Hello!
Can someone break this down for me? I’m a bit confused. My EFC for college is 0. My parents can’t give me any sort of aid so I’m applying to some extremely generous schools (ivies, stanford, etc.) If accepted, these schools generally provide full aid (100% full need.) What are the benefits of applying for these scholarships if the money does not go to me?
Am I missing something? Can someone please clarify?
When you say “these scholarships,” what scholarships are you asking about?
@BelknapPoint Just scholarships in general. Doesn’t the money go to the school most of the time?
Outside scholarships? These usually reduce your need, and thus your need based aid. Usually the self help,portions are reduced first like work study and loans. Then grants.
But you need to inquire at each school. ymmv.
@thumper1 Ahh. So if the school has no loans but a work-study, then it’ll reduce that?
You are correct to an extent, however even the most generous schools expect a student contribution, a work study component, and depending on the school, student loans. Although your parents may have no contribution you still will, and the outside scholarships can you eliminate those amounts. Also some schools allow you to use outside funds for the one time purchase of a computer.
First off, you must be sure your EFC is 0 for the school(s) in question. (Many have their own calculations). Let’s assume that’s true.
Then the next question is do they meet full need. It seems you are talking about such schools, so let’s move forward with that being true.
Next would be how are they meeting that need? If the package includes loans and outside scholarships replace that first (again, depends on the school), then you’ll be reducing your loans which of course, is a good thing. You’ll owe less later. However, if they are meeting everything with grants, then you’re right, there really is no reason to pursue outside scholarships. That money would be going to the school to replace your grant.
@ClaremontMom It seems that most of these schools don’t have loans. I’ll still apply to be on the safe side. Thanks!
Are you applying to any safety schools?
Some of the outside scholarship will allow you to carry over the money to grad school. Sometimes it is just an honor to be awarded the scholarship. Sometimes you think you are going to Stanford and school will be paid for but in the end you either can’t go or don’t get accepted, so it sure is nice to have that scholarship to apply to the tuition at good ol’ State U.
If you don’t think you’ll benefit from having outside scholarships, don’t apply.
@BelknapPoint Yah, i’ve been accepted into a few!
Well, there’s a reason for applying for outside scholarships. Your safety schools are likely less generous with need-based aid than the highly selective schools you mention in your first post, and your chances of being admitted to one of these highly selective schools is a crap shoot.
Every school handles it slightly differently but when my son got a finance letter with one of his acceptances to a 100$ need met school it did specifically say that outside scholarships had to be reported to them promptly and that they would first go against his summer and work study commitments (total of around $3000 per year) and then would reduce grant aid after that. So it would be good for him to get a scholarship of $3000 but more than that wouldn’t help him.
Here is an example of how Stanford handles outside scholarships:
http://financialaid.stanford.edu/aid/outside/
In the above example, note that outside scholarships go first to reducing the student work earnings expectation ($5,000 per year at Stanford) but then reduce financial aid grants.
You can check each school to see if it describes how scholarships are handled when you also get financial aid.
It does serve as an award which can attract more awards. And there is nothing wrong with helping these schools pay for you. Asj @CourtneyThurston who won many scholarships making for a very impressive resume, plus gets to defer some awards to grad school:
@BrownParent I’ve just spoken with her on FB!
What are the chances 
I answered this in the QuestBridge facebook group earlier today. It’s complicated to fully explain (my post in the group was a solid wall of text), but the other comments here are on point: networking, internships, possible deferral, being able to replace loans and/or work study at some schools, ability to purchase a computer, etc, if not stacking of awards up to your COA (rare but some schools allow it), are all arguments to apply to outside scholarships.
If you want more detail you can feel free to message me and I can copy-paste my (somewhat QuestBridge specific) information post from the group.
@CourtneyThurston I’m the one who asked it on the group, haha. I posted on both websites before you replied.
Are the safety schools you have been accepted to financial safeties? Can you/your parents afford one of them?
@brownparent “It does serve as an award which can attract more awards.”
Do you think so? D earned a couple last year and is applying for some this year. It hasn’t occurred to either of us that she should list them on the new scholarship apps. Seems it might go against spreading the wealth, to a degree?