@momzhood all I meant is that we were told is the only merit aid going out of NU is in the school of music. All other financial aid is need based. I believe we were quoted a little over 10% got merit at the school of music in undergrad. but I don’t remember the exact number. They also said it varied by year depending on the needs of the school of music. We were also quoted as 60% of undergrads get financial aid.
The guy who did our tour at the school of music was really discouraging application for those who didn’t have academics in range for NU. My kid likely will, so we’re considering it if the numbers look ok after we punch them (which they may not). He’s a junior and will finish up testing this spring. I have no other relationship with Bienen. Just reporting what I heard on campus just last week.
For Jacobs (my D went there), I think that they can be “spotty” in their offers. They are a difficult school to “read”. And this is probably a category besides generous (some LACs/privates) and stingy (NYU - to pick on one not listed - sorry to any NYU people and I can be corrected - but it is the word on the street!).
My D got an automatic academic scholarship (with a decent but not stellar ACT score) that made IU seem reasonable to have on her list…and they do give music merit too not need informed. However this was 7 years ago and I know that the ACT requirements have gone up…and things may have changed. There were complaints at that time about the music school giving little (mainly for undergrads) when the university gave the academic scholarship. The following year I know ALL offers (academic and music) came from the music school. Honestly I think the music school may have wanted to “appear” more generous (but in their defense many schools do consider the academic and music together in one offer…IU did 2 at that time…now it’s probably one combined offer). I have heard of full tuition rides for a very few IU freshmen with outstanding talent…to nothing for some (usually when academics were lower from my understanding).
IU did seem “comfortable” offering nothing in some cases. And there are schools in this category…probably Bienen, maybe Michigan (strong academics could offset this…and certainly many get something…but probably some nothings). There are these spotty schools “in my opinion” that know they can fill spots and seem to offer more varied amounts of scholarships (very big to very small).
I know of Lawrence fairly well, living in the area…and it seems everyone gets a decent scholarship who is accepted to their conservatory - some more due to strong academics. I think Frost could be that way too (although I don’t know for sure). My D was accepted there for MT and she got about the same as the music school offered. It seems like “talent” and an “acceptance” will produce a nice award. But then a school like IU which does give non-need based scholarships can be kind of hard to predict. They may give you a high, a medium, a low or no scholarship. So you just don’t know with some schools.
A lot of opinion…but it is an observation…
All academic and merit awards are doled out by the music school. Freshmen are not eligible for IU achievement scholarships administered by IU’s office of scholarships. My S is not a stellar student but decent with a 3.9 weighted GPA and 1380 SAT. I don’t believe he was awarded anything academically.
Beinen is interesting. They DO offer music merit awards, and it sounds like they are more “out” about it now based on people’s recent visits there.
If you think about it, if Beinen didn’t offer music merit awards there’s an entire pool of students without demonstrated financial need that wouldn’t/couldn’t give Beinen a second look. Those would be families like ours - we are both working but private school is not at all in our budget without some assistance.
Because Northwestern is a day trip for us and because of their beautiful new music building our daughter decided to audition - or maybe we made her audition because it’s a Big10 football school - who remembers anymore, haha. She and hubby drove down in the morning, sang, took a lovely picture, and they made it home for call time of her high school’s spring musical.
I remember we were floored when my daughter got a letter, in the US mail. with an offer that matched her current best option. We jumped on the chance to visit on an admitted student day and she also took some lessons there. It was a great choice for her to have but ultimately she made a different decision. (2016 UG audition. She was also in range academically for NU.)
St.Olaf offers up to half COA (roughly 2/3 tuition) strictly merit but stackable with need based aid.
UPuget Sound has full tuition (and talent+ high stats can make one eligible for further scholarships).
Early deadlines for both.
I wouldn’t be so quick to write off aid from NYU. They are recruiting pretty hard, according to a director of a program there who we met at a recent college fair. Also, fwiw, my daughter graduated in 2017 (not in music) and had a very significant scholarship. So worth a look if your kid is interested, and ask them straight out about the aid packages.
