<p>I am new to the process so I have a few questions. I suspect my son is likely to receive a Presidential scholarshiop and has a slim chance at the Banneker Key, based on the research I’ve done on this website. I also suspect he will be accepted to Cornell, so we may have a difficult decision to make. We are in-state Maryland.</p>
<p>When UMCP makes scholarship offers, I’m sure they realize that not everyone will accept. Some will go to better schools or schools that made better financial offers. So I imagine there is a fair amount of guesswork when they are deciding how much and to whom to make sholarship offers.</p>
<p>If it turns out they have money left over because of this, will they consider increasing their offers, or making offers to those whow ere left out the first round? Can a parent call and try to negotiate a better offer by comparing offers from other schools? </p>
<p>Never hurts to ask and I know it works in some situations. There are some schools that explicitly state on their website they will not negotiate. Don’t know about UMD’s policies. I wonder if it’s harder at a state school to negotiate than a mid-tier private. Will be interested to see what others say.</p>
<p>UMD is a state school and as far as I know they will not negotiate scholarship offers. They offer scholarships knowing a certain percentage will not accept the offer and that money is not redistributed. Mid level private institutions are known to negotiate scholarship especially with known competitors.</p>
<p>I can imagine negotiation being a tender subject in a state university. I’d bet money that there’s even a formula for the amounts of the Presidential and Dean’s scholarships that are awarded. UMD doesn’t have to get everyone they want to the extent that a rank-climbing Tier III private might.</p>
<p>I don’t have any first-hand knowledge if original scholarship offers can be negotiated. I do know that one year my son didn’t receive any of the additional engineering scholarships that he applied for which seemed a little surprising based on his gpa and activities. I called to see what they were looking for when awarding scholarships and learned that someone accidentally changed him from undergraduate to graduate status. I was quite disappointed because by this time all the undergrad scholarships had been allocated. Wouldn’t you know, a few hours later he received a “new” scholarship. It was from some other fund (which he didn’t qualify for) but I was glad I called to find out. </p>
<p>It’s not so much a matter of “negotiations” as it is “explaining one’s circumstances in greater detail.” One college listened but didn’t care, the college to which my son eventually went listened, thought that my reasoning was good, and gave a few thousand dollars extra grant money. Never hurts to ask.</p>
<p>I’ll just lay it out. My son’s first choice was Johns Hopkins. They turned us down cold. The message was, You pay what you pay, stop whining. Although completely proper and well-mannered, the head of financial aid had no interest in budging even a penny. I told him that we had a superior offer from an Ivy League school, and it was quite a large gap between the two. He said, “I hope your son enjoys the Ivy League.”</p>
<p>Notre Dame, on seeing my son not quite as interested as they hoped, so, without our asking, they went back to the well, fished around and got a private source to offer additional scholarship money beyond what the school was formally offering in financial aid. This dramatically improved our view of Notre Dame. My influenced my younger son to apply this year. </p>
<p>But my son ultimately wound up at Harvard. When their offer came in, although it was least expensive of the private schools, it was a little high according to their published formula and their net price calculator. So, I visited with our financial aid officer in person, she asked a number of questions, looking for ways to help me justify a higher award, and we found a few. I met with her at 9 am. We finished before 10 am. I went back to my hotel room, wrote her a nice e-mail formally requesting the additional aid based on what we’d uncovered together, and sent that along by about 11:30 am. I had an offer of additional aid by 3 pm.</p>
<p>My son was also accepted to the University of Maryland, but offered a scholarship with full tuition, room, board, books, and a little bit of additional money for educational purposes, so there were no questions of financial aid, and even less of anything to negotiate.</p>
<p>In sharing the details, I hoped folks would be encouraged to ask for additional aid if they need it, and if they think they can make a reasonable case for modestly more aid. </p>
<p>If you ask, the worst they can do is say, “no.” Our own experiences showed that surprising things can happen. Schools you’d think would open up the checkbook because, frankly, your kid comes in at the high end of their applicant pool turn out to be a little tight-fisted with the money. Schools who don’t really need to have any particular student, including your kid, turn out to be the folks who bend over backwards to help you.</p>
<p>If your son or daughter is accepted somewhere he or she would like to go, but the financial aid package seems a little light, ASK! But have a reason why your son or daughter should get more aid.</p>
<p>I called the scholarships office last year to find out if U MD would consider a larger scholarship and they said, you got what you got, we don’t negotiate and there are never funds left over. Very unfriendly and unpleasant.</p>
<p>That said, I would call if it makes a difference to you, I had very good response with D’s other top choice. Asking her admissions counselor got her another $5K/year - just for the question.</p>
<p>You just never know. More variables in the equation than we can see from our side.</p>
<p>Not sure if this will make a difference but I was a visiting another large state university this week and I asked the Dean of the department I was accepted into for additional money and he gave me an additional $1000/yr. It really cant hurt to ask</p>