Negotiating Scholarship Money (at Vanderbilt) help Forum

[tuco]

So I just got accepted to Vanderbilt! I'm really fucking excited, it was a big reach for me and I did not expect admission. I'm a splitter with a low gpa. The money thing scares me though as I will be turning down already offered scholarships from some good southern schools and expect to turn down scholarships from WUSTL and Minnesota and Indiana and the likes. I'm pretty set on going to Vanderbilt but expect little to (more likely) no money from them. How do I effectively go about asking for merit based scholarships from Vandy based on these other competing offers from lower ranked schools?

[tmon]

Pretty sure Vandy is one school that doesn't negotiate scholarships. In general though, you'd want to leverage money from a comparably-ranked school by saying you'd love to go to school X, but the money offered by Y is very attractive.

[nosaj123]

I don't think Vanderbilt negotiates on scholarship money. Of course, it can't hurt to ask.

When I applied, I let them know that I was really interested in Vanderbilt, but I was financing my own education and I had received much larger scholarships elsewhere, including wustl. Unfortunately, they told me that while they used to be open to negotiating scholarship amounts, they decided to stop doing so a few years ago.

For the record, I narrowed my list down to 4 schools last year and asked them all for more money (since more money from any of them could have swayed my decision). 2 schools gave me (slightly) more, 2 said no. The people I spoke to in all of the admissions offices were very nice and none of the conversations were awkward in any way.

[AntipodeanPhil]

Also, from LSN, it looks as if Vanderbilt doesn't hand out money until March, so it's probably a bit early. Perhaps wait until late January or early February.

[tuco]

Ok thanks for the input. Was hoping for more optimism though i did not expect it. I will be biting the bullet either way as this will undoubtedly be my best acceptance and I really love the school and area. Hope I can figure out some way to minimize the debt though.

[JamMasterJ]

Vandy does not negotiate