Chance me for merit aid?

uskoolfish
Tue, 15 Mar 2016 20:10:07 +0000

When my D applied in 2008, they were known as school that gave good merit aid to top students. D rec’d a $15,000 Deans scholarship back then. Someone else from our high school rec’d a full-tuition scholarship. Both my D and her friend ended up at NYU instead.

When younger D looked into Brandeis beginning in 2010 or so, we had heard that they were discontinuing merit aid (non-need.) There was actually a letter that stated that the school had changed it’s policy and was prioritizing financial aid only. It went on to say that the giving of merit aid had not really been successful in recruiting the top students they wanted. In the end, there was too much merit money left unused.

At an info session in 2011, all that same information was again repeated. So if younger D applied, we expected to be full-pay based on everything they said. As it turned out, D got accepted to her ED school, so never applied.

This was in 2012 and I was very curious about whether they actually discontinued merit aid. And to everyone’s surprise, merit aid was awarded to students that year and continues to be awarded. In 2012 all mention of merit aid was off the Brandeis web site, but now it is back on. I guess they have decided to use it as a recruitment tool after all.