Can I negotiate a scholarship?

If you’re reading this, hopefully you’ve already been accepted by a dream school of yours, but even better if they already offered you a partial scholarship. Whether you have been offered tuition assistance or not, there are a few ways in which you can ask for a bit more funding, or any funding at all. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about College, MBA, or Law programs - generally the rules to scholarship negotiation are pretty similar across the board. 

There are going to be a few rules that won’t change regardless of where else you got in, or how much you’ve been given in scholarship money. In your request for scholarship funding, you’ll want to start by being grateful to the admissions committee for accepting you and reiterate your excitement for the program, classes, clubs, etc. offered by the school. Then, you’ll want to explain your situation and why their consideration for additional scholarship, or any scholarship at all, would be helpful to you. 

When asking for more scholarship funding, you’ll want to be careful about how you speak about your needs. For example, telling the school that you’ve been facing financial hardship due to a family medical issue is something that would be understandable…but maybe don’t mention that you’re frugal and just trying to save as much money as you can to stay financially savvy. Chances are there are a lot of other applicants who would like to say do the same, but know better than to say that outright. 

If you have been accepted to a higher-ranked program that has offered you more aid, that is a GREAT bargaining chip to get more money from the lower ranked school that has accepted you. Unfortunately, it typically doesn’t work when you have been offered more money from an equally ranked or a lower ranked program. You can always try, but chances are that they will come back with a “no” to most of those requests as those higher ranked programs always know where they stand when it comes to their pedigree. So if you have received more money from a higher-ranked school, feel free to make a mention of it in your request. Remember to be humble and considerate in your letter and be sure to thank them for their consideration and for the offer of admission. 

If you haven’t started on your applications yet, know that you’re going to give yourself the best chance of a scholarship off the bat if you have a well-crafted application. Our guides can help get you there!