<p>PLUS loans do not require a FAFSA unless you qualify for subsidized interest. But many schools are requiring a FAFSA for merit consideration. Surprisingly, (to us), though our EFC was too high for any financial aid, my second son has gotten some smaller awards that you only get if you file FAFSA. Other son who took some tech courses, again, got some nice awards, after we submitted the FAFSA (had already done it for the first, would not have done it just for those classes). I am talking about $1K amounts, but you know, it all helps. I am not about to put my nose up to that. Between the two of them in the last two years, we have gotten about $6k that I would not have ever thought they would get as we are way over on EFC.</p>
<p>"Mimi,</p>
<p>I wasn't aware that Princeton offered any merit-based aid. Where can I find out more about this?"</p>
<p>Officially, they don't. But the new "no-loan" policy is heavily directed at students with family incomes in the $100-$160k range who formerly, under "need-based" formulas, would receive loans rather than small scholarships (or nothing at all. This allows them to compete a little bit for students they might otherwise lose to the Vanderbilts and Emorys of the world. And these students are very desirable, because for the cost of small scholarships, they get a crop of qualified, almost-full-freight students, with the costs of the scholarships more than made up for through increases in tuition, etc. in the following years.</p>
<p>All schools that use Questbridge also throw out the EFC and award full tuition/costs based on "merit", and many of these are so-called "no merit" schools. Then there are schools like Williams and Swarthmore that are "no merit aid" but offer specific scholarships (like the Tyng at Williams) that offer "enhanced" aid to needy students based on their merit rather than EFC.</p>