<p>Ok, so now that I have finished up a lot of things, I’m looking into these scholarships and everything. I have just finished my FAFSA, but I have a few questions on scholarships:</p>
<li><p>When are the deadlines for the MAJORITY of scholarships? I know they are different for each one, but just from reading about the deadlines, what are they?</p></li>
<li><p>How do these work out? I have a few websites with scholarship applications and everything, but a few more sources wouldn’t hurt. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Lets say tuition for a college is around $20,000 a year, and the FAFSA helped give off around $15,000 of that. If I applied to multiple scholarships and received/a lot of them got accepted, what happens if I get more than $5,000? That would mean it is going over my tuition for a year, so what happens?</p>
<p>I just need some general tips and information about how scholarships actually work out. </p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>You file FAFSA. It produces a number called the EFC (Estimated Family Contribution).</p>
<p>The school has a number called the COA. (Cost Of Attendance). It is an averaged figure for students annual costs for tuition/fees/books/room&board/miscellaneous/travel.</p>
<p>The school takes your EFC away from their COA to come up with your 'need'. Financial aid is based on this need. Need is reduced by any scholarships you receive.</p>
<p>So for instance if your schools COA is 20,000 and your EFC is 5000 then your need is 15000. Your financial aid will be based on the 15,000. Many schools do not meet full need so you may have a gap. ie your need is $15,000 but your aid is only 12,000 - a gap of 3,000. The aid may consist of grants, loans and Work Study. If you get 4,000 in scholarships it will reduce your need to 11,000. EFC plus need based aid plus merit aid cannot exceed COA. The good thing is that scholarships will generally reduce the 'self help' portion of aid (loans and work study) before it reduces grants.</p>
<p>Schools have their own deadlines for scholarships.</p>
<p>Private scholarships like those on the web have very varied deadlines. Most of the deadlines for scholarships for the upcoming school year are probably long gone.</p>