@brutusmom I too am very surprised. I got 30k per year from Tulane and thought the U would also give me something.
A note on the merit scholarships – @brutusmom is correct that the AdCom determines the scholarships. Here’s what I heard last year at an Accepted Students Reception in our region (SoCal) from the VP of Admissions. Last year (Fall 2017 cycle) UM completely revamped their admissions protocol by throwing out the GPA generated by high schools & recalculating them based on some internal method (BTW this is the norm at a lot of places). Points are given to students for rigor, not only in their coursework, but in how rigorous their HS is. They definitely know that 3.5 at X HS may be equivalent to a 4.0 at Y HS, so they don’t penalize a student for being “average” at the best school around when s/he would have stood out in a regular school. Emphasis is on personal challenge – so a student who challenges him/herself & takes all honors/APs & gets a 3.7 uw may end up just as high or higher in their eyes as the student who takes an easier route at gets a 4.0, especially if that student played a sport or was ASB president or lead in drama. Then, on top of that, they definitely throw scholarships at certain populations of students that they want – certain ethnic groups; certain geographic areas; certain skills/interests/majors, etc.
From a business standpoint, UM wants to cultivate a relationship with elite HS all over the country (whose students are likely to be the best prepared & also able to pay), so that may be why certain schools have “pipelines” to the U. If you didn’t get the scholarship you wanted, it’s always worth a call to the FA Office to negotiate - if you can show them that Tulane or other comparable schools are giving you big $$, use that as leverage. All they can say is no. That being said, we definitely encouraged our kid to go where he was really wanted (based on the merit aid) & for him, it was the U. But it did sting that other schools didn’t love him as much based on paltry aid and/or waitlists (at schools we felt he was way above average). However, after 1 semester at whatever school they pick, they forget about that & love where they are. Good luck to you all!
@brutusmom Same here. My wife spoke to the office and said all letters should be in the site by now. Bummer. Congrats to those who got in and can afford it. My S17’s cousin just graduated last spring and absolutely loved it, got money, etc.
I pulled the last few years of Common Data set info for Miami including 2017-2017. Some trends:
- Admits dropping slowly but yield up so they are clearly doing a better job of selecting the right candidates who will actually attend. But it’s difficult to see by what method they are doing this. Not obvious/transparent
when kids with similar scores get zero or $30k. - The percentile with SAT > 700 by section is rising fast. So that is the group most likely in the running for significant merit. More competition.
- there seemed to be a sea change two years ago with changes accelerating on a number of metrics all suggesting a more competitive class.
So basing apps (as we did) on 2015-2016 overpredicted merit. The need aid in our NPC was close for us but the merit was way off.
This seems to be the trend we are seeing across many schools - something has changed in the last two cycles that is not always visible, multiple trends/changes are converging, and it’s all going on very fast. schools seem to be in a hurry to correct things. You can see it in Miami’s numbers and the Northeastern EA accepts/defers this year which were bizarre (though they added ED2). WPI has been transparent about what they are doing using focused merit to correct a longstanding imbalance there, in just two years goon from maybe 25 to 50% female. UMinn is rising tuition OOS from lowest to 50th percent suddenly (4years). All changing fast and all in parallel and all serious adjustments.
Very difficult to predict anything in this environment.
Admitted! International student for college of arts and science.
Did any international students hear back about scholarships? I have nothing.
How about need based aid? I can’t view any financial aid info.
@Steglitz90 That’s makes a lot of sense. One of the trends in the common databset i saw today was a very clearly declining GPA yet increasing SAT. So that makes a LOT of sense.
Schools that inflate grades get less credit and rigor matters. Student Rigor (class selection) and school rigor (inflate/deflate grades) are two pieces that are not visible in GPA or SAT/ACT.
They do list rigor and GPA and scores as al very important in the CDS and Interest, interviews, and EC lower.
@slaythedogma I am international (Europe) and was notified about aid this morning. Presidential scholarship 23k a year.
@slaythedogma i am an international student accepted for pre-med. no notification about merit scholarships, although i have relieved them from other universities. did you receive a letter in the mail? mine is supposed to come today, hoping that has info about a scholarship!
I was told that if our scholarship is not on CaneLink, we still have a chance to get one in the mail. Lets hope.
When should we receive the letter in the mail?
@Mikemargo11 They mailed them yesterday via snail mail. It should be like 4-5 more days I hope
My son was accepted last night with an SAT score of 1440, and a rigorous curriculum GPA of 3.8 with no merit. I believe that those with good stats that did not receive merit will find a common thread; that they did not request need-based aid or are in the zone where compared to most they have a higher ability to pay. There is an interesting article in the Miami Hurricaine 9/21/16 (“Frenk Focuses on Education, Students During Town Hall) where President Frenk states U Miami has primarily merit-based aid but wants to begin moving towards more need-based awards. Maybe this was the year the shift is beginning…
Merit aid and need-based aid are two entirely separate things. Not applying for need-based aid does not disqualify an applicant from being considered for merit aid.
We are so excited that our son was admitted but received no merit scholarship. Now we have to figure out how to pay for his dream school without selling our home, lol. Does anyone know how generous their need based aid is? Also, my son applied to School of Business but was admitted to Arts and Sciences. He has taken all AP Math (Calc included) and received a 790 on the math portion of the SAT. Any info anyone can provide is greatly appreciated.
I see all of these qualified people who did not receive merit $… I’m sure they just havent released it yet and have to expect it in the mail.
Hi guys! I was accepted yesterday and am also a scholarship weekend invitee! I was wondering if there is a groupme for the class of 2022?? It would be great if someone can put a link here if possible
@Steglitz90 are you sure Hammond is part of that? I was told not but the info could be wrong. Who knows.
@Nicetoknow1 I do not believe that is an accurate statement. I applied EA and need, but only revieced $3,000 per year in financial aid. Though, I was given the Presidential Scholarship ($20,000 per year— $80,000 total) based on my merits alone.
My stats are as follows:
Decision: Accepted
Major: Nursing
Private, College Prepratory School GPA and APs: (highest GPA here is a 4.3– mine is 4.143) only allowed a max of 7 AP classes over 4 years of high school.
APs: AP Biology, AP Statistics, AP Latin IV, AP US History, AP Psychology, AP English Language, AP World History, Honors Latin IV, Honors Algebra II
ACT: 28
Essays: Very Good
Recs: Very Good
Extracurriculars:
- Class President- (11,12)
- Class Treasurer- (9,10)
- National Art Honors Society Club (10-12)
- Vice President of Bridge Club (12)
- Key Club Secretary (12)
- Operation Smile (9-12)
- Big Sister Little Sister (9-12)
- Latin Club Historian (9-12)
- Varsity Swimming (8-12)
- Varsity Track (8-12)
- Varsity Field Hockey- (8-9)
- Virginia Girls State- (11)
- Hospital Volunteer for 3 years
Awards:
- Highest Honors- (9,10)
- Honors- (11,12)
- The College of William and Mary Leadership Award (11)
Apparently there is no merit scholarship for the spring term, only for those who got fall term.
Just curious about Merit Aid received by admitted students yesterday that indicated on their applications that they were not applying for need-based aid…
My son was accepted to Rosenstiel for Marine Affairs. He has 31 ACT, 96 weighted, 10+AP/IB/Dual Enrollment, Eagle Scout, NHS, 2 varsity sports from upstate NY. We did not apply for aid and don’t see any merit aid letter in the mail box. After looking at everyone’s stats I think he was lucky to get accepted.