<p>In our experience, much of the scholarship money offered was offered outside of the MT department. In fact, I don’t think anywhere we applied offered a full ride to anyone solely for talent. If money was offered by the MT department, it sometimes put us in an either/or situation if also offered an academic scholarship through other channels at the school. Sometimes you could only accept one or the other and you had to compare how much each offer was worth, was it renewable, etc…<br>
The other thing we had to consider was whether scholarships were stackable. Some places allow you to stack academic, talent or other scholarships. Other schools will not. Make sure you understand what is allowed. Sometimes these offers come in different letters or emails from different departments within the same school. You cannot necessarily just add them up and assume you can keep them all. Read all the fine print and ask lots of questions.
If you do some hard work, there is lots of scholarship money available, especially if you have strong grades and test scores. But be aware there may be separate applications for many of these scholarships and separate deadlines. In fact some are probably coming up soon (I seem to remember November for some reason). Don’t miss out on potential money by being unaware there was a a separate application. Talk to the Financial Aid office at the schools you are considering and find out which,if any, scholarships your child could be considered for and find out what the steps are to make sure they are considered. They are happy to let you know. And they may be aware of scholarships your student may qualify for that the MT department has not thought about. So ask as many questions as possible and leave no stone unturned.
Good luck! It is daunting to search for just the right school and even more so to figure out how to pay for it! But you will figure it all out :)</p>