Very helpful info about NYU and NU - thank you! My kid LOVES both those options. I really was going to discourage him hard from even looking at NYU.
I agree. I have often read on this site that NYU is notoriously stingy, and that wasn’t the case for our kid last spring. I always advise being realistic and straightforward going into the process about what a student can (and can’t) afford, but be open to possibility because sticker price and reputation (re: generosity/stinginess) mean nothing until the student has his/her individual offer in hand. You just never know what might be affordable!
Agreed! And it is always worthwhile pushing back, especially if you have other offers in hand. I have been told by admissions officers that the school is especially impressed if the kid writes to them and says “this is my first choice but I have these offers and can we get to this number…” Your mileage may vary on whether you are comfortable working this, parents can also do it themselves of course.
To put the numbers out there, my D got a 50 percent tuition scholarship for all four years plus work-study and “travel grants” for study abroad expenses.
My best understanding is that NU offers music merit scholarships, but they top out at a small amount relative to the total COA (I’ve heard $10K, but not from anyone who would be in a position to know that officially.) The university meets financial need with no loans. Our package came in right at our EFC, but I don’t know that that would be the case for everyone because they also require a CSS profile. So in a divorce situation, or other cases I can’t think of right now, the CSS might reveal more than the FAFSA.
The really nice thing - in our case anyway - is that the aid increases with more students in college, unlike a static scholarship. Since we have a second child starting school in the fall, we are expecting our NU student to have a pretty decent jump in aid.
@Kitty394 since IU does its package all as one now, I don’t know if they list the academic scholarships so…there is still reason to hope for a good offer there…I think…
@akapiratequeen I knew if I wrote the NYU comment it would come back to bite me…lol. Thanks for chiming in…as I don’t KNOW NYU. I was repeating rumor. I do know 3 kids that went into Tisch and 1 Steinhardt with no scholarship offers. The Tisch kids were all family friends (2 in my D’s grade and 1 the year behind). They told me that no scholarship was common bc everyone is talented and there is high demand (but maybe excuses…I don’t know). Note none of these kids would qualify for aid.
@MYOS1634 after I posted my comment I did think of St. Olaf too…as a school that I would put in the generous column. Talent plus acceptance (and decent academics) will equal a scholarship.
So that was my contrast, schools that seem to almost always give money and ones that can give nothing. I have heard nothing offered at IU and NYU but have never heard that at Lawrence or St. Olaf…there could be outliers of course…and probably are…but just a general observation over time.
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So glad you jumped in regarding NU @BassTheatreMom ! Getting a clear idea of merit money can be tricky at Meets Need (or close to Meets Need) schools, because SOMETIMES the merit aid is need informed, and sometimes not; and sometimes you don’t know! Our smallest Merit offers came from State School programs with clear caps on music merit awards (both were OOS for my D); and the ultimate COA came out much higher for us than at Lawrence and Oberlin, for example. And I know this was a huge disappointment for department heads, because it gives them little to work with in attracting talent (unless that talent happens to be from In State or close to full pay). Several of the “big” State School music programs (mentioned above…Frost, UMich, UNT, etc) have more money, higher caps, and better ways to deal with this. This information probably applies best to higher need families, though; in our case, those “safeties “ ended up being quite unsafe, financially speaking.
We went through the process last year and based on our specific case I will comment on my D (soprano) offers. Our EFC was far below tuition cost (except our local conservatory). The stand alone conservatories provided talent merit scholarships but not enough to reach our EFC. We had a mixed bag for the music schools in a college/university. Some of them had generous talent merit scholarships and no need grant, others had generous talent merit scholarships and need grants but still with a gap to meet EFC, one school gave no talent merit scholarship but gave monies for need based grants. This particular school kept the hopes up that my D could still receive a generous merit scholarship later on. I assume they were observing the acceptance yield to make decisions later on (watch out @NYCMusicDad ). Only one school had the combination of talent merit scholarship and need based grant that fully met our EFC, Oberlin Conservatory. It is very important for those families with a low EFC to apply for schools that meet 100% need as indicated by the FAFSA EFC. You can look up this list at “US News Colleges that claim to meet 100% need.” As long as your D or S is accepted to one of these schools, they will at least meet your EFC no matter the combination of scholarships and grants. Again, this is our specific case and it may not apply to other type of voices more in demand or instrumentalists.
