Hi- I hadn’t planned of filling out the FAFSA next year. I’ve run some net price calculators and done my research, we won’t qualify for need based aid anywhere. I’m not complaining! I just wasn’t sure if skipping that application actually removes DS from contention for merit based scholarships, or are they managed separately? I know some merit scholarships require separate applications, and some you are automatically considered as part of your application. Thanks! (Full confession- I did a quick search in this thread to see if it has been asked before, didn’t see anything, and gave up after about 3 minutes.)
I ran NPCs for a bunch of schools and knew we’d qualify for $0. We did not fill out the FAFSA. D still got a number of merit scholarships. If there was a need component, she would never have gotten them so we didn’t see the point of going through the process.
If there is any chance your job situation could drastically change, filing a FASFA could allow for an easier appeal process.
Both of my children were offered merit w/o having filled out the FAFSA. One school awarded full tuition + a stipend, but that required in-person interviews.
I believe there are some schools that will require FAFSA in order to be considered for an award.
same with us; both our kids were offered merit at some of their schools and we never filled out FAFSA. (This was at their “safety” schools and their stats were well above average at those schools).
It is up to the school whether it requires the FAFSA to get merit aid. Some state aid programs also require it; it was once required for Bright Futures in Florida but no longer is but I think Georgia does require it for Zell Miller/Hope.
If your school doesn’t require it for merit, make sure the school knows you aren’t going to file. D#2 school waits to receive the FAFSA before applying any merit on the account because they want to do it all at once.
Some schools require it for merit. My youngest son didn’t have to fill it out for freshman year (he had a tuition/fees + cash scholarship) but then right before sophomore year his college asked all the kids getting merit to fill out the FAFSA.
Schools do that in part to help preserve their pot of money for scholarships. If a kid is eligible for a full Pell grant but the school doesn’t require them to fill out the FAFSA to get merit, then the school is giving up $6k/year out of their scholarship fund that they didn’t have to give up.
If you otherwise expect to be full-pay, there are three possible reasons to file the FAFSA (and CSS Profile if required for financial aid).
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The student is applying to a college or university that will not award aid in future years, not matter how serious the family’s financial reversal, if the student doesn’t apply as a freshman. Yes, there are institutions with that policy. How do you find out? Read the financial aid information carefully, and check with the financial aid office if the information is not clear.
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The student is applying to a college or university that requires all merit-aid students to also file a financial aid application. How do you find out? Read the financial aid and scholarship information carefully, and check with the financial aid and scholarship offices if the information is not clear.
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The family thinks it would be good for the student to have some “skin in the game” and/or would like to have a bit of financial flexibility, and decides that a student loan will help out with that.
We didn’t fill out FAFSA.
Our kids applied to schools that would give them merit scholarships.
Unless the Merit is a parital need based scholorship you don;t need to fill out the FAFSA. and you do not need to send it to any college before acceptance. When we did the FAFSA I did not send it to all the schools my D19 was applying to and looking back we seemed to do better with Merit offers from the schools we didn’t send it to. Could be coincedence but was interested if anyone else had a similar observation.
@Novacat9191 - The private school in our town requires anyone getting ANY scholarships fill out the FAFSA, need-based or not, and nearly all incoming freshman qualify for some kind of merit aid which is based entirely on GPA and test scores. So, I would check with the individual school.
Call the schools you are interested in. They will tell you their policy.
My DD went to private school. Kind of expensive. We did not qualify for any need based aid. The college did FA by reviewing both the need based and merit aid together. In my discussion with the FA office, when they looked up that we would get no need based aid, they actually increased the merit aid a bit. The college was basically an engineering school and they were looking to increase the number of female students. So, they were willing to up their FA to induce my DD (and me) to choose them.
@cshell2 It’s more a matter of timing. I had filled out the FAFSA and did not send it to all schools. Typically schools send out the Merrit awards with the acceptance letters. I was required to submit the FAFSA after in order to accept the award.
LOL- I asked the same question a year ago as we did not qualify for aid according to most NPCs. We ended up filling out the FAFSA (its fast and easy) but not the CSS profile. As expected, we received no need based aid.
We did not qualify for FA and mine only applied to schools that did not require fafsa for merit awards. We did end up filing it incase my D wanted a student loan at some point. Unfortunately this caused some confusion with schools even though on the common app she checked the box saying she did not want to be considered for aid. Some of the schools then required her to email the FA office saying do not consider me for aid. It was a bit of a pain (she applied to 17 schools). It actually delayed her merit award to her first pick school which was a bummer (she needed merit to attend). My advice would be if you are looking for merit apply to schools that don’t require fafsa (call and check first) and do not file it. Also be certain your situation is stable enough that you won’t need any aid for two years because some schools if you don’t file it for freshman year make you want two years before you can apply again for aid.
There are only a small handful of colleges that place restrictions on students applying for aid in subsequent years…who are U.S. citizens or green card holders. In the vast majority of cases…vast…there are no restrictions on applying for need based aid in subsequent years.
BUT if you are an international student…many…many colleges require that you apply for need based aid when you initially apply for admission…or you can not do so at all in subsequent years.
Sample of two…both of my kids had to complete both the FAFSA and Profile freshman year only or merit awards would not have been given. I don’t know if these schools still have this policy or not (Boston University and Santa Clara University). I need to add, we did not qualify for need based aid…at all…But our kids did complete the FAFSA to get the Direct Loan. For one kid, we were selected for verification every single year…
Bottom line: you need to check each target’s policies.
A school cannot prevent you from filing the fafsa in subsequent years for loans or Pell grants. The school can decide not to award you its own aid which it may base on the fafsa filing.
My kid got merit scholarships at 2 different public flagships he would not have received had we not bothered doing the FAFSA. He also got a surprise grant at a private school out of the FA office. We definitely knew we wouldn’t qualify for any need based aid. Our EFC is well over the price of any private school in the country (but we cannot remotely afford that figure).
So I’d do some careful research before not bothering at all unless the money really is no object to your situation.
^^True, but in probably the majority of cases, a family that had no need one year, more likely doesn’t have Pell level of need the next year. The “won’t give aid” question, overall, I think is clearly that the school itself might not give aid. Not that the federal government wouldn’t. At least that’s how I’ve always seen it stated.
That being said, when our income took a large dive, I called S’s school because of reading that warning here, to ask if we could apply junior year, not having applied before. And the FA officer was taken aback, like, why wouldn’t they give aid if the student needed it? He asked if we wanted to reapply for the present year, too, which I hadn’t even asked for. So yeah, each school is different.