All this NU merit talk is killing me. I sooo wanted S18 to apply there, but he did not want a cold weather climate and could not push himself through the last few essays of the application. Oh well, by graduate school maybe he will be tired of the heat!
Iâm with you @NYCMusicDad. I will give a boat load of opinion in about 3 weeks. LOL. And then I will base it on the journey three different times. I canât count the processw itâs my first son a son I knew nothing and did not have the resource of college confidential to help, so was deaf, dumb and blind
I agree with you that âfinancial matters are for me to negotiate, not my child.â However, when the student asks, I think it could be perceived by the university as âI really want to go to your school but I have a money problem.â When the parents ask, the school may perceive it as âMy child really wants to go to your university, and I want/need some help paying for it.â These are slightly different. The first one the student is hesitating. On the second one, the parents are hesitating. The college may want to roll the dice and see if the student can squeeze the money out of their parents; or will the parents cave rather than say no to their child. The first one (student-university direct communication) takes all this out of the mix.
Just something to think about.
Agree. Also, just to be clear, I am not advocating one over the other. Just reporting that admissions directors at eight music schools concurred that the student asking directly leads their school to provide a better package. This was at a professional event I attended. Your mileage may vary.
Iâll pop in to say that there are circumstances in which it makes sense for the parents to do the FA appeal (speaking as someone who put 4 through college and finally figured this out with kid #3.) Many schools have formal appeals processes; some are less formal. In our situation, I was able to present information about our taxes and our financial obligations to the other colleges our other children were attending in a way that our students could not since they donât have access to the whole picture. We were not successful in every appeal we made, but for schools my two younger kids chose to attend, we were successful. (For the youngest, this meant that the school she most wanted to attend eventually tripled her merit aid.) In our case, I was the one mostly in contact with the FA departments, but the students were the ones solely in contact with the faculty, who did make appeals on their behalf. Of course, every situation is different.
I wonât comment on FA appeals as I donât know them wellâŠand I can imagine how a parent needs to be involved there as family financials need to be disclosed.
I did encourage my D to do the initial contact for more scholarship money but I certainly instructed her on what to write and reviewed it before she hit âsendâ. She wasnât left to her own devices on such an important issue! I figured if anything got complicated or required detailed negotiations I could step in. But a basic email expressing excitement for the program (in her own words) with a request for more money (in my words) worked fine.
Edit - Having worked in sales, I just believed that my Dâs âappeal to emotionâ to a faculty member that she had worked with would be much stronger and persuasive than from a parent she didnât know. I asked my D to express why she wanted to work with the teacher openly and honestlyâŠjust something personal from having worked with her. Then ⊠ask for the money!
While we wait for the rest of our admissions and scholarships I should add if it hasnât already been listed here that Loyola New Orleans is very generous with scholarships and FA. D was awarded scholarships that equal half of COA.
Since itâs getting around to scholarship timeâŠ
I check the MT thread on occasion. I know I have seen this âfreakonomicsâ post before ⊠itâs been around for a few years so a tad dated. It also concentrates on MT schools but some of these schools are also music schoolsâŠMiami, Michigan, Indiana, Northwestern, NYU etc so itâs useful. Note that it does NOT include FA information.
These numbers are/were averages. My D had offers higher than listed at a few (for MT or VP). SoâŠI do think these number can be off. Still ⊠the averages seem solid. Here are some reasons results may be notably different for some:
1.) Outstanding academics - in some cases that can cause a whole different ball game at a school as there may be additional scholarships.
Looking closely at the academic level of the school to try to UP your reward may be a strategy. Academics, Iâm guessing, increased my Dâs awards at some of these schools. While an increase due to academics at Indiana was possible, an increase in scholarship at Northwestern seemed more uncertain in my Dâs case. So academics can matter. And targeting certain schools can help if you are looking to increase the average.
2.) âSpecialâ talent/need - letâs face it everyone has outstanding talentâŠitâs maybe an accelerated talent or a particular voice type (in the case of VP) that could create a higher award. For example, a needed male voice type may get a bigger offer. It does seem like some schools will find big money for big talent. However that can be hard to predict.
And, be sure to read Note 7 - very important (kind of incorporates items above).
@EmsDad does give his âmethodologyâ so Iâm guessing people could repeat his research for their own needs and be more focused on music schools.
My son applied for jazz saxophone 2 years ago. IMO (and experience), the dollar amount is a balance between (a) how much they want/need the applicant and/or his/her instrument and (b) how confident they are that you will accept their offer. Every single school asked my son where else he was auditioning and what his top choices were. Even if he told each school that they were one of his top choices, I think theyâre smart/experienced enough to know who their main competitors are. For instance, the Oberlin admissions officer told me that they lose out to Eastman consistently.
So, I would take other peoplesâ offers with a grain of salt. There is definitely that key decision made that they want you, but then I suspect thereâs some calculation about how much they want to gamble. For instance, they may offer a bigger scholarship to their #2 choice who they believe is a sure thing over their #1 choice who isnât.
With the above in mind, for my son, Oberlin and Berklee were the most generous. UMich has the potential to be generous but they prefer applicants that theyâre sure of. USC Thornton is stingy with music merit but they will put together a good financial package to meet need (i.e. without loans, etc.) Among my sonâs friends (all jazz, but various instruments), NYU was decidedly stingy, Bienen not generous, and New School was unpredictable.
