<p>I know, I know, the answer is it probably depends on the school. :D</p>
<p>CC has helped me navigate the rapids of college admissions and financial aid for the past 6 years and I'm very gratefull for all I have learned.</p>
<p>Chickadee #3 is off to college this fall (yes 3 in college! yes EFC divided by 3! :D ) This particular chick was gapped a bit more in the FA process than the first 2 simply because her application was not as strong with in GPA/ACT numbers. </p>
<p>which is ok, we're going to make it work. Chick 1 will be graduating and Chick 2 is making the grades (with cushion) to keep all the merit money flowing. </p>
<p>Of course I always get nervous the current chick to fly the nest will bobble a bit the freshman year and perhaps lose merit money. I have talked with chick 3's school and they say only rarely do students lose their $$, that it is usually the more marginal accepted students, yada, yada, yada. Chick 3 is a homebody that does not party but I am not stupid, I know things happen off at college we don't expect................ Chick 3's school gives a semester to get the GPA back up before the merit money is lost. We met with the FA officer in person and she said, considering our EFC, that the grant would probably be increased if the merit $$ was lost. Nothing in writing of course, nor would I expect it. </p>
<p>I have 2 more chicks in the pipeline so lots of years of crossing my fingers in front of me :) , but tell me, has there ever been an increase in financial aid need-grant if merit money is lost and there is still need per the FAFSA and Profile? I'm an accountant so I'll be crunching the numbers to figure next year's EFC. EFC will only be divided by 2 next year, but I am pretty sure there will still be "need". I'm just wondering how much they might fill the loss of merit $$ with grants, percentage-wise. Have schools ever just said "too bad", no more money for you? </p>
<p>Always planning, planning, planning and thank you in advance, </p>
<p>momoffive</p>
<p>Definitely depends on the school. If it is a school that does not offer much in the way of institutional need based aid then scholarshis will not be replaced by need based grants. My daughter’s school only offers federal grants, so the loss of a scholarship would mean loans. (for her the finish is in sight and she has kept her scholarship, thank goodness - phew!).</p>
<p>*Chickadee #3 is off to college this fall (yes 3 in college! yes EFC divided by 3! ) This particular chick was gapped a bit more in the FA process than the first 2 simply because her application was not as strong with in GPA/ACT numbers. *</p>
<p>Unless the school is a “meet need” school, I wouldn’t count on a grant to replace a lost merit scholarship and this is why…</p>
<p>Schools (that don’t meet need) love to use grants to entice the best frosh they can. Your child wouldn’t be a frosh and wouldn’t be desirable (because of grade drop), so what’s their incentive to give your child precious institutional funds instead of giving those funds to entice an incoming high stats frosh?</p>
<p>Also…Next year you will have 3 in college, but how many will you have in college during the years that Chick #3 might lose her scholarship? If she loses it at a time when you’ll have 2 (or less) in college, then your EFC will go up, right? </p>
<p>Anyway…unless I could get something in writing from FA office about this, I would not assume that a grant would replace lost merit.</p>
<p>Yes, our EFC per child is going up because after next year we will have 2 in college for the following 3 years, then 1 the next year, 2 the following and then 1 again for the last 3 years. Assuming all goes according to plan and I counted them all up correctly.
My plans have been blown to bits before. ;)</p>
<p>I have all the FAFSA/Profile worksheets printed out and will be making projections. </p>
<p>Chick 4 has the potential for significant merit $$ or admission to schools that give great FA. Chick 5 will be more like chick 3 I believe.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. I will hope for the best and plan for the worst. Yes, we do tell the children their college educations are their inheritance! :D</p>
<p>momoffive</p>
<p>Yes, our EFC per child is going up because after next year we will have 2 in college for the following 3 years,</p>
<p>So, that means that this child’s low EFC is only that low for frosh year…not for soph, jr, sr years. Does that means that the FA person you spoke to was advising based on the EFC of 3 in college…not 2 in college…which would be the scenario your D would encounter if she lost her merit aid in some future year. That further worsens her chances of getting grants if she loses her merit.</p>
<p>Also, not only will Child #3’s EFC and Child #2’s EFC rise once Child #1 graduates, but both EFCs will rise further because Child #1 won’t be counted in your household either. Your household number goes down as each child graduates. Household number affects EFC, too.</p>
<p>Encourage Child #3 to carefully balance each semester’s course selections…never taking too many hard/demanding courses in any one semester. If she’ll be coming in with some AP credits, that can also help a lot to keep that first year (aka “adjustment year” ) more manageable. </p>
<p>Find out if the scholarship has a certain req’t for how many credits she has to take each semester. If it only requires 12 credits per semester, and she comes in with AP Credits, then she can take 12/13/14 credits her first semester and still graduate on time. </p>
<p>Just something to keep in mind.</p>
<p>If the student graduates with a BS, but goes to graduate school, is that student still considered part of the household assuming the said graduate student child still lives with parents?</p>
<p>Re: grad student. It depends. Some schools will allow it; others won’t.</p>
<p>Regardless, the grad student is considered independent on his own FAFSA.</p>
