<p>I was looking at Pomona's financial aid policy concerning outside scholarships. I'm still a little confused, but my understanding of what they do is they expect a student on financial aid to pay a portion (only about $2000) themselves along with their family's contribution, and they offer the student a campus job to help offset tuition as well (about another $2000). If you get an outside scholarships, it will reduce the amount the student needs to pay, and if it eliminates the student's contribution completely it will reduce the amount they need to earn at their campus job. If the amount of the outside scholarship exceeds that as well, then it will reduce Pomona's financial aid offering, not the family's contribution. I was pretty surprised by this, but then I looked at Stanford's financial aid policy and they do this as well! Is this commonplace at all colleges? And if so, is there any point in me trying to earn much more than about $5000 in outside scholarships if it won't lessen the amount my family needs to pay after clearing my own responsibility? I admit that I don't know a whole lot about the financial aid process, but I'm afraid that my family's EFC will be more than my family can actually pay and there will be nothing I can do to offset it since I will already have a campus job (this is all theoretical at this point, since I haven't actually gotten into Pomona yet of course :P). Please help!</p>
<p>Yes, many/most colleges will use outside scholarships (or any scholarships) and apply to various need-based aid first.</p>
<p>For those who are going to schools that don’t meet need, then getting more outside scholarships can close gaps.</p>
<p>For those who don’t have much/any need, then getting outside scholarships can reduce what a family has to pay.</p>
<p>You’d have to get enough scholarships to cover all of your aid before you can reduce your EFC. </p>
<p>Frankly, unless you manage to get some rare private scholarships that give a lot of money for all 4 years, your efforts to help bring down EFC will not likely work. Private scholarships are often for frosh year only. That can be shocking for those who don’t take that into consideration when selecting their school only to find that private scholarship money disappearing for years 2, 3, and 4. </p>
<p>*but I’m afraid that my family’s EFC will be more than my family can actually pay and there will be nothing I can do to offset it since I will already have a campus job *</p>
<p>If you have an unaffordable EFC then you need a different strategy.</p>
<p>What is your likely EFC and how much will your family pay each year? Determine both your FAFSA EFC and your CSS Profile EFC.</p>
<p>In addition to schools like Pomona where you’re concerned about paying your EFC, you need to also apply to 2-3 schools where you know your stats will get huge merit. If merit is large enough that it covers MORE than your “need,” then it reduces your EFC.</p>
<p>For instance…if your “need” is $20k per year, and your merit scholarship is for $30k per year (from a university), then you will reduce what your family has to pay by $10k.</p>
<p>It’s a good thing that you’re realizing this now, when you still have time to identify some financial safety schools that will give you large merit in case these other schools on your list don’t work out in regards to “family contribution.”</p>
<p>BTW…from another one of your posts, I see that you’ve asked about need-based aid at OOS publics. Most OOS publics do not give much need-based aid to OOS students. They charge OOS rates for a reason. It wouldn’t make sense to them cover those high costs with need based aid. However, some OOS publics will give merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I believe Pomona meets need with no loans. If you were to get outside scholarships that cover your summer earnings/student contribution and your school year work (this is not given to you - you have to find a campus job) then you can reduce the EFC by:
- Working on campus to contribute (usually for books/personal expenses)
- Take out student loans since they are not included in your FA package.</p>
<p>Pomona has very generous financial aid. I would keep it on your list and apply to outside scholarships but also have some financial safeties as M2CK describes. Note: the COA can be adjusted if you need a computer for freshman year so you may be able to keep more of o/s scholarships if this is your case (ask FA office). If you have the stats for Pomona you will be eligible for some merit at lower tier schools. If you describe the kind of college/major/location you are looking for some posters will probably have suggestions of some schools where you could get merit aid. Good luck.</p>
<p>PS - Some schools don’t apply all outside scholarships to student contribution first, some apply to loans in the package first, some “share” between those items and the school grant. The way Pomona and Stanford apply scholarships is the best deal you will find.</p>
<p>Thanks both of you! I’m only a rising sophomore but my parents are really encouraging me to start looking at colleges now because we’re going to need some generous financial aid to send me basically anywhere. One of the things I loved so much about Pomona was that they give great FA packages without loans. I don’t know what our EFC is yet so maybe it’s all a moot point, but I’ve heard horror stories about families getting unaffordable EFC’s so I was exploring private scholarships as an option in case that did happen to us.
I will definitely keep Pomona on my list and I may even apply Early Decision (but I know that might not be the best idea since I need Financial Aid), but I’m also going to apply to other schools, including Western Washington University since I’m a legacy, I’m fairly certain I can get in, I’d only be paying in state tuition and I could probably even get some merit based aid there. Anyway, thanks for both your help!</p>
<p>honey,
If you have the stats to get into Pomona 2 years from now, then add USC to your list of colleges. They have both outstanding FA AND offer 200+ full tuition scholarships and 400+ half tuition scholarships to top students.
DS was accepted at Pomona with a nice FA offer, but was awarded a full tuition scholarship at USC. He got a great FREE education at USC and is now at Cal Tech for his PHD. </p>
<p>Just be sure that you “bone up” for the PSAT your Jr year, 'cause scoring hi on that one little test can mean big $$$$$$ in merit scholarships at many great colleges and U’s, including USC.</p>
<p>Here’s something else to think about if you are applying to highly selective, meets-full-need schools like Pomona. As discussed above, most of them will allow you to apply any outside scholarships towards reducing your “self-help” financial aid (work study, stafford loans). While many will then reduce your grant aid, some of the more generous ones will actually reduce your EFC first, by using the Federally calculated (FAFSA) EFC instead of the Institutionally (IM) calculated EFC… </p>
<p>Here’s how that works…In most cases, your FAFSA EFC will be less than your Institutionally calculated EFC (due to other things being considered under IM, like home equity). So, if you had a FAFSA EFC of say $15K, and an IM EFC of $20K, if you have scholarships that exceed the amount of self help aid that the school has given, some schools will then revert to the FAFSA EFC - in this case allowing you to keep up to an additional $5K of your scholarship $$$ before they’d reduce your grant aid. </p>
<p>I’ve talked to a number of financial aid administrators at selective schools who have told me they will do this. So, it’s definitely worth calling the FA offices of any schools you are interested in to see what their policy is.</p>