OSU Financial Aid - Sucks?

Scubaski1
Mon, 26 Aug 2019 16:08:04 +0000

My son (OSS from IL) is currently a Soph at OSU Fisher (Finance/Econ). He had good HS stats (easy direct admit to Fisher) but he got zero OSU merit aid, even though the OSU scholarship page explicitly stated he could qualify for it based on his stats. We also have a higher EFC.

He got merit scholarships from all the other schools he applied to - Indiana, Michigan State, Colorado, Miami Ohio …

OSU waited until the very last minute to send out their financial aid package. When we called the OSU financial aid office, they stated that, for scholarship selection, he was only compared against the very small # of students that came from his particular IL HS (which in all fairness were the brainiacs of his high school). So I know 2 of his HS friends did get scholarships.

By the time we were notified (at the last minute) there was no merit $, he was hook, line and sinker into the Fisher program, which btw is excellent, so we committed full OSS pay to OSU.

Anyhow, I have been annoyed by this all year… But again, he is thriving at OSU and he could not be happier that he is there. It’s the perfect school for him.

We also did have a financial perk from OSU in that they accepted every single one of his AP scores for credit, and he had a lot of AP “3” scores we didn’t think would count anywhere. So he didn’t need to take Gen Ed or some of the intro business courses… I consider that a form of scholarship as he was able to start as a 2nd semester sophomore in higher level courses (e.g. he is currently in 400 level Econ) and should graduate in 4 years or less with 2 degrees.