Yes, @coloraturadad (and, hi!)! Our experience exactly. And my D is also a vocalist (Soprano), and also at Oberlin! I will say that we received some unsolicited bumps in merit awards from two schools AFTER declining (so funny! I’ve always wondered if it’s a “you tell them you’re going to Oberlin=find that kid more money,” ??); and those, “we might be able to give you more…later” offers are an interesting technique, but we didn’t really know what to do with that information; probably nice if you’re full pay, but totally not helpful if you’re not. Oberlin has a reputation for coming in STRONG with offers if you are accepted. AND, they send admissions decisions with your financial award. My pet peeve was admissions yeses with zero idea of financials.
@bridgenail regarding NYU, I think merit scholarships in MT/VP are maybe sort of a different game altogether. (?) There is SO MUCH competition for spots, and frankly, so many families can and will pay the whole bill. Big awards do happen, but it seems like they’d are fewer and farther between.
Hello @BassTheatreMom - yes I’ve seen that $10K merit award re: Beinen mentioned before, which was why I decided to share our personal experience that there are in fact larger merit awards offered. My kid’s was 1/2 tuition for 4 years. It’s all very complicated and there are a million factors - I agree. I believe this is so Beinen can compete for talent with peer institutions who are making similar offers to families without financial need.
@dramasopranomom - that is my “impression”. I have “heard” Steinhardt gives smallish awards…but that does not mean someone couldn’t get a big award…and it’s rumor as my kid never went there. It was the “variation” in awards that I was speaking about since the OP asked “who is generous with scholarships”? I understood that as generous “for most” with scholarships (not aid).
Since I like to make lists, individual situations can vary over general opinion due to the following:
1.) Need - of course. I did not have need as I have one kid with 2 working parents and the “unfortunate” situation of grandparents saving into 529s. So no one was going to give us a dime…fair enough. I had to look for scholarship money since I’m still cheap. I didn’t want to pay full “retail”…and couldn’t in high price cases even if the school thought I could. “Need” is something others have explained well.
2.) Academics. I think that at some (or many) schools, strong academics can play a big role in awards. A focus on music gets you in the door, a focus on academics can give you greater dollars…again in general
3.) Outstanding talent/need. At some schools, this can probably trump all. Others want the strong academics regardless.
So…who knows…I was trying to answer the OP’s questions with some “general observations”…but ALWAYS investigate a school based on your individual situation. Even though my kid did not go the LAC route in the end…I do think schools like Lawrence and Oberlin are really worth a look/see. We applied at LACs and got nice offer at all. And I consistently hear similar situations as above…so that is why I would categorize them as generous (but others like NTU and Frost seem to be similar). Still some universities WILL compete (and seem to have the resource to produce high awards)…so you never know.
There’s an old financial saying: when in doubt, spread it out.
@buoyant Good info - thanks for sharing. That completely makes sense because that ticket price is huge even if the FAFSA thinks you can pay it!
NU music told our group directly last week that they’ve gone as high as full tuition with undergrads who are really needed in the music program. I am sure that is extremely rare. But it sounds like they do have budget to play around with this for musicians they really want in the program. They also told us about 80% of their music grad students are there on merit money. I told my kid to keep that in mind if he wants to do grad school. Practice hard kid. LOL.
And again, I’m no friend or associate of NU. I was just there on tour last week! 
That’s good to know @buoyant The NU audition would be a fairly easy trip for us, so I may let the kid do it. We’re going to start punching numbers once we get our taxes done this year.