<p>oncampus, I will definitely try this. Like you said, it can't hurt.</p>
<p>How receptive do you think they'll be about considerable aid to public universities in my area? Do you think they actually care if I end up coming, or will they put their money before my matriculation as a general rule? It's not like I can't/won't pay anything...it's just...their initial offer is just not realistic.</p>
<p>i already called and started the appeal process</p>
<p>howver, they told me they weren't going to just throw me more money but that i had to prove i needed more with real numbers and figures :-/</p>
<p>Does anyone know what a "MESMER SCHOLARSHIP" is. For my financial aid, under scholarships & grants its says "MESMER SCHOLARSHIP...$8200". I didn't fill out WashU's scholarship application because I didn't think I would get any money, so I was kind of surprised to recieve a scholarship.</p>
<p>Total Financial Assistance Award: $12,600 </p>
<p>$3500 is in loans. </p>
<p>Well I guess that is better then my $3500.00 ONLY for Umich in loans.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what I am going to do yet.</p>
<p>In addition to merit scholarships (which have to be applied for), WashU offers a number of merit/need based scholarships and grants (which do not have to be applied for). This sounds like one of the latter. WashU awards these after offering admissions and usually notifies recipients shortly after sending acceptance letters. Their financial aid office can provide a complete list of such awards, along with their terms and conditions.</p>
<p>I'm a mesmer scholar this year. Its just a need based scholarship they give out.</p>
<p>i got nothing but loans</p>
<p>sweet.</p>
<p>I'm extremely happy with the financial aid at washu. it's far better than any other school has offered, even significantly less selective schools. i really believe they want to work with you and your family to make it work. don't give up!!</p>
<p>My son's financial aid offer was completely disappointing, to the point of being laughable if it wasn't so sad. We really thought that they would honor the EFC figure, but they didn't even come close. I'm not sure if it would be easier to just be rejected or to be accepted only to realize that you can't afford it. All I can say is it's a darn good thing that he didn't apply EA and have no choice in the matter. I know, I know, we should contact the school and try to work something out, and it might come to that, but it bugs me that it would even be necessary. It's easier to just consider the offers from other schools more seriously.</p>
<p>I got the Mesmer thing too... does anyone know if the value of it changes from year to year?</p>
<p>exactly my feelings woa</p>
<p>If for my award it just says the 2k WU sponsored Nat'l Merit award does that mean that I just didn't get any other aid?</p>
<p>salpert-</p>
<p>That is all my award said, too. I think that is all we get. Unless you end up with the $2,500 for national merit scholar.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was expecting that. My EFC is over 100k lol so wasn't expecting any need based aid.</p>
<p>i am confused. my FAFSA EFC, a specfic college's online estimator, and collegeboard esimator were all around $27k but all the offers I have received for top level schools (incl. WashU) is around $41k EFC</p>
<p>???????</p>
<p>woa---Wash U would absolutely honor the EFC figure. Either you calculated it wrong or they did. You need to talk to them and figure out which one of you messed up.</p>
<p>Okay, soproudofkids, maybe it's worth a shot, but I see I'm not the only one in the same boat. I don't think we did the EFC calculations wrong because the other schools are coming in at or below or EFC and they all got the exact same information. Another thing that seems odd is that they didn't mention (as the other schools did) that if my son lists them as his top pick for NMF he'd get $2,000 off. I'd love to believe that they just made a few mistakes. We shall see. In the meantime, we've canceled our spring trip to Wash U. No use throwing good money after bad, as they say. He's already seen the campus, gone to class, etc., so he knows he likes it. We were just going again for a victory lap, but the wind is out of our sails now.</p>
<p>Don't remember having said you were the only one in that boat woa. </p>
<p>If you were planning a victory lap then you guys must have been pretty serious about Wash U. If that's the case, my original point stands, you need to talk to the Wash U FA office and figure out where the problem lies. </p>
<p>I do reject what I am surmising to be the premise of your argument, which is that Wash U is calculating things differently than other schools to come up with a total that is more favorable to them and less favorable to you than it should be. My D is applying to 15 schools. We have our Wash U FA package and FA packages for several other schools, and what we are being expected to pay is within a couple thousand dollars for all. As one example, what we would have to pay for Wash U and what we would have to pay for Gettysburg are within $600 of each other. And we would actually be expected to pay $2000 more to send our D to U Rochester than to send her to Wash U.</p>
<p>soproud, I know you didn't say we were the only ones in the boat, it's just my observation that if they made a mistake with us, they appear to have made the same mistake with others...which makes me wonder if it was indeed a mistake. As you say though, the only way to find out is to ask.</p>
<p>It is encouraging that your experience has been that your aid awards are similar. That lends itself to the mistake theory, in our case.</p>
<p>It'll be okay, however it turns out. We'll ask them to re-evaluate our numbers and at the same time we'll seriously look at the other colleges. All the colleges that my son applied to are good schools, so I know he'll get a great education wherever he goes. He can always look into Wash U for grad school too.</p>
<p>Bleh. Apparently I get 0 dollars, even though I'm NMF (I didn't list WashU as my first choice school though). Do I need to do that to get money? Also, if I call their office, can I use in state tuition for Berkeley/LA as leverage?</p>