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MAY 23, 2001 B-SCHOOL Q&A: FINANCIAL AID Meet Maryland's Assistant Dean A conversation with Mark Wellman, assistant dean of MBA/MS programs, and financial aid coordinator, at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business
Q: Mark, out-of-state tuition at the Smith School of Business for the upcoming year, 2001-02, will be approximately $17,000, and $13,000 for Maryland residents. What do you estimate in additional expenses? A: We estimate books at approximately $2,000, housing at approximately $8,000, and food at approximately $2,500. [We estimate] personal items, along with [such things as] health insurance and transportation, at approximately $4,300. So the total expenses beyond tuition would be about $14,300, regardless of residency. Q: The Smith school has an attractive fellowship package for first-year students. Tell us more about that. A: Yes, the top-of-the-line package is the fellowship package. It's for one year and does not include any work or services to the business school. The stipend is approximately $10,000 and all of the tuition expenses are paid. Essentially, [students are] being paid to go to school. A student on a fellowship is really only paying approximately $1,500 in fees. Then, during the second year of the program, those students go into assistantship positions. Last year, we awarded approximately 21 fellowships, and 13 students accepted the fellowship offers. We admit approximately 400 students, so out of that 400, about 20 students are going to get a fellowship, which is pretty selective. In general, [recipients have] a [strong] GMAT score, along with an undergraduate GPA of about 3.8 or above. They typically are in the top 5% of their undergraduate class. Q: Are there other merit awards available to students who may not be at the very top of the applicant pool statistically speaking? A: We have a $5,000 scholarship, and with that $5,000, you do get some tuition remission, which makes the award really worth about $8,000. We awarded nine scholarship packages last year, and five [students] accepted. We also have some additional scholarships and tuition waivers for Maryland residents. [Scholarship awards are] based on scholastic merit, evidence of leadership, GMAT scores, and work experience. Q: How does a prospective student go about getting a Smith fellowship or scholarship? A: Once a student is admitted to the business school, the file is brought to a committee, which makes decisions based upon the admit pool. We attempt to communicate the financial-aid offer in terms of the fellowships and the assistantships and scholarships within about two weeks of their admission offer. Everyone's considered, including international applicants. Q: What do the graduate-assistantship (GA) positions entail? A: [We award] a second package, which is the graduate assistantship position with a $3,000 scholarship. With this package [students receive] a stipend of $6,000. [These students also get] tuition remission and their out-of-state fee is waived. Between the stipend, the tuition remission, and the in-state tuition differential, we estimate that that package is worth about $14,400. We have about 130 students on assistantship packages, and about 51 of those are first-year students. In addition to the assistantships in the business school, there are about 20 to 30 MBAs that have GAs through other units on campus. Q: How do Smith MBAs balance their workload with the demands of a graduate assistantship? A: The way that it's managed is that an MBA student is supposed to work approximately 170 hours throughout the entire semester. We explain to the faculty and to the departments that they work in that there are certain weeks where they may work more hours -- for instance, if they don't have exams or group papers. But then, when they have more demand in their classes, they may only work five or ten hours that week. There's a lot of flexibility in terms of how [students] put in their hours, and that's what makes a GA position a little bit more manageable here. Q: At public institutions, a popular cost-saving practice is to gain in-state residency. Is that possible to do in Maryland? A: If [a student] takes all the steps to truly be a Maryland resident -- paying taxes, changing their voter registration and license registration, etc. -- the second year, students can be classified as in-state for tuition purposes. If they wait, for instance, until October, then that window of opportunity is shut, because you have to be within the state for 12 months before you gain residency. When students arrive here in mid-August, they should take all the necessary steps to become Maryland residents, and the following year they can achieve in-state status. Q: About 75% of Smith students receive federal aid to help defray the costs of an MBA. How should applicants get this process rolling? A: Students should fill out their FAFSA as soon as possible. That is the only federal financial aid application that we require. Q: Are there any preferred lenders that you recommend students contact for a private loan? A: We do have a list of about 10 preferred lenders that we work with on a consistent basis, although some students like to use their local bank or credit union. The Smith school's preferred lenders give special incentives to our students. We are in the process of finalizing a program for international students to receive loans without [an American] co-signer. It's still in the final stages, but we hope to have it up and running by this fall. Q: Through 2000-01, the median loan for a Smith graduate was $10,000, one of the lowest on BusinessWeek's Top 30. How has Smith managed to keep that figure down? A: A lot of students try to accept as much subsidized money as possible and decline the unsubsidized loans, or only take them if they absolutely have to. Our overall tuition cost is relatively low compared to other business schools. Even the out-of-state rate is quite low compared to other state schools. So the competitive nature of the tuition and fee structure happens to be [one way of keeping] that figure down. The other part of it is that the volume of people with assistantships and scholarships is pretty high. [Those packages] allow our students to better manage the expenses of the program. Forty percent of incoming students receive some type of aid offer from the business school, not including what they can get through the financial-aid office. Q: How is the housing situation in the D.C. metropolitan area? A: There are some graduate-student apartments nearby and there are numerous apartment complexes within metro subway service or bus service that offer either two-bedroom apartments or apartments for families. Also, our community-services office and our housing office have a regular list of places off-campus that students can look to find housing, whatever their circumstances may be. Q: Do you have a ballpark figure for going rental prices in the area? A: The average is about $800 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, but [prices vary] depending upon the time of the year that you're looking and how far away from the [campus] a student goes. Q: Is Smith's growing its financial coffers so that it can grant more aid to more students? A: We are growing the scholarship [stipend amount] number by about $30,000 to $40,000 per year, not including the additional tuition remission. Along with that, we have really been growing the number of assistantship-related positions. Again, 51 was the number [of assistantship awards] this year. The year prior to that, it was approximately 45. For this coming year, it's probably going to be about 57 awards. The fellowship number will remain relatively stable, so the growth will be in assistantships and additional scholarships. Q: What are some common mistakes you've seen students fall into as they pursue financial aid? A: [Prospective students] should make sure they check out all their financing options. Another common pitfall that I find is housing. Students should try to find something as soon as they know they're coming here. Some students don't realize that if they have families, there are child-care expenses as well. They need to look at what type of child-care setup they'd like to have and research that too. Q: Do you have any parting advice for applicants? A: Think about the financial-aid process as early as possible, in terms of applying for government-based financial aid. File taxes as soon as possible after Jan. 1 (if you're a U.S. resident). And it is to the student's advantage to have the application in by February, because it becomes more competitive as the process continues.  | | [an error occurred while processing this directive] Learn about your online education options |
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