Hello,
My son was recently accepted to the Peabody Jazz program and he is super excited, it was his #1 choice. He was awarded a very solid merit scholarship but unfortunately it is just outside of our reach in terms of affordability. I was wondering if anyone has ever appealed to Peabody and if so were you successful? Was the process pretty straight forward? We probably need an additional 7-10K a year to bring this school into our affordability window.
Yes, people have appealed and gotten their awards increased, sometimes by a lot. I don’t know the process, but if you contact his intended teacher and the financial aid office, they should be able to point you in the right direction.
For merit appeals, you typically would check with admissions. Some schools have a form and some you just write a letter. If he’s gotten larger merit from another school, you’ll probably need to send in proof. Also, schools sometimes don’t consider other merit offers to be equivalent unless they consider the school a “peer.” Best of luck!
This!
You can not compare Peabody to a state school for instance. But Peabody could be compared to Eastman, NEC, SFCM etc
My son just appealed to Peabody for an increase in Merit money. He is a graduate trumpet player. He was awarded 42K a year, but has 3 full scholarship offers from different programs and two of those have paid TA positions as well. Although the other programs are University based and not conservatories, they are good schools and all have outstanding trumpet faculty.
There is an online appeal form and it was pretty straight forward. I believed he accessed it through his original application portal.
Not sure how long it takes for a response. My son has a few peers who attend Peabody and have been through this process. They said to expect to go back and forth a few times as they may originally only offer a small increase if any at all, but often will come back to the negotiating table again.
So we completed the application for additional aid, I am still confused about the process because it seemed to be the only way you could appeal was due to financial circumstances and I am really not confident that our financial situation is going to warrant an increase in aid. There did not seem to be a way to appeal the merit based aid at all, my son did contact the professor and he said he would push from his end but I dont know what that really means at all. My son knows 3 of the drummers that were accepted at Peabody and at least 1 is not going to attend and possibly 2 so that might make them want him to attend a little more. I dont know, this whole process is confusing and difficult with very little time to really complete the process, it felt like a month was a long time to decide but now it feels like not enough.
It is different at every school but my D (with parent help) wrote a letter with a few bullets explaining how our FAFSA didn’t reflect how it would be difficult for us to pay and what amount would make it easier. The professor said he would push for us and my D let him know she submitted a letter, and I’m guessing he followed up with someone.
We did get additional $$, not sure whether the school categorizes it as merit or need-based but either way it worked.
It’s a really frustrating and opaque process but sometimes it works out. Good luck!!!
Just want to add that you can appeal multiple times (and I know people who got more money through multiple appeals).
Could you provide any insight on where that area is inside their application portal? We cannot find.
Try this link for the appeals form
My son was accepted for Percussion Performance. We’re also reaching out to try to get merit scholarship increased. I emailed financial aid office to ask about the process. Should be different than normal financial aid increase requests. Merit isn’t based on family financials - just on their audition and how much they want you.
I logged into my sons portal and had to “start a new application” and then the request for aid reconsideration came up. I will note that there did not seem to be a general merit reconsideration, maybe I did it wrong but it seemed that they only way they would reconsider is based on financial situation.
My son is applying for his masters degree so our income didn’t figure in. I’m not sure if that made his form different and perhaps more simple. His aid was in the form of an “artistic excellence award” (50k/yr). The other aid was in the form of loans (20k/yr). He has appealed one last time but hasn’t heard back. We’ve heard that Peabody sits on these appeals for a bit. He appealed on4/1 and he’s still waiting. The other schools responded within 48 hrs.
Same. I reached out to financial aid and was clear we wanted to appeal merit scholarship. I already had the appeal written.
They responded with that same process of New Application and select Appeal. I just wrote the response, no backup documentation.
We did let faculty he’s been communicating with know we appealed so they could help fight for more for him.
Yea same, my son texted his professor and the professor texted back that he would push and that he really hopes that my son can come to Peabody so we are really crossing our fingers in hopes that it works out for us.
Have you still not heard?
My son last appealed on 4/1 and heard 4/8. He received 36k with his initial offer, appealed and received 50K, appealed one more time(4/1) and received 55K - and with that he committed to Peabody. He/we felt that was a very good offer. In the end, he is left with having to pay about 12K/year for tuition. He is a grad student so room/board not factored in.
That is a very generous merit award at Peabody for a masters student…in my opinion. And $55,000…great!
Very helpful. Monday will be one week after our first appeal. Fingers crossed we hear back then
We are freaking out at this point, we appealed on 04/02, they emailed us and let us know we submitted the required form blank on 04/10 we emailed the form back right away on 04/10 and its been radio silence since then. I don’t know if I will be able to forgive myself if I ruined my sons chance to get appeal money because I screwed up and sent back the blank form and we got put at the back of the line and now there is no more appeal money left.