Merit Scholarship

SimpleLife
Sun, 24 Feb 2013 10:18:33 +0000

I don’t know. I wouldn’t be so quick to discount the OP’s friend’s credibility. She/he may well be telling the truth.

I came to this thread (and the BU forum) only because my son has applied to BU for grad school. I know next to nothing about this school and thought I’d peruse the forum to learn more.

I certainly can’t offer any information on BU specifically. But, through my own kids’ experiences when applying to undergrad, I have a lot of personal experience with lots of scholarships. My kids were each offered big money to each of the schools to which they applied. That money came in many different forms from the various schools.

I don’t have any idea at all if BU is like the other schools my kids have applied to over the years. (That’s part of what I came here to find out.) But, as a parent who has been on the receiving end of this same sort of skepticism, I can tell you that it is definitely possible that the OP’s friend is telling the truth. (I don’t think any of my friends questioned my honesty when I told them of my own kids’ awards. First of all, I didn’t tell many people – only my very closest friends. But secondly, I think I’m thought of as very honest.) The skepticism I encountered here on CC was not rampant – it actually occurred on only one school’s forum several years ago. Somebody had posted that no merit scholarships were ever given to School X because all of the kids who are accepted are very meritorious. I posted that, actually, School X does, surprisingly give ‘merit awards with a need-based element’ and that we were very surprised when this son received one. His EFC was in the 18-20K range that year, as I recall. And yet, he was awarded a free-ride grant to this very prestigious school. I called the FA office to ask more about the award. Was it need-based or merit-based (as the fancy, attached personal donor-letter seemed to indicate)? Was it guaranteed for more than the one year? Would it change in value over 4 years?

They said very clearly, several times, that my son’s award was a “merit award with need-based elements.” His entire grant package covered his entire costs for at the least the first and second year, despite his $18-20K EFC. In his third and fourth year, the amount of the grant might decrease, they said, when this child’s older sibling graduated from college and went on to graduate school. Or, it might stay the same! They just kept repeating the ‘merit award with need-based elements’ phrase. I couldn’t get them to be any more specific.

I told this same story on that particular school’s forum, and the poster who originally said that this school never gives out merit aid and never pays more than EFC, took issue with my experience and seemed certain that I wasn’t telling the truth. She argued with me a while, on the thread, and tried to convince me (or probably, more accurately, everybody else) that this was solely a need-based award with no merit elements and that I must not be accurately reporting my son’s EFC.

It turns out, this particular son received similar awards later that same month to two other prestigious schools that supposedly don’t offer merit aid. And he received full-scholarship-to-free-ride merit-only awards to all of the other schools on his list.

So, my own family’s experience addresses the myth that merit awards for some of these prestigious universities do not exist. The schools in question would not straight-out call them merit awards. But they wouldn’t straight-out call them need-based awards either. In our case, these mysterious awards were called GRANTS. Which does imply a need-based element. Some people don’t seem to know the difference between grants and scholarships – after all, they’re all ‘free’ money that doesn’t have to be paid back. Perhaps the OP’s friend is using the word scholarship when she should be saying grant. But the gist of her point would still be valid – her D got $30K+ in ‘free’ money.

We have had other scholarship experiences that might address the 30K+ BU scholarship award that the OP’s friend is claiming, even though there is no 30K+ BU scholarship listed on BU’s website. There are 3 different situations that immediately come to mind when I think the OP’s friend’s award. There may be other explanations as well.

One:
Her 30K+ scholarship could come from several different sources and total 30K+. Many schools stack scholarships. Several of my own kids’ large scholarship offers were actually a compilation of several different merit awards. One kid started his undergrad at a very high-dollar LAC with merit awards that totaled to just $3000 less than a free-ride. (Later on, his award was converted to one, specific, very large award that totaled to that same amount.) There were probably 6 or 8 different awards within his original award package. Only two of those awards were publicly advertised on the school’s website. We had never heard of all the other awards until my son received them. One of the two publicly advertised awards was only on the specific college’s website for this kids’ major, but NOT on the university’s website. So, unless you were applying to that specific college within the university, you would not be aware of that award. The other of those two publicly advertised awards was published on the main university website but was not a particularly enormous award itself.

Two:
The awards in question could have come entirely from the specific college to which the OP’s friend’s daughter applied. I don’t know if BU works this way. Some schools do. The College of Fine Arts of the College of Engineering, for example, may have specific huge awards that are not advertised on either site – the main university or the college in question.

Two:
There may be donor-sponsored scholarships available at BU that are not advertised in any way on the BU website. One of my sons is currently attending his undergrad university on just such a scholarship. We had never heard of it until he received a letter in the mail inviting him to fly all-expenses paid to this donor’s business for an interview. The letter went on to praise him for this extremely selective honor. We were, embarrassingly, a little skeptical at first. We had never even heard of this honor! We couldn’t find anything posted online about it. We just didn’t know what to make of it. At first, because it required a plane trip and yet another day away from high school during a very busy college-visit season, and because we weren’t sure what to think, we just put the letter aside for a few weeks. But more letters and emails arrived urging him not to pass up this elite opportunity. And so, he called, found out more, flew down for the interview, visited the college again as this donor’s honored guest, and eventually chose his undergraduate university because of this donor and this particular scholarship. He hasn’t paid a cent for his undergrad education and receives large stipends every year to attend. He will graduate from a free education with big bucks in the bank, thanks to this scholarship. Like the other son I mentioned, this kid’s scholarship package is actually a compilation of several awards, but the biggest award is the unadvertised scholarship from this particular donor. He did not apply for this award. It is one of the awards for which the university selects candidates and then forwards those candidates to the donor.

In fact, the ‘merit award with need-based elements’ to the other very prestigious school I mentioned was granted by a particular donor family that received that son’s name from that university. That son did not apply for that award either, nor had he known of its existence.

Furthermore, there are scholarships on BU’s website besides the three that are listed above. [Other Scholarships » Undergraduate Admissions | Boston University](http://www.bu.edu/admissions/apply/costs-aid-scholarships/scholarships/merit/) The student who received 30K+ could have received one of the advertised $20K scholarships, plus a Dean’s scholarship for $10K, plus a BU Mom’s Club scholarship (I made that one up) for $3K. If BU stacks. Or whatever. Nearly every one of my kids’ scholarship packages included ‘little’ (and sometimes ‘big’) awards from organizations that we didn’t know about prior to receiving the honor. It happens. Every year. To lots of qualified applicants.

Again, I’ll admit right up front, that I know next to nothing about BU. BU could issue scholarships in a very cut-and-dried fashion each year, with no variations on the theme. The son who has applied is a grad school applicant, so I’m much, much less involved and much less in-the-know than I was when my kids applied to undergrad. But my experience with scholarship packages, in general, from numerous universities across the country, tells me that the OP’s friend’s story is certainly plausible.