Do MSU and Ole Miss offer similar scholarship money to kids who..
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Mine has been graduated a couple of years but he got essentially a full ride in engineering at MSU with a 32. The key was stacking scholarships. Throw in the money he made on co-ops and he made money while in school.
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Bill, when you say full ride, are you talking about tuition and books + housing and meals or are you talking just tuition and books? Was he an in state student or an out of state student?
My daughter scored a 30 on her ACT in 2016, and Mississippi College offered her way more than State did. She didn't apply to OM. State was very indifferent about her recruitment.
Biggest difference that my kids saw was the way that housing was handled. Ole Miss has no land and not enough dorms, so if you get an award for housing, they will let you use it for off campus housing after freshman year. State has plenty of land and relatively speaking plenty of dorms, and still building. If you move off campus, you lose the housing part of the reward. Really sucks. Bama handles it the same way as Ole Miss. If I were a kid with great academics, no ties to MSU and wanted to maximize the usefulness of my housing scholarships, I would not go to MSU.
No they do not.
Just went through with a child who is a current freshman.
With a 30 on the ACT, and basically the same 3 scholarships in play at both, UM was offering 2500 more per year than State.
Very disappointed that they wouldn't at least match for children of alumni.
Just went through with a child who is a current freshman.
With a 30 on the ACT, and basically the same 3 scholarships in play at both, UM was offering 2500 more per year than State.
Very disappointed that they wouldn't at least match for children of alumni.
It wasn't that way when mine was there. You could use it off campus. He lived on campus 1st year and that was it. It did not affect his scholarship money. Not all of his was through MSU. STACKING again.
Mine only applied three places for undergrad: MSU, UAH, and Ga Tech. MSU and UAH offered about the same, but UAH did not waive out of state fees so what MSU offered was better. Ga Tech offered nothing. He didn't consider Ole Miss. Why anyone in engineering would is beyond me.
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Be careful about looking at straight scholarship money when comparing public schools to private and in-state to out of state. Look at the balances. MSU offer money may seem lower, but the out-of-pocket may be lower. LSU offered my daughter what looked like big money (rolled in out of state fee waiver) but the bottom line was still better to go to MSU...by alot. Be sure you are looking at the bottom line and not the scholly money to see what you'll end up paying. For instance, if MC's tuition is twice that of MSU's then the MC scholly amount may be bigger but you might be paying more in the long run.
Ole Miss offers more. My friends now have two Ole Miss kids. Likely would have chosen State if the money were equal. My kids were offered more too but, fortunately, none are Ole Miss bound. Money matters. I've got 2 degrees from State and went there because I was offered more there than any other school. I didn't even care about State and became a loyal Bulldog only after attending.
I always see this stuff here, but I never hear of it from people I know. I DO know Ole Miss people.
Exactly. Be sure and check the Mississippi programs (if you are in state) for high academic kids, I forget what they are called. Those made up the difference. Don't just trust your school's guidance people. It was TOTALLY incompetent at my son's school. We did EVERYTHING on our own.
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My daughter got less on the front side at MSU but once she made it to her Soph year the dept scholarships started piling up. Her Senior and Masters years she was getting tuition waved and was getting paid $1800 month with an assistantship. She had a 4.0 all the way thru college including grad school.
My daughter made a 33 on the ACT and is a freshman at State now, living in an honors college dorm.
If she/we hadn't chased down several non-MSU community service-style scholarships, we'd have been out of pocket some for her first semester.
As it is, some scholarships were only for first freshman semester and rolled off at Christmas - we had to pay a number with a comma in it for the current semester.
Mississippi College and The W both offered full rides, but she opted for the MSU experience.
If she/we hadn't chased down several non-MSU community service-style scholarships, we'd have been out of pocket some for her first semester.
As it is, some scholarships were only for first freshman semester and rolled off at Christmas - we had to pay a number with a comma in it for the current semester.
Mississippi College and The W both offered full rides, but she opted for the MSU experience.
You might see this stuff here because it's accurate. You might not hear it from Ole Miss fans you know because they didn't compare offers, it didn't matter or maybe they didn't have kids smart enough to get free rides in college.
I’m following this thread Bc I’ve got a high scoring son who is a Jr in high school. So far it appears that with his scores, USM is a free ride for the freshman year. Not sure if the housing drops off after that, or is contingent on grades, or what. Mississippi’s website appears to automatically offer more money than State’s as well, based only on automatic academic scholarships.
It's wild how much higher ACT scores have gotten. A 33 would pretty much guarantee you full freight at MSU when I was there. I think you'd pretty much have everything but living expenses covered if you just qualified for eminent scholars, which at the time only required a 29. I wonder if higher level students are generally better prepared now, or just better at taking the ACT. I assume they are good enough at standardizing the tests that the ACT hasn't gotten easier.
Yep, these days you have a big percentage of kids and their parents who are spending way more time training for the ACT than spending time on their HS classwork. Can't really blame anyone for that given the ridiculous cost of college and scholarships being almost totally dependent on ACT score. Nobody much cares about HS grades as long as they are decent. Personally, I think NO student should get more than a half scholarship unless they are in a financial need category. Giving away these 'full rides' is just placing all the financial burden onto the parents of kids that are fine students but don't make it all the way to a 30+ on their ACT. Colleges cost what they cost and so for every dime that one kid gets in a scholarship, that's a dime passed to the students whose parents have to pay (minus whatever the State throws in). If more people were paying maybe you wouldn't have this 8-10% yearly inflation rate of college tuition that folks are having to try and keep up with.
