Scholarship/Financial Aid?

Madison85
Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:51:01 +0000

It appears unrealistic to believe that you will receive enough aid (grants, loans, scholarships) to close the $30,000+ annual gap to attend UW-Madison as a non-resident.

Scholarship money from UW is unlikely. Wisconsin (and its taxpayers) do not have money readily available to support nonresidents. Why should we give our money to nonresidents?

Do you have an ACT score of 31 or higher? Clearly your SAT score does not meet merit scholarship application eligibility/consideration (must be 2100 or above). ‘Great grades’ are not much of a factor since SAT or ACT scores are much more objective.

There are some L&S scholarships for incoming freshmen but you must excel in two or more areas which include academic merit, creative accomplishment, financial need, force of character, diversity of background, commitment to community, and leadership, and complete a lengthy online application and have an ACT score of 31 or above, or an SAT score of 2100 or above.

There are only about 45 scholarships available (6,000 incoming freshmen and over 1,000 apply for these 45 scholarships) and of these, just 10 are for non-Wisconsin residents. Also, very few of the 45 are multi-year. Scholarship awards range from $500 to $7,000 thus even if you met the qualifications and were one of the 10 nonresidents to receive a scholarship, it would not come close to closing your $30,000 gap and likely be for only one year.

Also, notification is not until April 2013.

You should have an instate financial safety/backup school.

[Scholarships | Student Academic Affairs](http://www.lssaa.wisc.edu/scholarships/application_freshmen.html)

Have you completed the lengthy scholarship application yet?

The only ‘automatic’ award I know of is the William F. Vilas award for about 150 incoming freshmen based on GPA and is a one-time $400 scholarship.