I think the increased merit offers may happen, but it is not frequent. I also think anyone this happened to in the past, it may have been a fluke occurrence for that school in that particular year. I also noted that some of the posters mentioned an increase in financial aid after an appeal, which is a different beast than merit. With my S22 we didn’t commit until May 1. So I sat around wondering if any of the 14 accepted schools would increase his merit closer to the date. Not a one. So yes, I think it can happen, may happen, does happen to some students at some schools in some admission cycles, but never count on it.
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Agreed - didn’t happen to us - but I created the post so that families in the future who are considering these schools - may decide to wait and hope their good fortune is boosted. I decided to after reading about three or four instances in the past week.
I don’t expect it’s a lot - but there are some major names on here and I imagine there’s many more not posted.
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I agree with you. I haven’t read anything that would lead me to count on additional merit from any school. However, the anecdotes shared here about additional merit (not need-aid) might lead us to ask if additional merit is available if my student was considering one of the schools mentioned. Especially if the original merit (tuition discount) was awarded early in the application cycle… as the enrollment deadline approaches schools may release additional merit for students meeting institutional needs (affinity group, high stats, etc).
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My '22 received an unsolicited extra $1,000 per year from UMN in April (he had already committed elsewhere.)
I think that unless a student HAS to commit in order to secure housing or some other concrete reason, it is best to wait until the deadline to commit.
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bumping this useful thread up now that we are in a new admissions cycle. Has anyone this year gotten additional offers of merit aid? If so, please add your results!
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Good idea thanks
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I’ll bump this up again for this cycle.
My D23 received an extra 3k a year from Butler and 2k a year from Creighton sometime in March.
We know someone who received either 5k or 10k a year more from Baylor right before decision day.
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Yes, I put that out to a mom who got into Baylor last night - as one of the schools…it’d be helpful if the list grew and grew.
Loyola Chicago increased merit slightly. My D24 initially got an offer $112K ($28K/year) when she was accepted in the fall of last year and later an additional $8K ($2K per year). I know a few others at her school who also got the added $8K offer in the spring. None of them are attending.
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Bumping this up again as schools may start to add additional scholarship money on top of whatever their original offers had been. Also, adding some words to help people search for this (since I was searching and had a hard time):
Schools that give more scholarships if you wait
Schools that give more money if you don’t commit
Schools that give more money if you wait to commit
Colleges that add scholarships to students who wait to commit
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One was Baylor - @DivineMarshmallow
As Clemson is unlikely to meet your merit goals, it might be smart to hold out at Baylor - and see if they get more generous. See post one.
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I think more than convincing us, a bit more merit would really put it over the top for my daughter, who is thankfully very aware of how much this is costing us. She knows the amount of money we have and knows that under no circumstances is she to take out loans. We’ve also discussed the possibility of a 5th year Master’s and how to afford that.
The tradeoff in all these situations is if you wait, what do you lose?
Housing access - as an example?
Something to research.
For BU, we have time until late April for housing.
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