Or others. I don't hear it period except here. Now I have seen kids get lots of money from Milsaps or MC, more than what MSU offered, but they still wound up paying nearly as much if not more than they would have at MSU without scholarships. Our experience was not what is being described here, far from it.
Don't stop at websites. You need to talk to people on campus. We got a LOT of money that wasn't on the website.
It sure seems like scores have gone up. When I looked at US News rankings a handful of months ago after the latest rankings were released, I was shocked to see how high the median scores are for various colleges.
We got a lot of wicked smart kids coming thru our school systems...or the tests are more worthless than ever before.
When I started in 2008, I had a 35 ACT and was paid to go to MSU once everything was doled out each semester. The housing scholarship was for on campus only, so I lived in the dorms the whole time since it was free. I had a free meal plan, and got a book/moving stipend that I never spent all of and pocketed. I was an out of state student, but they were waiving out of state very easily back then. Other than my grades/test scores, I was a multigenerational alumni product, so I assume it would have been waived anyways. I did get some money from Bagley's pool of scholarship on top of what the school was giving, so that took it from "everything is basically paid for" to "I get a few hundred dollars a semester to buy beer with."
Looking at the scholarship website now, I think I would end up with pretty much the same thing now +/- a little depending on the Bagley specific money. It seems like the money has shifted up the ladder a bit as MSU has expanded, though. Back in the mid/late 2000's, the school was aggressively trying to expand, so there was money being thrown at anyone with a decent test score.
We did find a good loop hole around housing scholarships though- I had a friend that had one as well, but his parents told him he could live off campus his Jr/Sr year. I had him register as my roommate in the double deluxe rooms in Griffis/Ruby, and he only showed up to do checkin and checkout each semester. We told the RA what was going on, and I had the biggest room possible on campus all by myself. It was awesome. I know a few other folks had similar arrangements by the time I graduated.
Looking at the scholarship website now, I think I would end up with pretty much the same thing now +/- a little depending on the Bagley specific money. It seems like the money has shifted up the ladder a bit as MSU has expanded, though. Back in the mid/late 2000's, the school was aggressively trying to expand, so there was money being thrown at anyone with a decent test score.
We did find a good loop hole around housing scholarships though- I had a friend that had one as well, but his parents told him he could live off campus his Jr/Sr year. I had him register as my roommate in the double deluxe rooms in Griffis/Ruby, and he only showed up to do checkin and checkout each semester. We told the RA what was going on, and I had the biggest room possible on campus all by myself. It was awesome. I know a few other folks had similar arrangements by the time I graduated.
They are definitely more prepared than when I took it in the late 90s. I took it once in 11th grade, made a good score, and figured that was it. No one in my school ever encouraged me to take it a second time. We didn't take practice tests. No one discussed scholarships or how my score impacted how much I was awarded. Our guidance counselor felt like her job was done if she convinced a student to go to college. Very few people from my school took it twice, and I don't know anyone who took it 3 times or more.
After I get in college and understand what scholarships were, I realized I only needed to make 1 point better in any of the subjects and I could have tripled my scholarship...
Now it's common for kids to start taking it in junior high and take it every year.
https://umfoundation.com/main/2021/11/12/ole-miss-launches-1-5-billion-campaign/
I think MSU is having problems in this area, and I don’t know why. But, OM is doing more right now for academic improvement and scholarships. This is my biggest issue with Dr. Keenum and our leadership at the moment. If you don't keep the best students, it is a slippery slope.
I think MSU is having problems in this area, and I don’t know why. But, OM is doing more right now for academic improvement and scholarships. This is my biggest issue with Dr. Keenum and our leadership at the moment. If you don't keep the best students, it is a slippery slope.
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My son graduated from high school in 2018.
He had a very high ACT score. He was offered much more to go to Ole Miss and ended up there. (I have two other kids that went to State with decent ACT scores.)
I'm still bitter about the one that got away. My son even mentioned the amounts of his Ole Miss award with MSU, and MSU, if I remember correctly, replied they didn't see how Ole Miss could offer what they did. MSU did not change their award.
He had a very high ACT score. He was offered much more to go to Ole Miss and ended up there. (I have two other kids that went to State with decent ACT scores.)
I'm still bitter about the one that got away. My son even mentioned the amounts of his Ole Miss award with MSU, and MSU, if I remember correctly, replied they didn't see how Ole Miss could offer what they did. MSU did not change their award.
I don't think they did housing scholarships when I was there except for what was tied to being an RA. You just got your money, and the only thing it automatically went to was tuition. You could sign up for dorms and/or a meal play, but whatever you didn't use you just got back as a check at the beginning of the semester.
She's already graduated and in post graduate school. On average, it cost us about $1500 total per semester for four and a half years at MC. Including books, fees, room, board, tuition.
Maybe so. I married a smart hottie
She's intelligent which is why she said yes to me and let me give her a few kids. Wise woman indeed who understands the importance of good genes.
The average ACT score has been dropping since 2017
And in 2021 it dropped to the lowest composite since at least 1992.
https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-act-score-by-year
And in 2021 it dropped to the lowest composite since at least 1992.
https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-act-score-by-year
My kid has been graduated 5 years now, but a 32 on the ACT for an out of state student essentially got all the tuition paid for plus some of the room and board in year 1 in the chemical engineering program. Came out essentially debt free with plenty of businesses looking for MSU engineers when they graduated.
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