How NOT To Haggle For Scholarship Cash

Top business schools are handing out increasing amounts of cash to lure applicants

THE BENEFIT OF AIMING LOWER

Applicants determined to obtain scholarships should create their wish list of schools accordingly, even if it means aiming a little lower, Marks says. “You really want to pick a range of schools where you’re going to stand out,” she says. “Being smart about where you apply in addition to putting together a really strong (application) package, helps overall,” Marks says.

Amrut Acharya’s scholarship results support Marks’ suggestion. Acharya, 28, scored 700 on the GMAT. Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business, with an average student GMAT score of 652, offered him $60,000 in scholarship funding. The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, with a 665 GMAT average, offered him $40,000 plus $25,000 in pay for graduate-assistant work. Acharya chose Cox.

Regardless of whether it’s possible or fruitful to use a scholarship offer to play schools against each other, an admission offer can provide leverage for obtaining outside funding, says Harvard Business School MBA candidate Amira Abou El Seoud. The 31-year-old Egyptian student was admitted to HBS and to Wharton. Although she’d been a senior manager for Procter & Gamble in Egypt, salaries are much lower there than in the U.S. and she’d been making only $4,500 per month. Harvard offered her $40,000 per year in need-based scholarship funds. When she told Wharton she couldn’t afford its tuition on her own, they offered a loan rather than a scholarship or fellowship. However, the admission offer at Harvard made her an appealing candidate for the Citadel Capital Scholarship Foundation, which funds Egyptians wishing to get masters degrees abroad. Citadel gave El Seoud a $20,000 scholarship.

LIFETIME VALUE VS SHORT TERM GAIN

For MBA applicants, the best of all possible outcomes is admission to the best-possible school at a price heavily discounted by scholarship funding. But reality says this outcome is unlikely for any but the most sought-after applicants. And most people involved in the admissions game provide similar advice to that from The MBA Exchange’s Bauer, who says decisions ultimately should be made about the institution, not the money: “Pursue admission to the most selective schools, where the lifetime value of the brand and network usually outweigh the near-term appeal of merit-based aid from a less selective school.”

Bottom line, many schools will spend money to acquire a particular student, but only if they have to.

“They’re also asking themselves that question, ‘What’s the likelihood of this person coming here without the aid – do we need it in order to win somebody whom we would otherwise lose?'” says Bauer.

– with files from Nathan Allen