Has anyone had any experience in asking schools and private scholarship providers to defer scholarships by 1 year? My daughter is in the envious position of probably having more money in scholarships (for freshman year only) than the in-state University of Maryland COA. (She spent her time at home during the pandemic writing many, many scholarship essays.)
One scholarship is merit-based from UMD and is for the first 2 years. If they would allow her to defer to years 2 and 3… the overage would be solved.
Alternatively, if she could convince a number of the outside scholarship providers to defer by a year, the problem would be solved. This is a bit trickier as it would require about 5 of them to defer. (She has accrued a large number of small dollar amount scholarships.)
Another option is to see if any of the outside scholarship providers would be willing to pay for the purchase of a computer instead of sending the check to the school.
Any advice or suggestions on how to approach UMD and the scholarship providers would be welcome. It seems so awkward to make a request when they are being so generous by supporting her.
Can you ask if it’s necessary? We weren’t quite in the same situation, but one of my kids’ scholarship providers always paid after the bill came due. So I would pay the bill and then when the scholarship came through, they would have a negative balance in the account until the next semester. My S just used it for book store purchases and the like. If there was a negative balance at graduation, then the school cut us a final check.
Edit - but also check the fine print of all the scholarships. One of my S’ scholarships said their $$$ would only cover tuition after all other scholarships were applied. He got free tuition through the school, so that one didn’t pay a dime. Disappointing, but we should have read up on it better.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. In talking to the school, it seems like you can receive scholarships up to the Cost of Attendance. Once the direct costs are paid, you will receive a refund for the indirect costs listed in their COA (transportation and books). If a student receives more scholarship $ than the COA, they will reduce the amount of the merit based UMD award. We would like to avoid that since the scholarships are heavily weighted to freshman year, with big bills due for the remaining years.
I’d ask the outside scholarships and ask the school. It might be too late if you want to ask the outside ones until the school answers. Also, some of the outside scholarships might be for tuition only so you want to make sure those are applied first, before room and board or fees or books are paid. My daughter had 2 of these and the bursar’s office knew to apply those first (state funding, so daughter wasn’t the only student with that issue).
You might also ask the school if her books, computer or other supplies can be charged onto the account and then paid with these first year funds. Some schools allow that even if the school bookstore is owned by Barnes and Noble or another private company. A lot of schools do that for athletes who have books included on their awards.