IU Jacobs Voice just sent us financial aid/merit. Ok offer, not as amazing as the private institutions/conservatories. It’s my daughter’s first choice, but definitely not the most affordable. Something to mull over this weekend!
Ask for more! They may or may not give more. If they do, expect it be a minimum amount.
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Ours posted today (Voice Performance) in the JSOM portal.
We’ll have to. She has nearly a full ride at our in-state, excellent program, plus amazing offers at MSM, BoCo, and Oberlin, so hopefully IU will find that enticing.
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Same here for DD. Fun fact, the University of Michigan athletics department has an annual budget of ~ $266M. Thanks, DD will study where music is primary!
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That’s frustrating. But the SMTD also has their own healthy endowments they distribute depending on an array of factors that are sometimes dictated by those very endowments. Large public universities often have tons of programs that are supplemented by athletic funds- programs that aren’t possible at smaller institutions with less profitable athletics programs. That doesn’t always translate to a deprioritization of music, the arts, or any other area of study. In my experience, it strengthens the budget of many departments that might otherwise be much slimmer.
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That’s entirely possible. That said, it seems odd to be offered sizable merit awards at elite level conservatories and absolutely nothing at an otherwise well-funded public university. In the end, it’s not truly material to our family’s decision-making. Mostly it’s a little surprising given the degree to which the studio more-or-less actively recruited DD. Just a puzzle. We’re all good.
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Private schools have much more control of their funds than public universities, so they are able to provide merit awards more easily. I’m noticing that a few years back the average award seemed to hit around $20-25k and now it’s ticking up to closer to $30k which makes sense given the 4-5% per year tuition increases that have happened in the intervening years. Side note, I’m not sure if Oberlin is still doing this but they were giving every student who committed an additional $10k per year on top of any other merit or aid.
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Has anyone heard anything official from UT Austin Butler? We got a call from the prof a while ago telling us to expect a certain merit offer, but nothing has shown up in the portal.
We were wondering the same thing. We looked at the financial aid page and all it shows is Federal loans and a $2000 out of state grant. We assumed she didn’t get any merit.
I’m finding that’s some of the game - “you were recommended for a scholarship” but then nothing. That happened at one school for us already, and we are a bit concerned about a second in which my son was told something similar.
I also wonder if they look at FAFSA when considering scholarship offers. Our FAFSA is a joke. No way we could pay what they think we could pay - it’s above what our yearly take home pay is. It’s a product of a retirement account that is not a 401K (not an option for liquidation for college), but I had to follow the instructions of the FAFSA as outlined. Plus our income has changed quite a bit since two years ago.
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Totally relate. The FAFSA number doesn’t help. Some schools have claimed to be “need-aware”, which may impact the amount you get offered. But in our case for UT, the call was to tell us exactly what we were being offered. We were told an amount but that it wouldn’t be official until we got an email from UT financial aid.
Yeah, I’m calling one of the schools today to understand how they possibly arrived at our “family contribution” number when they commit to meeting 100% of need-based… We should be way lower. I have no idea ho they came up with this
Does anyone know when studio assignments will come out for IU? Thanks.
Let us know what you learn. I’m still shocked that a school like USC thinks I can afford 99k a year that’s the majority of my salary. They must be expecting me to grab from my retirement funds but that’s just not possible/wise.
Which program? They all seem to do it a little differently. I can speak to voice—or at least how it worked for my girls and their friends.
Piano, but I would love to hear how it worked for voice
re: UMich—another data point: my DS was waitlisted (MM) but his friend was accepted with $0 aid of any sort. So they’re not holding onto it for grad students, apparently! (at least not MM students; he asked about assistantships when he was there for his audition and was told there are none for masters students)
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In voice at Jacobs, if you wait to be assigned, that doesn’t happen until a few weeks before classes start in the fall. I know kids rank their choices for studio profs in their app, and they likely try to work within that; however, studios can fill up for a voice type or age level so assignments might have to be made outside of that list. A lot of kids though–especially performance majors–are more proactive about it–contacting studio profs directly for sample lessons as soon as they are admitted to find a good match. Both of my daughters did this in March/April of the years of their acceptances and secured spots pretty much immediately in studios they love/loved. A few performance majors who have made connections through summer programs and contests may already have profs saving them spots. I know several other voice majors–some performance and some choral music ed–who just waited to be assigned and were perfectly happy where they landed. Jacobs Voice is a large program so there are many choices, and its not like they will run out of spots if a kid waits. And if a match doesn’t work out, there are other options if a kid needs to switch.
At long last, UMich and Jacobs came through last evening.
IU was good, and right around where we expected. We are in state too, and the COA is going to be hard for UMICH to match, but that is the measure with which we will negotiate. SMTD will not be able to match it (COA), but if they do, in fact, want my daughter to attend they will need to do something to compel her to choose SMTD over Jacobs. And I would say they are #1 (UM) and #1A (IU) right now. The coin is in the air. Their initial offer is “Zero”
SMTD repeatedly has drilled the line “Merit based, need informed” into my head via some form or another for months now. I (like a lot of you it seems) come in with a FAFSA score that makes “need informed” my enemy as it pertains to a merit scholarship. High-quality problem. I think I’ve previously described it as the weird intersection of “Won’t Qualify for Aid” and “This Tuition Could Sting”.
Knowing all of this, I am not entirely surprised by the UM offer. On our audition weekend, there was an incredibly bright kid on their student panel from OOS who, like my daughter, had it down to IU and UM when he applied. He was OOS for IU too. He said IU offered him a very competitive merit package, and he was surprised that then UM offered him nothing. But through appeal he ultimately got UM to generously land where he needed it to be. I’ve been prepared for this, and as it’s been discussed, when kids begin to commit around the country, monies will free up. I’ll just keep chopping wood until the number is the number (even if its zero) and then we’ll make the decision.
Its going to be a tough one. I’ll preface that I am a non-musician Indiana alum (‘95). I’m objective, but smart enough to know my objectivity is slightly compromised. Even through successful appeal, I think my best-case scenario for UM is “within my comfort zone” and that would still keep it tens of thousands above IU. My gut has told me that the differences in Music Schools are so nuanced that it comes down to some personal preferences of the applicant. I will concede that UM is generally regarded as the superior institution overall, and my daughter will likely study another subject outside of Music. The campuses are both ridiculously nice, so I think the “infrastructure analysis” will ultimately be a tie.
Who knows? I keep throwing out these long-winded thoughts like they are epilogues, but this never seems to end, so I’ll keep tracking everyone’s progress and insight. Since someone else got the ball rolling, I’ll throw out my stats and populate any final numbers when they are available for whoever said they would catalog it.
-IU Jacobs SOM- Accepted.
-U Mich SMTD- Accepted.
-NYU Steinhardt- Accepted (We aren’t pursuing it. It’s always been #5 of 5 and there is likely no scenario where the money will ever push it to the top. I guess you have to go through it to learn these things.)
-Juilliard- Passed Prescreen/ Auditioned. Not Accepted.
-Northwestern Bienen- Passed Prescreen/ Auditioned. Not Accepted.
Looking back, I feel pretty lucky. We didn’t leave a lot of room for error!
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