<p>Anyone have any thoughts on if/how verifying/accepting enrollment and paying the deposit has any effect on merit aid or financial aid offers, especially for OOS students? With our first go-around, D wasn't ready to commit to go to UMD until later in April (and ended up in a triple in Denton). She loves UMD and heavily campaigned for her sister to follow her there.</p>
<p>With D2, it's a different story. She's ready to be there NOW. There's a little voice inside me that hesitates to have her verify/accept the enrollment before hearing about possible merit offers and seeing what financial aid looks like. She has filled out the form for housing already. Altho she has the stats for the presidential $$, and I'm fairly certain we'll get financial aid for next year, I just wonder....</p>
<p>Also, does anyone know whether having financial need affects the awarding of the merit aid? (other than the ones that say that there are both merit and financial components). Would 2 kids with exactly the same stats, applications, etc. theoretically get the same merit scholarship amount, regardless of their financial need?</p>
<p>I wondered the same thing. Son accepted very early last year - within a couple of days of learning of his acceptance - and he received the merit scholarship I was hoping he would get (Presidential, $8K).</p>
<p>They told me that financial need has no bearing on merit scholarships, in fact it's not even necessary to file a FAFSA if your EFC will be over the COA.</p>
<p>Scholarship money at UMD is miniscule. They offered my son, a top A-1 student, a whole $1,000 (we're in-state) for their engineering program. He went to a better school and received a huge scholarship.</p>
<p>I would be wondering the same thing as you are. Will their knowing that you will go there anyway have any impact on the scholarship award? Maybe this is what happened with my son. We immediately verified...in retrospect, maybe that was a mistake.</p>
<p>On another subject, my daughter just graduated UMD. She refused to live in the dorm;instead, she always had an apartment. Guess what, it's really not much more expensive than living in the dorms.</p>
<p>I believe that merit aid has nothing whatsoever to do with financial need. Regarding your question about whether or not two students with identical stats, etc. would receive the same merit scholarship amount, I haven't got a clue. They have some weird ways of doing things at that school.</p>
<p>On yet another subject, prior to my daughter graduating and several times since (it's only been like two months), UMD has been hounding us for donations!!!! Can you believe that?</p>
<p>Can you provide the stat for getting the Presidental $8K
What is the WGPA and the SAT?</p>
<p>^In my son's case, he is OOS and had a 2210 SAT. GPA of 3.9 unweighted. School only offers a few AP classes, so weighting was minimal.</p>
<p>It is not only about the academics...they are looking at your course rigors, your entire app. and program. You will find out there are people with lower scores, but get more merit...UMD has depts and schools. A dance major most likely will not have the same gpa or SAT as the engineering major, the school understands that. They want to recruit the best for each program. Thus, add in the major into your equation</p>