<p>Has anyone gotten good merit aid after being admitted off a waitlist? My D has been waitlisted at several schools. Her two top choices for admit off of waitlist are American University and George Washington University. She has sent both of them an additional teacher recommendation and a nice letter. AU's admissions office sent a short, nice email back and a few days later she got a request from the AU financial aid office for additional information about her Dad's income. So we were hopeful, but today the AU aid guy emailed back that her Dad's new info. doesn't change her FAFSA and directed her to loans.
Now we don't know what to think. Obviously they don't feel we qualify for need-based aid (no surprise to us), but does that mean no merit aid if she is admitted off the wait list?
The whole craziness this year of waitlists is driving all of us a bit nuts. She does have some good admits, and one spring 09 admit, another hair-pulling twist in today's torturous college application process. We thought it would be easy once we got to April 1st, but now we are looking at another stressful month.
Any guidance would be appreciated.</p>
<p>I can't give you a lot of hope in the general merit aid pool. It is unlikely that they are considering any waitlist candidate as one of their strongest students (for whatever reason that may be). I'd be concentrating on my other choices It was this very reason my D exited the Duke waitlist the same day she was offered it. .</p>
<p>Agreed. Merit aid goes to the top of the applicant pool which would not include WL students.</p>
<p>None of us can say anything for sure, of course. But I think it would be wise to abandon that expectation and plan accordingly.</p>
<p>From Rice's FAQ which I think is probably a pretty typical answer:</p>
<p>Are financial aid opportunities different for those students admitted from the waiting list?
Need-based financial aid is guaranteed for all students who qualify. If all appropriate forms have been filed, aid packages are usually prepared within three days of acceptance off the waiting list. Merit-based scholarships, however, are not available to students accepted from the waiting list.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the timely responses. We have had so many reality checks throughout this process. This is our first child to apply to college so it has definitely been a case of learning on the job. I will certainly be much better informed and plan accordingly when my next child applies to college.
I feel badly that we encouraged our D to apply wherever she wanted, but we naively thought there would be more scholarship money out there for her. We would have saved her a lot of disappointment had we been better informed.</p>