<p>Classy, Wisconsin.
As a Wisconsinite, also frustrating. UW Madison doesn’t offer any purely merit-based scholarships to in-state freshmen. It’s not surprising that most of the top students from my school ended up going to Minnesota, where they were offered top-notch scholarships on top of in-state tuition. At Madison there was very much an attitude of “we can get top notch students no matter what, so we don’t care about merit scholarships” that ****ed me off. I knew I would get in, and I knew I wouldn’t go there, despite the fact that both my parents went there, and for most of my classmates it’s a dream school. But I didn’t even bother to apply.</p>
<p>Yes, I recognize that this is an externally-funded scholarship. But it still serves as a nice place for me to vent.</p>
<p>Hard to believe, nano, that ‘MOST of the top-notch students went to MN’, when you all could’ve had dirt-cheap in-state tuition at UW-Madison, which is the world-class U. that UMinn-Twin Cities would like to be. Nice school, certainly a good value, but no comparison, except for the cost which is fueled by the convenient WI-MN reciprocity agreement.</p>
<p>My D attended & graduated from UW-Madison, at OOS tuition rates almost three times what you or your MN cohorts would’ve paid. Happy I did, it was a perfect fit for her, but we really had to bite the bullet cost-wise. Money doesn’t grow on trees. So thanks for letting ME vent… :)</p>
<p>It isn’t quite true that UW-Madison has no merit scholarships. It’s more correct to say that they don’t have the kind of big$, guaranteed for specific criteria, advertised scholarships that some state schools use to keep their best students home and sometimes to lure better OOS kids also. The U is concerned about how many of the top students go elsewhere, but they have no money to fund a program of that sort, though would dearly love to if they weren’t so poor (despite jnm123’s generous $$ donation.)</p>
<p>People tell me that while their kids received no scholarship offers when they were first admitted, after they actually enrolled they were awarded money and that it increased year over year. Various small departmental and other scholarships that add up. But you don’t have that info when making decision of school to attend. It’s just a nice bonus later if you get it.</p>
<p>Their scholarship web pages are infuriatingly opaque, never say how much money scholarship is for and rarely how many are given. I hate those kind of scholarship pages. </p>
<p>If you were one of the top 5 students at your HS, you received the WI Academic Excellence award, $2250/yr, good at any WI college.</p>
<p>If you signed the WI covenant, you get $250/yr at WI colleges even if you have no financial need and could be up to $1500/yr if you have need. </p>
<p>As in-state NMF freshman at UW-Madison, you would have received Kemper Knapp $7K one-time award (outside funded.) They don’t advertise it and most NMFs don’t even seem to be aware of it. They also don’t inform you when admitted, in their coy way. But I talked to people in scholarship office who told me all in-state NMFs get it. Additionally 5 NMFs get the $1-2K/yr official NMF award, but don’t know how they are chosen.There is a small Vilas scholarship for good students-$400, but don’t know how many.</p>
<p>If you are musician, you can compete for a 4yr full-tuition scholarship (also good at UW-Milwaukee.) You have to attend the weeklong music camp at UW summer after junior year. They have 2 rounds of auditions and choose 10 recipients plus 10 alternates as some recipients decline to go elsewhere. Don’t need to major in music, just agree to play in an ensemble.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, a soccer mom friend insists her nephew is on full-ride there in engineering, not poor or URM. I’m not sure I believe, as I haven’t heard of any big scholarships like that, but maybe depts have a couple they can give?</p>
<p>Are you from northern WI? At D’s school many kids do go on to UMN, but not many top kids, though they DO have generous scholarships for NMF ($10K/yr) and other good students and don’t make you enroll to find out what you get. Most of the top kids opted to go to a wide range of other schools around the country, but a handful of them are at UW. Some years more stay at UW I think, can’t quite believe last year was the norm.</p>
<p>Thank you, celeste, for your acknowledgement of my donation to the cause… :)</p>
<p>I will say that my D, who was in the College of Agricultural & Life Sciences (CALS) received small scholarships each of her sophomore, junior & senior years. They probably totalled no more than $3500 together, she had to keep her grades up, but we were happy to get it.</p>
<p>I think rather than dole out scholarships for incoming freshmen, UW-Madison likes to see what a student can do first. And it also depends on the financial well-being of the specific college.</p>
<p>The max WI Covenant is $2500/year, not $1500.</p>
<p>Oops, sorry. You are right about thatMadison85. Have to have EFC below $3500 to get $2500. At $3500 EFC the grant drops to $1000, and at $12,000 EFC it drops to $250. I found the $1500 figure on a college website and I guess it was a typo. Now I tracked down the actual covenant site documents and they say $2500. In a couple years it won’t matter as program is discontinued, being phased out. :(</p>
<p>The number of Wisconsin Academic Excellence Awards at each HS depends on the enrollment of the HS up to 5. My son’s and daughter’s school of a little over 1200 enrollment had 3 to give. Small rural schools will only have 1. Probably a HS needs an enrollment of 2,000 to have 5.</p>
<p>And I certainly wouldn’t call Madison dirt cheap for in-state with a COA of $24k. Maybe dirt cheap means something different in other areas of the country. Less expensive than some other flagships, yes and no, but not dirt cheap.</p>
<p>Including all the misc/books/travel is always misleading. My eldest attended UW-Madison and spent nowhere near $5,000/yr on these things. The most relevant comparisons are tuition/fees, since rm/bd also vary depending on type of room, meal plan, on/off campus.</p>
<p>U of Iowa tuition/fees are 20% cheaper than Madison. Bloomington is about the same price. Our other neighbors (UMN, UIUC, Ann Arbor) are 30-50% higher than Madison. </p>
<p>And I was simplifying about the academic excellence scholarship, should have said ‘top couple of’ instead of ‘top 5’ as a more correct way to avoid long explanation without misleading, sorry. We get 4-5 at our HS, depending on enrollment.</p>
<p>I would have gotten the academic excellence scholarship if I had stayed in Wisconsin. I would have gotten no need-based financial aid, though (with an exceedingly unrealistically high EFC). We specifically went and asked about scholarship opportunities at Madison and were essentially brushed off. By waiting to give scholarships, I am afraid WI is missing out on some top students. The state is already having problems with brain drain. The Academic Excellence scholarship used to cover full tuition to a state school for top students, but tuition has skyrocketed and scholarships have not kept up.
Minnesota offered me the scholarship with NMF, plus the presidential scholarship and funding for undergraduate research starting my freshman year. My cost of attendance would have been ~$3,000 a year. I got a much more positive vibe about the opportunities available to me at U of M than Madison, particularly for my program.</p>
<p>As for “top students,” in my year I know of 4 of the IB Diploma candidates who went to Minnesota and 1 who went to Madison. I’m not saying Madison isn’t a great school, but it seemed much more party-oriented than Minnesota and put less emphasis on undergraduates.</p>