Prospective high school junior here. I’m applying for Vandy’s REHSS summer program (Anyone else?). On the off chance that I received the Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship, would it impact my financial aid substancially? I used the net price calculator, and it told me that my EFC will be around $12,000 per year. Can some of that scholarship money go towards paying the EFC?
Your financial aid is reduced by the dollar value of the scholarship, which is full tuition. If your need based aid was already greater than this value, the CV scholarship won’t provide you with any extra money (except that one-time stipend that comes with the scholarship, which I assume is separate).
If your EFC is $12,000 , you would receive approximately $50,000 in need-based aid. If you were to receive the CV, you’d receive ~$44,000 from the scholarship and $6,000 in need based aid.
The only thing that will add on top of need-based aid is an outside scholarship, and even that can only contribute to a point (something like $2500/year) before it begins to reduce your need-based aid as well.
Thanks. That makes sense.
OP,
Our D has the CV scholarship. Because she applied and was accepted ED2, we received two financial aid offers, the first being after acceptance and before being awarded the CV, and the second being an updated offer after the CV was awarded. As a result, we were able to see how the CV affected our financial aid.
The first offer was a large offer of need-based aid (similar to @Pancaked’s example) and also included a $2300 student contribution. The second offer reflected the full tuition CV merit award plus a small need based award; however, the student contribution was eliminated. In other words, the total aid we received was actually increased by. $2300. I can only assume that is standard practice for CV recipients who have additional financial need.
Thanks for the input @Belle315 , I had been led to believe that only outside scholarships could provide that student contribution. Sounds like a Vandy scholarship will as well.
@Belle315 @Pancaked Thank you, and congratulations to you and your D! Very helpful. I’m still not sure if my parents are going to shell out 10ish thousand dollars per year. One can only hope… Vandy is my dream school. Is there anything I can do to lower my EFC further? Also, I’m guessing that the $2300 won’t help any if I get NMF. (Likely, based on area and predicted cutoffs.)
The NMF award from Vandy will be first applied to the student contribution. Any amount left over will be used to reduce need-based aid. This was the information we were given by the financial aid department.
@Pancaked is right about outside scholarships, though. D got the one-time $2500 NMSC award that lowered our EFC by that amount her first year.
Best wishes as you go through the process.