And the point of more data is not to dissuade people from applying to a certain school (my D auditioned for MT at Syracuse which I remember hearing was not as generous as maybe MiamiâŠbut you never knowâŠso she auditioned there). I think the data can be helpful in seeing the range of tuitionâŠseeing there are merit awardsâŠseeing there are a lot of schools in the mid-range (some LACs for example)âŠand making sure your list allows for a financial safety or two. That way you can sleep in March when you have acceptances but no idea if you can afford them.
I have to ask you experienced parents; how much does your FA drop off when an older child graduates. Going from two kids in school to the one will double the EFC Wouldnât that make merit/talent awards far superior to need based awards?
^ Potentially, @JerseyParents . And one thing to remain aware of, to everyone above: sometimes merit awards are need-aware! Every college deals with Financial Aid differently; some, especially State Schools, seem to have more cut and dried rules (x amount of money for this GPA + Test Score, for instance, or caps on music merit). It is possible, especially if you have low to zero need, for a merit award to be higher (to be competitive with higher need students who are receiving grants) and/ or a high need student could have a higher merit award at a non-meets-need school to get closer to matching awards from schools giving more (need based) money. So, try to boil down offers to COA, and look at the free money (grants and scholarships, merit or need based).
@JerseyParents It works both ways. We paid a little more than our average budget for our son this first year, knowing his EFC would drop for 2018-19 when his sister starts school. His school meets full need with no loans. And indeed, their package for next year roughly matches our EFC which dropped to just over half of last yearâs based on roughly the same income and adding 2nd kid in college. It worked just as we had hoped it would (and needed it to, lol!)
His sister hasnât applied to any schools that meet full need. So far she has combinations of academic, artistic merit, and need-based grants in her packages. Because of this, the portions of her packages that are need-based is small. So when her brother graduates, our cost for her will go up, but it shouldnât double. because the academic and artistic scholarships are static over 4 years.
When you have siblings with overlapping years in college, it works a little better to have a total 4-year budget rather than per year, because it will vary between years. In our case, because of the meets need school, it is going to vary significantly.
My D attended NYU as a VP major with a concentration in MT (Steinhardt). We had no financial need and D recâd an $11K/year scholarship for talent. Steinhardt (no longer Tisch) still awards these merit scholarships in art and music.
They will also give more need-based aid in the form of âSteinhardt Scholarshipsâ as part of financial aid packages if they really want you.
Itâs important to understand your particular financial situation. For us, a school like Northwestern would not have offered anything to us since my D did not have need and all their scholarships are need based.
@uskoolfish up thread we talked about Northwestern offering music merit. I donât know if that is newer for them, but they do have some budget available for UG music students. We were just on tour there a couple weeks ago and the guy who gave us our tour said they have gone as high as full tuition for students they really need in the program. Anyway - wanted to make sure that was out there for anyone following this thread for info. I know as the parent of a junior, Iâm taking notes. My kid would LOVE to apply to Steinhardt.
Iâm sure it would be harder for a school to compete for strong musicians without the option of some music merit.
Would love to hear if there are any updates!
Given the secretive nature of how scholarships are awarded, is there any reason to believe that thereâs a carryover year to year or even person to person within a year?
They are not always secretive because parents and kids talk (of course you have to factor in the extremes of private and boastful people - a big scholarship to one parent, could be a mid-level to another).
I only wade into this âdangerousâ pool bc I think some âopinionâ and âdataâ can be helpful. I was told by some that thereâs TONS of money out there for music talent. But what does that mean? A full ride, a nice scholarship to get you to in-state or a premium on in-state no matter what. In making a list, I wanted SOME information (even opinion) to be sure I wasnât selecting all schools that may not give big enough awards. I was fine having a few questionable ones on my list (as I wasnât going to go fully with opinion). Still I wanted to be sure I had some financially feasible schools if accepted. Even my Dâs teacher had some opinion based on past student experience.
From my Dâs high school and music program for a succession of years, I watched and heard of kids going off to multiple privates like Northwestern and NYU and then multiple state Universities with music schools like Michigan and IU and then the LACs like Lawrence and St. Olaf. You tend to hear the same stories a lot (but not always). So I think you can make some educated âguessesâ in making a listâŠwhile keeping in mindâŠyou could get a surprise (good or bad).
The surprises tend, imo, to be related to academics or need (maybe a high need or no need one year). Still some schools tend to give nice scholarships at admittance to almost all (assuming academics are in line) and others are more spottyâŠmeaning some get scholarships and some donât. Again this is based on experience and hearing âstoriesâ. I found it useful in making a listâŠthere are definitely no guarantees but I trust that most people reading threads like this are sophisticated enough to pick and choose through the data, opinions and stories when making a list. I would also think they use other sources like their high school and private teachers.
I also think it is really important to have as a âsafetyâ a school that gives automatic merit money, so that you know if you achieve a certain ACT/SAT/GPA, you receive a merit scholarship of a specific amount. Then all you have to do is get admitted to the music school! 
What Iâve heard, from the people that make the awards, is that itâs driven as much by their need as your talent. Talent drives it in terms of where do you stack in their list among others on your instrument/major. So year to year, school to school itâs a moving target. On top of that, a ton of people/schools donât segregate need from merit, theyâll call it the Michigan Award or whatever.
That doesnât mean it isnât an interesting read.