<p>(Sorry if this is a dumb question)</p>
<p>U of A offered me $12k/year in merit aid for a total of $48k and I was wondering if that’s a good amount or if I should apply for more or something…I know it depends on my financial situation (my family is pretty well off, if that matters, and we don’t even qualify for financial aid) but speaking extremely generally, is $12k/year a generous amount?</p>
<p>It really depends on your grades and scores, they have automatic merit aid. Are you instate or out?</p>
<p>I’m out of state</p>
<p>It is only good if it allows you to afford a college. But that being said, in my experience with schools merit aid with no financial need tends to range from about $5k a year to about $25k per year. The higher end is dwindling though, as many schools are reducing these amounts. </p>
<p>Older D received merit offers of $19.5k, $22.5k, $15k, $15k,
and $11k in 2008. Younger d who applied ED had one EA school offer merit of $14k when she applied in 2012. </p>
<p>If u don’t qualify for FA and didn’t expect any money at all, then 12k/year is a welcome boon. It’s all a matter of expectations…</p>
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I think you should apply a few more schools, so that you could compare the merit scholarships.</p>
<p>in reading your other threads…is this University of Arizona? If so…could you please clarify thwt this is the case, there are many U of A schools. </p>
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<p>That is only $12k per year.</p>
<p>Compare that to what Alabama would give you: $100k…$25k per year.</p>
<p>Are you premed?</p>
<p>I’m not premed, I got into pre-Neuroscience & Cognitive Science
And yes thumper, it is University of Arizona
And I am in the process of applying to other schools and will compare the merit aid from them as well</p>
<p>One school offered $43.5k per year to my D and yet it is more expensive than the in state flagship that she ended up enrolled. Nevertheless, $12k per year is a generous aid that not many students can get that. The question is whether it is sufficient for you.</p>
<p>Compare based on the net price after applying the scholarship, not the amount of the scholarship.</p>
<p>Arizona is about $44k per year out of state. Net price after a $12k per year scholarship is $32k.</p>
<p>If i makes the school affordable or is extra $s to you, it’s good to excellent. If it’s still a stretch for your family to pay the balance or the school is unaffordable even with that break, it’s terrible, and in the unaffordable case, useless. </p>
<p>IMO, yes $12K merit is good. Most of my kids got less than $5K merit per year, and in one kid’s case, the one who got the most awards, the $3500 was the best deal since it was off an already low sticker price. </p>
<p>Since these awards are relevant to an individual, you can look for more awards and see what else you get. If $12K is the best award, then yes, for you it’s great. But again if ia unaffordable for you, regardless of the award, it’s worthless.</p>
<p>Are you asking if you should request a reconsideration? You would need to be able to demonstrate some additional accolades ( honors/awards, etc) if you don’t have any schools offering better merit awards to report to them.</p>
<p>The figure they offer you doesn’t really matter. What matters is your cost of attendance (COA) after you take that merit aid into account. You might make a spreadsheet that shows cost of attendance for each school without aid (don’t forget to include travel costs if it isn’t close to home). Then put in a column for merit aid, and subtract that from the overall cost to see what your true COA is.</p>
<p>It is relative. My ds had schools offer $30,000, but the schools COA were around $60,000 and the scholarships were fixed $$ amts. Other schools offered scholarships in terms of full-tuition. That means if the the cost of tuition increases, so does the scholarship amt.</p>
<p>For us, the amt of the scholarship didn’t matter as much as the final cost amt. So a $30,000 scholarship leaving a $32,000 gap meant the school was eliminated. </p>
<p>Could you get more scholarship $$ elsewhere or even at that school? Maybe. Are there departmental scholarship opportunities? How about honors scholarships? etc. </p>
<p>There are schools that are very generous with merit aid for top students that they are trying to recruit. </p>