<p>Hey, as the title says, my family’s EFC is just about $0, and I wanted to know whether American could accomodate for that need. My GPA is about a 3.86, my SAT’s are CR-720 M-640 Wr-690, and I have good EC’s with a few state and national awards, so I might possibly have some merit aid coming my way, but for now, I just wanted to know whether there was any hope. Thanks!</p>
<p>there is hope. I would take the ACT or SAT again, and try to get it up a little more if you can. American is pretty generous with merit aid scholarships....but they focus a lot on test scores for who gets the money. The highest merit aid is about 30,000....and IDK how much you'll get from plain old need based aid...but its worth a shot.</p>
<p>If you can get your stats up enough to get the $30k scholarship from AU, you also have a very good shot at going to one of the top 20 institutions which more likely will give you enough grants to meet your need. Even if you get the $30k scholarship from AU, you still have to come up with $15k annually on your own. AU very rarely gives that much money in grants.</p>
<p>AU is not on record with sites like the collegeboard for offering a FA package coming anywhere near 100% of need, whether your EFC is $0 - 10K or 30K. There is most often a "gap" for the parents to creatively find a way to meet either through plus loans or other personal resources. </p>
<p>College board is currently listing the average FA package as:
[Quote]
Average percent of need met: 48%
Average financial aid package: $21,282
[/Quote]
</p>
<p>A merit scholarship is your best chance of sufficient FA package building upon a scholarship, then added on top of that the usual federal grants and loans to their max. Do review the FA posts on this forum from the last couple years. There have been some generous scholarship offers to the brightest of the bright. Of course it's worth hoping to beat the average FA package, and the on-line app is free, but be realistic about expectation and the published FA statistics so your heart's not broken.</p>
<p>It's my two cents, but my D applied 3 years in a row and never received a FA offer that was more than the average.</p>