given to all with certain stats.</p>
<p>The other university and dept scholarships won’t be given to NMFs, because the school feels that they’ve already been given a big scholarship, and they need to reserve their other merit for kids with high stats who did not make NMF (maybe they come from a high cut-off state). </p>
<p>You’re right not to expect any need-based aid, but not just because of your income/assets. OOS publics don’t typically give their need-based aid to OOS students no matter what their income level is. OOS publics reserve their need-based aid for their own resident students. Typically, the only need-based aid a low-income OOS student can get is Pell…which is not much money.</p>
<p>Of course, your child can get a $5500 fed student loan, but you might want to avoid that since she’s going to pharm school.</p>
<p>Your D should also apply to some other schools that will also give her huge merit because if she gets a better offer elsewhere, then UMinn may give her more.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. We appreciate the help very much. We were wondering about the possibility of playing one university off against another. I hate the idea of doing that, but if it means the difference between her attending her first choice school or not I’m willing to swallow my pride and principles. She had already been contacted by Alabama regarding what they would offer her should be become a NMF and by reading the forums we found out about the great financial packages other schools like Auburn, Oklahoma, and Central Florida would probably offer her. The problem is they each would require her to list them as her top choice on the NMSC paperwork and she needs to list Minnesota first in order to get the $10K per year and have any chance of attending there. Same problem with other Great Lakes area schools like U of Michigan, Ohio State, etc. They’ll only offer decent money to NMF’s if they’re listed as first choice. Since D isn’t interested in heading south for college (I’ve tried to interest her in Auburn since they have a Pharmacy program there) I think we’ll only be able to use those known full-ride schools as leverage with Minnesota. It kinda stinks that if a kid can dribble a basketball they can potentially get full rides to any number of schools, but academically outstanding kids have to hunt much harder for funds.</p>
<p>We’ll keep working the admissions officer at Minnesota to see what they might be willing or able to do, but so far they’ve been non-committal at best (imagine that) about what other funds might be available. She’s “eligible” for enough of their other scholarships to almost cover her whole undergrad cost and she should be highly competitive for any of them stats-wise but they won’t say how many of each scholarship they’ve historically given. I HATE the idea of sitting around until March!! Thanks again for the info.</p>
<p>Wolverine, if your D is set on only looking at schools with pharmacy programs, you might also want to look at Buffalo…they give several dozen full ride scholarships a year as well as smaller awards, are actively looking for promising OOS kids, and have a very good pharmacy school. Pre-reqs can be completed in two years for many students and UB offers Early Assurance if the pre-pharm GPA is at least 3.5 for pre-reqs (no PCAT required). PharmD students are considered undergrads for P1 (undergrad tuition is around $13K for OOS) and can then apply for NYS residency for instate tuition rates ($18K grad tuition for pharmacy). The pharmacy school also gives scholarships up to $20K for P1-4.</p>
<p>*It kinda stinks that if a kid can dribble a basketball they can potentially get full rides to any number of schools, but academically outstanding kids have to hunt much harder for funds.
