Fairly new to the site and as a Kellogg alum I found myself looking on this thread and saw a question about scholarships and thought with my 15 yrs on the admissions side I could perhaps give some insight. Each school does have their own strategies on how to use their precious fellowship budget. I wouldn't overthink it too much- it really has more to do with whether or not you are in a key pool that the school is trying to deliver on- more women? more from a certain region of the world? more bankers? More from West coast etc. You get the idea. Not that much you can do to control that part of it. What you can control is to be sure you are seen through the whole process. And so for that, as a general rule, I would say you want to be in the earliest application pool that you can assuming you are ready to submit. Even great candidates in R3 often get little because the $$ are simply already committed. The ED at CBS I can't speak to directly and that would be obviously different because it is binding. These are the kinds of questions that an admissions consultant can help you navigate - even on an hourly basis so while it is not applicable to you on the thread now- congrats on being done, I just thought I'd shed hopefully a little insight on the thread!
dtse86 wrote:
mgg234 wrote:
Small update....I got a decent scholarship through the financial aid departments (~12k or so per year) which made me feel much better about the debt - I didn't even know that was a possibility, so was a welcome surprise. Last day of work is Thursday, everything is coming up so quick!
Awesome deal on the scholarship! Any idea on how the scholarships are awarded? I'm going all in this year with a CBS ED application while working on Kellogg/Sloan/Stern/Johnson R1 apps. I heard from a friend that going ED was a bad idea because there's almost no incentive for them to give me scholarship money.
I already know that I'm a border applicant and that if I do get into CBS I'll take it, but the possible weight of $200k loans is making this whole business school decision very stressful!
For merit, they tell you on the phone when they call to accept you, or mail it to you shortly afterwards. Depends on the school, but in general ~30% of acceptances get some sort of merit-scholarship. Only a handful of school have need-based, but those that do, provide you with it after you fill out the FAFSA. Harvard and Stanford are outliers in that they do need-based only...but they also have huge endowments, so they are able to offer people generous packages.
The schools claim ED has no impact on scholarships, and I do know people from ED who did get scholarships....but, you're right, there is an incentive for them to give out less from ED, and business schools lie about this type of stuff all the time, so I think its a valid concern (especially when there is no way for us to audit them).
Also, Columbia has by far the worst financial aid of the M7, so they are the least likely to give you a scholarship (They are also the most expensive), so keep that in mind when applying. Although unethical, many people pay the $6000 deposit, and renege on ED to attend a different university, so thats certainly an option.
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