<p>Yes, I know gpa and test scores factor in to the scholarships. The question is: do extracurricular activities, teacher/counselor recommendations, outstanding/boring essays and/or volunteer service factor in the amount of financial aid a student is to get? Or is financial aid completely isolated from admissions, and once gained acceptance, is the financial aid package independent of what was on the school application?</p>
<p>Are you talking about need based aid? </p>
<p>At some schools, preferential packaging is done for more attractive admitted students. In other words, once the student is admitted, what they being to the school is considered in how need based is awarded. NOTE…I said ONCE ADMITTED. Your financial aid package is usually crafted after you are admitted. </p>
<p>For schools that don’t guarantee to meet full need…this could mean that a more desired student would get more need based aid than another accepted student. OR it could mean that a student gets more university grants and less loans. </p>
<p>So, yes, in some cases the strength of your application could have an impact on your need based aid award.</p>
<p>For schools that meet full need it is more likely your FA offer will be purely based on their calculations of your need.</p>
<p>It depends upon the school. Even schools that do not meet full need for most of their students, do have students for whom they meet full need. Who gets that need met is determined by the application. Even those schools that meet 100% of need may give better packages (more grants) to some students than others, and then there are the schools that will limit or not include loans to those students with the most need. Then there are schools that are need aware in many aspects of their admissions and figuring out who gets how much money and in what forms.</p>