Waitlist - Financial Aid

We’ve been searching for info on UMich MT financial aid. My daughter got in off the waitlist which is wonderful because it has been the program of her dreams. Unfortunately there is no aid. Zero…zilch…not even close to what the FAFSA said we could pay. And yes we are OOS. The really hard thing for us (her parents) is she was also waitlisted at CMU and CMU gives you the aid package up front. Based on our FAFSA we would pay half at CMU. But of course no one got in off the waitlist at CMU this year. So it’s UMich - but how to pay for it??? This is crazy. The person who dropped may have had a financial package…merit money…anything…but that just goes back to the school. And the kid off the waitlist gets nothing.
Has anyone ever been in this situation before?
Has anyone ever just done what it takes to get there for the first year and then received money the next year?? Merit? Performance or otherwise??
This is killing us. It’s hard to be so close and yet waking up covered in sweat due to worry about debt.

Hey @singoutlouise - Where did your daughter end up going?

I think the Financial Aid situation for any school is dependant on a wide variety of things, including test scores, grades, and financial need. As I’ve found, all of it is negotiable. I wouldn’t say “no” to any program before addressing every possible angle to get financial help. Even talk to the the program directors!

My D is an MT major at U Mich and ended up with a hefty financial package. We are also Out Of State. Then she won some local scholarships, but when we applied them to her UMich account UMich lessened her aid package, instead of putting the money towards her balance! That was frustrating!

But UMich has really worked with us to get Parent Plus loans and federal aid, so she’ll end up with a nominal amount of loans after graduation. Hoping she can get some summer jobs prior to graduation to pay some of that down!

Let me know if your D ended up going there!

My daughter is a freshman at Michigan and I am sure she knows your daughter! She is very very happy and loving school. In our case, my daughter got in off the waitlist on April 30. When you get in off the waitlist there is no aid. None. For no one. It is totally different than what happens with a regular acceptance. My daughter has killer scores and grades but unfortunately that is how it works. I have done a lot of research and talked to lots of people at this point. We are probably crazy but we sent her anyway! There are a few other people on the MT board that have talked about how if you get in off the waitlist there is no aid. This year we are hopeful that things will be better - she can now qualify for scholarships, etc. So we will see what happens. Keep your fingers crossed for us because we need it!!

Good luck! Feeling your pain! Of course the consolation is that Mich is such a great program she is sure to get a paying job when she’s done.

What are the chances of getting off the waitlist? Friend’s son is on it. How many are usually bumped up? Thank you!

@ohmtmom ~ it depends on the year. No one came off the waitlist my son’s year (MT15) but there have been one or two in subsequent years.

@ohmtmom - There were 3 I believe that got off the waitlist and into the program for MT21

4!! They actually over accepted off the waitlist as they decided in the end they wanted particular kids. The class is slightly larger than normal. It was a very unusual choice and doesn’t usually happen. As lojosmo mentioned above - there are many years where no one is added from the waitlist.

How many are on the waitlist normally ? It seems as though I see a lot saying they were waitlisted.

@ohmtmom I can’t speak for this year but last year it was either 8 (4 boys and 4 girls) or 10 (5 boys and 5 girls) on the waitlist. Whether they accept from the waitlist depends on the year.

I’m updating this…in case anyone reads in future years… As far as financial aid is concerned - the UMich office of financial aid continues to tell us everything is based on the FAFSA. Which doesn’t really make sense because our FAFSA clearly says we can afford to pay much less than they think we can. However - I guess thems the breaks if you are out of state and if you also have two working parents with good jobs! (We are very lucky people…I have to keep reminding myself!). But as our daughter is entering her sophomore year we were able to apply for a merit scholarship through the School of Music, Theater and Dance and I am happy to say she got one!!! Does it help? Yes! Is it huge? No! But we are doing fine and are feeling pretty blessed to be able to send her to the program of her dreams - and yes, she absolutely loves it.

What about the CSS Profile? That has to be submitted the first year, but not in subsequent years.

@brantly we did submit a CSS when we first applied last year (it was also submitted to a bunch of other schools). For this year (her sophomore year) they told us we didn’t need to do it and that they would only look at the FAFSA. What I find interesting about the FAFSA and the MT process is that hardly any schools seem to care what it actually says. Last year, the only school that told us we would pay exactly what our FAFSA said we could pay was CMU (which for MT gives you the offer upfront if you are accepted or waitlisted). Other schools (just for example, to name two: BoCo and NYU were not even close to the FAFSA (maybe because they are private universities??) but we were able to negotiate for substantially more money. At UMich that was not the case (maybe because it is public? and you have the option of going to your own public state university? Which makes nooooo sense because c’mon Michigan is the #1 public school and our public state university doesn’t even have an MT program.)
Basically I found our financial aid experience to be all over the map. I think MT is unlike the usual college experience and just as you can’t use the usual predictors for whether one will be accepted to a college (SATs, GPA etc. - for example -it’s one thing to be accepted to Ithaca college (not that competitive) and then it’s a whole other thing to be accepted to Ithaca for MT (extremely competitive) I find you can’t use the usual predictors for financial aid.
Last year I found the college’s financial calculators to be equally useless. The money we were offered ranged considerably. When she got offered the spot at Michigan we jumped and didn’t look back.
Hope our experience can at least give a little more info to anyone else pursuing this field.