OOS Business and in SBLF and FIRE received Presidential for 40k! We are thrilled as we were no expecting anything at all!
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Congrats. That happened to my son in 22 - no honors or LLC but 32K presidential. He was really hoping for honors - NMF, 4.0 unweighted, rigor, lots of activities, etc. OOS, engineer. He got honors at Purdue and was enrolled there until surprising IVY day results (Duke, Cornell). This year it looks like my other son who got Carillon but no honors didnāt get any merit money. Also NMF, a tiny bit lower gpa - like 3.9 unweighted, rigor, even more activities and in my opinion better essays. Clearly also OOS, geography major. Wanted honors even more than 1st son. Has merit and honors at UMass, awaiting Pitt honors but has merit there too. Congrats everyone.
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No email here either. Son was really hopeful because itās one of his top choices (journalism) and he hadnāt gotten honors or scholars. NMF, sports, leadership, 4.7gpa, seal of biliteracy, all 5s on APs etc. OOS. bummer. Oh well. Whatcha gonna do.
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Totally surprised - my engineering major son received $40k ($10k/year). Weāre in NY. Good stats (1510 SAT, 98 UW GPA) and rigorous schedule but no honors college. Weāll be going to admitted students day now.
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S24 got 50K over 4 years scholarship. I am happily Surprised with this news :). we are OOS and from CA.
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Just curious which UMD OOS scholarship awards 70K? It seems like the max for the presidential is 50K (12.5K per year).
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Iām not familiar with the different levels but it says Presidentās scholarship in the email. Was definitely a lot more than we were expecting (zero).
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So excited!! Totally unexpected Presidential Scholarship of $50k over 4 yrs!!!
Full stats in previous post but:
OOS, Aerospace Engineering
Scholars invite
WTD 4.4, UW 3.8, ACT 35
graduating HS with Assoc in Engineering degree
He is still waiting to hear from Purdue (was deferred in EA) and then heāll have all his answers and can start making decisions (accepted UNC Charlotte, U of Alabama Huntsville, deferred U of Michigan and withdrew, rejected Ga Tech)
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OOS son, business major, received Presidential of $50k, no Honors College.
Didnāt ask about the extra $1k for NMF as UMD is not his current top choice.
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I know the awards appear to be random. I was told how another school calculates scholarships and the same method may be applied in certain cases at UMD (this is just a theory).
This other schoolās scholarship decisions consider academics, expected school options, and ability to pay. So for example, if School A knows that you likely got into higher ranked School B and knows that you can afford to pay for either School A or B, then they would offer more scholarship money than another student who i) likely didnāt get into School B or ii) likely could not afford School B anyway. Or if you have a high propensity to choose School A regardless (legacy, location, etc.), then you might get less scholarship than a similar student that doesnāt share those propensities.
Itās a similar concept to how some schools consider yield when making admissions decisions.
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OOS Daughter received Presidential scholarship of $60,000 for 4 years tonight. So excited as we didnāt expect this.
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How do they guess that you have gotten into other schools? Curious?
Do you think they notice if you didnāt apply for FA and therefore may be less likely to give you any merit $$
I can see how the school might be able to deduce the other schools the students might qualify for. But Iām not sure how they would know the students financial situation, especially with the delay in the FAFSA. I think the merit scholarships are purely merit.
My daughter actually appealed the honors college decision, and the school sent her a clear explanation of the minimum requirements they looked at for those admitted into to the honors program. Iām assuming there is some formula for the merit scholarship, but if its similar to the honors program, itās probably merit based.
By the way, congratulations everyone! Lots of bright students at UMD.
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Congrats to all. Wow- this sure has been an unusual year for merit at UMD. Lots of extra money to give out this year, apparently! And they need to change their website too- it still says this!
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I contacted the school about some other things on their website, and they seem to be making updates.
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50K OOS/no honors/CS(cybersecurity)
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Iāve seen a screenshot of a 3rd party service used by a very competitive private school. On the left shows your high school, the number of AP classes available, the average number of AP classes taken, the average GPA, class size, number of clubs, a list of all clubs, percentage of students receiving public assistance, etc. On the right side is the studentās application. That is partly how admissions ānormalizeā for students that come from vastly different high schools.
The same way they evaluate a student for admissions. They look at GPA, course rigor, SAT, activities etc. (and maybe use a service as described above) to determine how competitive you are as an applicant to any school. Itās like a more advanced version of how CollegeVine or Naviance predict each studentās likelihood to gain admission to each school
This is the easier part. They simply buy the data. The schools have the parentās address(es). Using just the zip+4, they can see the average income, average net worth, average education, etc with a 90-95% accuracy. There are only 15-20 houses in a zip+4 and 90-95% of those households have similar profiles. If they want to pay a few pennies more, they can buy the income, net worth, education etc of the actual parents.
By the way, School A in my previous post wasnāt actually making the calculations. They were using a 3rd party service that was doing the data analysis and determining how much scholarship they should offer to each student based on those non-academic factors.
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Again, I donāt know if UMD uses this type of service but I just Googled it and the approach seems to be pretty common.
āHundreds of higher education institutions are procuring algorithms that strategically allocate scholarships to convince more students to enroll. In doing so, these enrollment management algorithms help colleges vary the cost of attendance to studentsā willingness to pay, a crucial aspect of competition in the higher education market. This paper elaborates on the specific two-stage process by which these algorithms first predict how likely prospective students are to enroll, and second help decide how to disburse scholarships to convince more of those prospective students to attend the college. These algorithms are valuable to colleges for institutional planning and financial stability, as well as to help reach their preferred financial, demographic, and scholastic outcomes for the incoming student body.ā
āHowever, there is cause for concern about using algorithms to determine scholarship offers for college applicants, an increasingly common practice. These algorithms help assign scholarships to maximize either net tuition or yieldāthe percent of accepted applicants who end up attending that specific college. Through a two-part processāfirst prediction, and then optimizationāa college may compare from a handful to thousands of different scholarship disbursement strategies to reach their preferred financial, demographic, and scholastic outcomes for the incoming student body. While these algorithms tend to be effective in increasing net tuition and yield, the most profitable scholarship strategy may not be that which is best for student success.ā
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If they are using an algorithm, then it didnt seem to work for us, because my daughter got into a higher ranked school than UMD, that costs about the same, but we still got nothing. I guess UMD just wants us to go to the higher ranked school.
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Idk if they are done sending out scholarships so you may still get something.
Based on your screen name, is it possible that the data suggests you are likely to choose UMD over the higher ranked school because it is closer to you (DcMdVa)?
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