*</p>
<p>LOL…not really. There are 15,000 NMFs that can get big scholarships every year. There are far fewer talented basketball players that can get big scholarships. And…keep in mind…your D is being recruited with money offers.</p>
<p>She’s “eligible” for enough of their other scholarships to almost cover her whole undergrad cost and she should be highly competitive for any of them stats-wise but they won’t say how many of each scholarship they’ve historically given. I HATE the idea of sitting around until March!!</p>
<p>Well, she could always apply to a school or two that will award her a big “non-NMF” scholarship and use that as leverage.</p>
<p>Thank you very much. Buffalo wasn’t a program we had heard anything about yet, and we’ll definitely look into it. She is pretty much set on studying Pharmacy, and that does limit her choices somewhat. Since the Colleges of Pharmacy are pretty competitive at the majority of these schools she does need to have a fall-back position in case she’s not accepted into the doctoral program 2-4 years down the line. As of now the fall-back would probably be biochemistry so we’re looking at what else the schools offer as well.</p>
<p>mom2college…Is leverage actually a viable tactic? NMF status would give her several nice financial packages to play off of, but has anyone you know of actually gotten an increased offer from College A because of what College B was offering?</p>
<p>Wolverine86 - I’m not sure why your daughter is not considering UMich more seriously. While I do not have specific information about pharmacy programs, I believe UMich also has one of the top PharmD programs in the country. </p>
<p>With your daughter’s stats, she has a good chance to be invited for the Shipman Scholarship program (for undergrad), which, if she gets the top scholarship, will be equivalent of a full-ride for instate students.</p>
<p>My daughter was in a similar situation (stats and all) as yours (except that she was interested in engineering), with some decent ECs and she got the Shipman scholarship.</p>
<p>karkri…She is considering both Michigan and Ohio State (both excellent pharm programs) and we had looked at both the Shipman at U of M and the Presidential Scholarship at OSU as possibilities. We knew her GPA and ACT scores were competitive and her SAT scores this past week were a nice affirmation of the others. We’re not sure if her EC’s will make her competitive for the Shipman and/or the Presidential though. She’s done YAC, NHS, Student Council, etc. but so has everyone else being considered for these awards. Community service is where her resume’ is probably the most lacking. These awards are definitely on our radar but we’re trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves. Obviously we think she’s worthy of consideration for any awards (thank God she takes after her mother!!) but I guess with this being our first experience with the college app process we don’t know whether her “whole person” score will be high enough. U of Minn gave her the best feeling overall, but she definitely liked U of Mich and OSU as well. I guess if she has a shot at solid financial packages from any of the 3 she can’t be too bad off!! Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>*Is leverage actually a viable tactic? NMF status would give her several nice financial packages to play off of, but has anyone you know of actually gotten an increased offer from College A because of what College B was offering? *</p>
<p>I have no idea of what UMinn’s policy is. Some schools are firm about not matching other offers. However, some schools will. </p>
<p>And, yes, I do know of high-stats kids who’ve gotten better offers when they’ve shown that they’ve gotten better from other SIMILARLY ranked schools. It doesn’t work if you show a better scholarship from a school that is not ranked similarly…because obviously many students can get a bigger scholarship from a lowly ranked school.</p>
<p>If you’re concerned about paying for UMinn, then be upfront with your D. She may WANT UMinn, but if it’s not affordable to you without certain merit money, then tell her that she needs to have good back-ups in case UMinn proves not to be affordable. She may squeal a bit (as many high stats students do when they might not get to go to their top choice), but there isn’t a money fairy. If it’s not affordable, then it’s not affordable. If it is, then GREAT!!</p>
<p>With your D’s stats, there are other schools with PharmD that would give her big merit.</p>
<p>mom2college…Wait a minute…there’s no money fairy?? Then who keeps going into my wallet and collecting for the cause?</p>
<p>We’re trying not to squash her hopes but we have been upfront with her about what we realistically can and can’t do regarding college costs. We told her we’d do our best to make it work if there was enough money available to make Minnesota OOS rates comparable with what we’d pay in-state at U of Mich or Ferris State (not as highly rated for their Pharm program but still good nonetheless). Guaranteed money at Minnesota and Ferris is comparable, but Michigan and Ohio State are both dependent on very lucrative (but very competitive) scholarships. Karkri pointed out a scholarship at Michigan that we were aware of but didn’t really think she’d be competitive for because of average EC’s but maybe we shouldn’t give up hope on that or OSU’s Presidential just yet. She just got such a good feeling from Minnesota that she’s really leaning that direction, but it certainly wouldn’t be “settling” if she were to attend Michigan or Ohio State. It’s a little frustrating that the Big 10 schools aren’t more forthcoming with scholarship money based on NM status like a lot of southern schools are (Alabama, Auburn, Oklahoma, UCF, etc.) but I guess they figure they’ll get plenty of good students regardless and don’t feel the need to pursue them as aggressively as other schools.</p>
