Hello, I’m a senior in college and mainly looking at the top liberal arts schools in the country. Unfortunately, a majority of these schools offer no institutional merit aid and based on my family’s income, we are expected to pay about $25-30k a year.
I was planning on apply to lots of outside scholarships until I learned that most schools reduce your grant package if you win these. If this is the case, is there really any point in applying to outside scholarships? Why do people try to win $10k scholarships if it’s only going to take care of a $4k loan and then reduce their aid package from the school? Are there any scholarships that can be applied to the EFC instead of student work/loans?
Sorry for all of the questions, my guidance counselor has not been the most helpful in this process. Thank you for any input in advance.
It’s not the scholarship that has the restriction, it is the way schools calculate need. If the school determines you have $30k in need, and you receive outside aid, you’ve reduced your need. If a school allows you to reduce the loan amount first, that is a great thing. Why? If you don’t take the $4000 loan, you really are getting $4000 extra in aid from either the school,or the scholarship. It’s not going to matter to Yale if the scholarship is from the Elks or Coke or the local DAR chapter.
Where can you stack aid? Most often at schools that grant merit aid and not need based aid.
Whether or not there are scholarships that can be applied to your EFC generally depends only on your school, not the scholarships. My school stacks scholarships all the way up to the COA before they’ll start reducing their own aid – most schools aren’t like that. Ask yours.
Stacking merit scholarships…either inside or outside.
If the school allows, you can stack all the merit you get.
BUT…be aware…there are very few outside awards that are for all four years. most outside awards are for freshman year only, are for small amounts, are hard to win, and often have a need component.