In people’s portals, initially is the financial aid tab there or does it pop up before you get accepted/ after being accepted? I do not recall there being a financial aid tab on my portal and recently noticed it last week. I was deferred EA. Please provide any insight.
My college counselor recommended that I appeal because we weren’t able to afford it with the amount of financial aid that they gave us (3k a year). She said to tell them that it’s your first choice and if possible, come up with an amount that you would need in financial aid in order to attend. I reached out to my college admissions person about it and they forwarded it to the scholarship committee. I still haven’t heard back tho. Also, if you know someone who’s on the same level as you (grades, test scores, extracurriculars, etc.) and got more money, make sure to bring them up because they can compare your guys’ files and hopefully raise you to the same amount that they got.
@happycamper206 how much merit did you get?
We are also waiting for our child’s decision from LMU for regular decision. I believe they have up to the end of March to reply. For those anxiously waiting like us it will be a long month.
Same here. Except I applied EA and got deferred. Sent mid year report couple weeks ago. Waiting eagerly for decisions to come out. Fingers crossed everything works out !
Just out of curiosity, can anyone tell me what the deadline that ED accepted applicants have to accept their offer of admission?
Early “decision” is binding so once you have been accepted by the school to which you applied your contractually bound.
@Pdntc4449 The tuition deposit had to be paid by Jan 10 along with accepting the offer of admission.
@Jwiguam There is the ability to reject ED if the financial aid doesn’t make attending affordable. Those awards for ED came mid December.
Has anyone had luck with appeals/contacting financial aid office yet? I ran the numbers through the net price calculator to see if it gave me something better than I ended up with so I could potentially negotiate but my financial aid according to the calculator was exponentially worse.
At this point I’m hoping to see how LMU responds to the type of situation where aid is simply not enough to attend so I can see if it’s worth persuing some type of appeal.
@cheerprima18 Prior to declining, we spoke with D20’s admission officer, who indicated the possibility of additional aid in the context of an appeal would typically be very low as LMU tries very hard to make the best possible aid offer when the package comes out. I believe you said your EFC is about $3k and LMU’s package would have your family pay approximately $48k? My feeling is you could try an appeal, but it is highly unlikely you would get enough to even come close to your EFC. LMU explicitly does not claim to meet need. My advice would be to go ahead and appeal if you want, but I hope you have at least one other affordable option lined up. Did you apply to any public schools in your state? Or any auto-merit options for your stats?
@amsunshine We can definitely pay a lot more than $3k, but from what I’ve heard it seems pretty unlikely LMU would find another $20-25k to offer us (about what we would need to consider attending). I didn’t apply to any public schools but Chapman is offering a whole lot more than LMU is. I’m not sure why they can afford to offer as much money as they did, but unless something drastically changes in the next few weeks I’ll be committing there!
@cheerprima18 So glad you have an affordable option!!
The 3k was the merit, and then they recommended $7500 in loans and workstudy but I was really banking on the merit being higher especially because my friend who has the same grades and extracurriculars got 33k
Did anyone apply for the additional scholarships? The ones you’re suppose to hear back from them mid February? I apply for the hispanic one and have heard nothing back, not even a “sorry you were not chosen blah blah”
I have a question about merit scholarships. The letter LMU sent about the merit scholarship my daughter was awarded says it is renewable each year for for years but also that the student needs to re-apply each year. I looked on LMU’s website and I see the requirement to maintain a certain GPA and be enrolled full time, etc, but nothing about re-applying. Does anyone know what this means, or how it works?
Maybe it’s like CSF where you submit your grades and transcripts every quarter?
@CAtransplant I had a moment when you asked the question until I remembered I had read this somewhere. Here’s what I found on LMU’s webpage under “Academic Scholarships for Freshman” (https://financialaid.lmu.edu/prospectivestudents/scholarships/): Annual renewal of these awards is automatic up to 4 years or 8 semesters, as long as you meet the eligibility requirements outlined in the LMU Merit Scholarship Benefits and Responsibilities.
There is a link to the eligibility requirements.
@bewellsw thanks, right, I saw that too. But then what does this mean:
in the financial award letter it says on page 3 under Your 2020-2021 Financial Aid Award, then under Your Grant and Scholarship Eligibility it says “Grants and Scholarships are considered gift aid and do not require repayment. You must reapply each year to receive most institutional, federal, and state grants.” Ohhh maybe that is just about grants but not scholarships?
@CAtransplant That’s how I would view it, at least hoping that is the case. I was expecting it to essentially be guaranteed unless my D doesn’t maintain a 3.0 GPA (which should be easy) or otherwise do something stupid 
What about the additional scholarships?