<p>There are several (merit-based noncompetitive) scholarships at UMich that are awarded to students other than Shipman. While there is no certainty on the amounts etc. but being from Michigan (the state) I know several kids with stellar stats over years who got decent merit amounts at UMich (not necessarily full-rides) making it an unbeatable value …</p>
<p>I have no idea about UMinnesota or their scholarships etc. but I HIGHLY doubt that costs for Minnesota (after accounting for all scholarships) can even come close to Michigan’s for a Michigan instate kid.</p>
<p>Another Big 10 school (that has the #1 program in the engg field my daughter wants to get into) offered her their best possible scholarship for OOS kids, but the final cost ended up much more than the full-sticker instate COA for Michigan. Michigan Engg was not much behind in that field either, and the Shipman scholarship sealed the deal for her.</p>
<p>karkri…We would definitely prefer to pay in-state rates, especially since regardless of where she attends we’re looking at 4 years in the doctorate program. We’d like to minimize or zeroize if possible the cost of her undergraduate years. Being a huge Michigan fan I’m obviously partial to the idea of her attending U of Mich but I’ll have to walk the fine line between pragmatic parent and overbearing dream squasher. We’re certainly open to anything Michigan has to offer. Four years of pre-pharm kinda scared us at first, but at worst it’s only 1 additional year compared to Minnesota and OSU is also 4 years undergrad. On a seperate note, is it necessary or recommended to fill out a CSS Profile for Michigan if we know up front she won’t qualify for need-based financial aid? We’ll definitely do the FAFSA after 1 Jan, but CSS at Michigan needs to be done earlier. Is it just an exercise in futility since I don’t believe it’s necessary for consideration for merit based aid?</p>
<p>We were doing CSS Profile (and FAFSA) for my daughter for other colleges anyway, so adding Michigan to the list was not a big deal. We knew she wouldn’t get any need-based aid at Michigan (or most other colleges), but per the opinion of most other parents on CC, we did both (FAFSA & CSS) anyway, so as not to preclude the possibility of any future need.</p>
<p>Also, with your daughter’s kinda profile, I’d assume she’d go in with a ton of AP credits etc., so with a decent course load in college, it may not be impossible to graduate a year early, if that’s what she wants. (My daughter matriculated with about 45 credits, so she could graduate in 3 years easily if she wants)…</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. We probably will go ahead and suffer through the pain of the CSS, if for nothing else than to have a profile that we can update each year until D2 and S (twins!!) start college in 2015. Maybe with 3 attending colleges at the same time we might qualify for something need-based!! Time to start surfing all the CSS and FAFSA threads looking for wisdom I guess. :)</p>
<p>Consider U of Rhode Island. With that the caveat that things may have changed since 2005-2006, but as an OOS student with lesser stats than your D (33 ACT/4 UW GPA/rank in top 2% based on weighted GPA), I was offered direct admit to their PharmD program with a full tuition scholarship for all six years.</p>
<p>Also, regarding the NMF ranking, I was under the impression that you could change your ranking up through May, allowing you to decide on a school and scholarship package before finalizing yo0ur ranking. Is this not the case?</p>
<p>we can update each year until D2 and S (twins!!) start college in 2015. Maybe with 3 attending colleges at the same time we might qualify for something need-based!!</p>
<p>If your older D is in the PharmD program at that time, I don’t know if you can count her or not. Some only count undergrads in school. But, you’ll at least get to count 2 (the twins) at one time.</p>
<p>Wolverine…UMich only requires the CSS Profile the first year. We did, along with FAFSA, knowing we wouldn’t get aid but UMich used it for merit consideration. We have not needed to re-file the CSS since. Whew.</p>
<p>mom2college…I think you’re probably right about only being able to count the twins when 2015 rolls around. I believe that once D1 is in any sort of graduate program she will be considered an independent student. I think that may improve her eligibility for need based aid, but I’m not sure how much of that is available for students in graduate programs. From what I’ve seen and read most financial support for those programs comes from alumni grants, etc. I guess she’d have more access to student loans if necessary to cover the funding gaps in those years at least.</p>
<p>psych…thanks for the info on Rhode Island. We’ll look into what they might have available currently. D1 is interested in staying a little closer to home if possible (Great Lakes region) but given the amount of money it costs these days to send a child to college we’re not leaving any stone unturned…especially if there might be money under it!!</p>