<p>I was admitted to Yale SCEA and have a few questions regarding scholarships. On Yale's website, the information regarding scholarships is pretty ambiguous. Here's what I read:</p>
<p>"Merit scholarships may replace the Student Effort component of an award, as allowed by the federal family contribution. Self Help and the Student Income Contribution may be reduced or replaced by merit scholarships. Some scholarships, such as the Gates Millennium Scholarship and NCAA Grant, may also cover the cost of the Yale Health Plan. If allowed by the awarding agency, a merit scholarship may also cover the cost of a computer, up to $2500 and with proof of purchase, for incoming students."</p>
<p>"Yale scholarship is reduced if the total amount of merit scholarships exceeds the amount of Student Effort that can be replaced. The parent contribution cannot be replaced by outside resources as Yale meets need 100%: if the total of merit scholarships exceeds the Student Effort component, the need for Yale scholarship is decreased."</p>
<p>I am on track to receiving a full (or almost full) financial aid package. However, if I receive say, $20,000 in scholarships, does this mean the scholarship money will automatically be applied to my tuition? Therefore not allowing me to use the money for my own personal use? I wanted to save some money to study abroad/furnish my dorm/buy some new things for college. I hope this doesn't sound greedy, but what is the point of applying for scholarships if Yale is just going to apply it to my tuition? I would rather save myself the long hours and restless nights of essay writing if Yale is going to cover my financial need anyways. Thanks for reading this huge paragraph!</p>
<p>You should ask Yale directly, unless someone here has direct experience. When giving full financial aid, Yale does give a grant for spending money, so it sounds like they would first allow the grant to replace work study and probably spending money. But any excss would go toward tuition, not your bank account. I can’t imagine that you would be able to save the money for study abroad.</p>
<p>Your total financial aid cannot exceed the cost of Yale’s COA, which is the official cost of attendance. The COA includes tuition, room, board, and typically an ambiguous bit for ‘personal expenses.’ It looks like Yale is pretty generous with the aid, and scholarships can and will reduce your work contribution (term and summer), amount they expect /you/ to pay out of earnings, insurance, and maybe even a computer.</p>
<p>However, if you are lucky enough to get that full scholarship, your ‘need’ is reduced-- bascially, you don’t need as much financial aid as somebody who doesn’t have the $20k in scholarships. Therefore, Yale shouldn’t give you the same amount of money as before. Remember, all of Yale’s money is not merit-based, but need-based, and if you ‘need’ less because you have more help, than you ‘need’ less, and the Yale Scholarship will be reduced to help other students. This approach is pretty common among all schools-- scholarships are meant to be used towards Tuition, Room, and Board and are typically sent directly to the school.</p>
<p>“If I receive say, $20,000 in scholarships, does this mean the scholarship money will automatically be applied to my tuition?”</p>
<p>If a student is on a full Yale Scholarship for tuition, room and board and receives a $20,000 Outside Award, that award money will first be applied to the self help portion of your FA package (summer employment and term time job, which are part of every student’s FA award). The remainder of your award will then reduce your Yale scholarship dollar-for-dollar.</p>
<p>QUESTION: How does Outside Aid such as Scholarships Affect my Aid?</p>
<p>ANSWER: Yale policy allows outside merit scholarships to first reduce your self-help. Additionally, if federal guidelines allow, we will also allow outside scholarships to cover your student income contribution. If the total of your outside awards exceeds your student effort (the total of your self-help and student income contribution), the remainder will replace your Yale Scholarship.</p>
<p>Also note that Yale expects that you will apply for any state financial aid for which you qualify, and that will reduce your Yale FA, not your expected contribution, since it’s not merit based. On the good news side, Yale has a very generous program to fund your international studies through CIPE.</p>
<p>For instance, D1 had the (now defunct) Byrd award of 1.5k/yr. Her WS award was reduced by the 1.5k, so she had less pressure to earn the entire amount; she was able to earn more if she wished as it was permitted by her on campus employer.</p>
<p>I’m gonna call the office of financial aid, but thanks for all of your input. I don’t think I’ll continue applying for scholarships since I’ll get the money either way. My Dad told me that back in the 80s, he used his leftover scholarship money to buy a brand new set of speakers for his apartment. I guess the times have changed!</p>
<p>Any outside scholarship money offsets any grant aid Yale gives you.</p>
<p>Also outside scholarship aid and grant aid will not eliminate your family EFC unless your family EFC is low to 0…</p>
<p>No “cash back”…</p>
<p>Also Scholarships you earn will be applied to YOUR earnings/savings student contribution and YOUR work/campus job requirement first, then your grant aid.</p>
<p>You have posed some excellent questions! I completely agree with the responses that you should contact FA directly, but I would add to that by saying try to get one person in the FA office who is willing to be your point of contact. My D is in a simliar position (full need-based aid from Yale as well as numerous outside merit scholarships) and has found dealing with the FA office extremely exhausting and disheartening. Your best time to negotiate is now – before you commit. If you have offers from other similar universities, you can try to get Yale to meet those offers now. There are a few ways that you can use your outside scholarship money even if it exceeds Yale’s COA for this year. One is to have the scholarship deferred to a future year (if permitted by the outside scholarship), another (as you noted) is to use the additional scholarshp funds to pay for Yale’s full health insurance (basic is provided free of charge), and a third is the one time purchase of a laptop in your freshman year. I recommend that you explore all of these options and any others that you can find. You worked hard to earn those scholarships, and Yale is a little too quick (IMHO) to take any “extra” to offset the scholarship they have granted you.</p>
<p>These four schools give extremely generous need based FA packages, at most other schools you wouldn’t have the ‘problem’ of outside scholarships replacing Instituitional grants, not because they have more lenient policies, but because they wouldn’t have given the level of grants that these schools do.</p>
<p>Called the office of FA and they pretty much affirmed what everybody else has said. I don’t get to keep any of the scholarship money for myself. Thank you Yaliesmom for that tip, I’ll see what I can do about getting the money rolled over for next year! Hopefully my student contribution will be covered and I can use the money from my job for other things :)</p>
<p>Term time employment is ridiculously easy, usually. And the minimum pay is +$11/hour. Put in 10 hrs/week and you’ve got plenty of extra play money.</p>
<p>I liked it because it kept my overall schedule very disciplined. The semester I worked the most hrs/week was my best academic semester – go figure</p>