<p>I think some CSS schools will allow it, but I don’t think FAFSA will. If FAFSA won’t, then the EFC still goes up.</p>
<p>I think it’s been explained this way…FAFSA formula is set up with the assumption that parents are responsible for undergrad…not grad school. If a family chooses to help with grad school, that’s their choice.</p>
<p>Yes, when we met with the FA person she took a quick look at the EFC and said with one “that low” our daughter would probably get some additional grant money if our daughter lost her merit money. Personally, I didn’t think it was “that low” because I’m used to thinking in the aggregate EFC among all my kids and I know how EFC is computed. The meeting with the FA officer was purely spur of the moment. We were on a tour of the school and the admissions people urged us to call her up. It turned out to be quite fortuitous because the FA letters had just been printed up and mailed. Our hard copy happened to arrive in the mailbox the next day. When we met with the FA officer it was the first time we had seen the grant/work study awards. I did not think to point out that the EFC would be going up due to the fact we’d only have 2 in school and not 3 (all other things being roughly equal). Based on pure EFC calculations dividing by the 2 we have in school year after next, I would anticipate the grant money might be totally gone by our D’s sophomore year (barely gone, but gone). Then we would pay simply total cost minus scholarship minus her Stafford loans. </p>
<p><em>IF</em> however, she lost her $14,000 merit money, then we would have “need”. I just wonder if anyone has had “real life” experience in schools meeting the need or part of need with grants after losing merit money. This school has a “tiered” scholarship system, with different GPAs needed to protect differing merit scholarships. I asked if my daughter might simply move down the tier and the FA officer said no.</p>
<p>We’re going into this with eyes wide open and recognize there is the chance she might lose her merit money but we feel as though it’s worth a shot. We live in a state with an extremely expensive flagship university and we have managed to give the children private university educations for the cost of a second-tier state school so far. (total cost minus merit minus some grants) My worries with child 2 would be that he would Have Too Much Fun and lose his merit awards but he didn’t. Child 3 (the one we’re discussing) is fairly serious but things come harder for her and our high school is not a very competitive school. We have only one AP class (calculus) and she wasn’t in the honors math track. I always worry about my kids adjusting to the more demanding classes at college since they aren’t pushed much in high school.</p>
<p>We will definitely be taking a look at how she structures her classes. She’s undecided on a major (but probably not math or science). </p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback! We’re happy with our choice and she likes the school (we always let our kids make up their mind where as long as the $$$$ aren’t too out of line with other choices). I’ll make projections for next year based on the best and worst possible outcomes.</p>
<p>Yes, when we met with the FA person she took a quick look at the EFC and said with one “that low” our daughter would probably get some additional grant money if our daughter lost her merit money.</p>
<p>you may have misunderstood my concern. The FA person was looking at CURRENT EFC (with 3 students)…she wasn’t looking at what the EFC would be next year when you’ll only have 2 in school. At THAT point, your EFC for child #3 will be higher. </p>
<p>So, if with 3 in college next fall, your EFC is $10k each ($30k total). Then, the FOLLOWING year, with only 2 in school (and one less in household), your EFC could be $16k for each of the 2 kids. The FA officer wasn’t considering that, right?</p>
<p>IF the school guarantees to meet 100% of need, yes. Otherwise, unlikely. And most schools that give 100% of need do not give merit money. Also, even if the need is met, it is likely to be in self help money such as work study or loans.</p>
<p>A family I knew well had a D at Case Western who lost her scholarship. They had a miserable time for the next years trying to make it work. She got loans and work study that did not quite make up for the lost grants and she was working partitime already to meet her family’s expected contribution so the work study did not help at all. </p>
<p>One of the problems in assessing financial aid packages from schools that do not guarantee to meet need is that when family circumstances and needs change, there is no telling what the school will do. The priority will be on the incoming freshmen in terms of the grant money most of the time. So as the EFC changes, for most schools, it is very possible that the aid will not cover accordingly.</p>
<p>Yes, mom2collegekids, the FA was not taking into account the EFC would go up in D’s sophomore year. And I forgot to point it out. </p>
<p>As I said, we are going into this as educated consumers and if the merit aid doesn’t work out for year 2 then we will re-group and see where our daughter and we want to go from there. I will assume there will be no grants if she loses merit aid. As I said, I’m pretty sure her small Freshman year grant was going to go away anyway in year 2 when her EFC went up since we would only have 2 in college, not 3. We’ll be ok and will figure out options. </p>
<p>My accountant brain loves to plan, but I’ve long since given up trying to have complete control over the college process. :)</p>
<p>We’ll talk it all over with my daughter and make sure she understands how the whole financial package works.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Well, advise her about the need to balance her courseload each semester. since she’s not a partyer, then the only thing that I can see hurting her GPA is if she overwhelms herself by taking too many hard/demanding classes in a semester.</p>