I’d like to hear stories of people who had surprising financial aid offers – either much higher or lower than expected. We all try to find schools that are roughly within the ballpark of our family’s budgets, but I imagine there can be surprises. Thanks in advance for sharing.
It was while ago, (2006) but my DD got a McKissick Scholarship to University of South Carolina that was a total surprise. Reduced tuition to the instate rate AND gave an annual stipend as well. Oddly, she did not get accepted to their honors college 
But this was totally a surprise!
We were shocked, when our eldest received a full ride at SUNY Buffalo. She took it. This was years ago. These offers are now rare or nonexistent, but it was a nice surprise!
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It’s tough to answer. My daughter got what we expected at College of Charleston but after enrolling, was given three endowed scholarships to erase tuition.
I think most get merit in range of expectation.
But the other day someone said she got $10k more at SMU than expected. Some schools also come back with more later if you haven’t accepted. Like in April.
Better to focus on finding schools that will assuredly meet budget. Some were called out on your other thread.
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It would be helpful for the OP and people reading if responders could clarify how recently these “surprises” happened.
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Scholarships can change from year to year. It can seem as if there is no rhyme or reason. It can be dictated by how selective a college has become, if the college is looking for more kids from a certain region, is the student showing genuine interest in the college, if the college doesn’t have as much money in the pot as they anticipated, and myriad other reasons. What was applicable to anyone answering here will probably not be applicable to your child. Automatic scholarships might be offered one year and not the next if the college is experiencing financial problems. And so on.
Both of my kids were offered good scholarships at a number of schools. In some cases, kids with higher GPAs were offered nothing at the same schools my kid got great scholarships to. My son was offered nothing at a college well known for offering scholarships just the year before, despite his high test scores and good grades. There are a lot of similar examples.
I work with teens. I know so many parents who assumed a college would be affordable because they know of someone offered scholarships in prior years, and their kid has higher grades, or scores. Then their kid gets in and nothing. Meanwhile, a new batch of kids have maybe just been offered money at some colleges trying to lure kids from the North East, where I live.
You really can’t go by anyone else’s experience, but there are some colleges who will let you know in advance if a student is likely to be offered merit aid. In general, think of private colleges known for offering scholarships, which might be well outside your area. For example, if you live in the PNW, do some research on private colleges and uni’s in the South that might be interested in enrolling more kids from your part of the world.
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We just received a grant at SMU for next year. It’s not a large grant but I am floored that we received anything. I’d consider us a donut hole family and S25 had already received 27.5K in merit scholarships. I really only filled out the FAFSA and CSS in case he didn’t receive any merit, I thought we might qualify for a little bit because we have a D23 also in college. I imagine they took that into consideration but it is still 15K below what their NPC indicated.
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You might find this helpful: Financial Pre-reads, including merit + merit ED
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So far most of S25’s financial aid packages have been in line with the NPC, but we were blown away by how generous Union was. Their offer was nearly double what we expected.
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Our biggest surprise was not how little financial aid some schools offered (we had been told NYU was not generous with aid and indeed they were not), but how generous other schools were. For S24, using the same tax information on CSS and FAFSA, he got all-in offers from $3,000 (WashU) to $60,000 (NYU).
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We are in state NC and had always heard the schools give next to no merit, even to top students. We were pleasantly surprised for her to receive about $5k/year to UNC Asheville and UNCW.
We were unpleasantly surprised at how little Elon offered!
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We were very surprised that D18 received a scholarship for in-state tuition at UT Austin. I believe there are only a handful each year (she got the one for the College of Fine Arts) but we weren’t aware they existed. She didn’t take it (went elsewhere with a full ride, though unlike UT, we knew that was a possibility).
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Thanks for all those who provided your stories. A good reminder that there is a lot of variability, and that you don’t know … til you know!