<p>Hello alamemom, I recently went into my OASIS and just checking to see if my financial aid is ready and I remember you saying that your package is never finished until you receive an e-mail telling you that it is complete. </p>
<p>However, this is what I have so far:
Estimated Federal Pell Grant - 3,800<br>
Federal SEOG - 550<br>
Federal Direct Subsidized Stafford Loan - 4,500
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan - 2,000
Federal Perkins Loan - 2,000
Federal Work-Study - 2,750
University Grant - 20,826 </p>
<p>Estimated Cost of Attendance 55,728<br>
Total Financial Aid 36,426<br>
= Additional Loan Eligibility 19,302 </p>
<p>What I don’t understand is how is it that there is a total financial aid is 36,426, yet when I add up the actual aid not loans, it doesn’t quite make sense to me. Also with all of this info laid out, do you think my financial aid is complete, or is it possible that I can still receive more. I was hoping to receive more in University Grants since my EFC is so low, and we own nothing but our home which we owe 400,000$ in mortgage still, and many people with more EFC than me have received $30,000-$35,000.</p>
<p>Financial aid includes scholarships, grants, loans, work study, etc. Basically, everything listed there counts as financial aid, even if you have to pay it back eventually.</p>
<p>yes, that looks like a complete package. With a $3,800 Pell, your FAFSA EFC was probably under $2,000, but USC determined that your family could contribute over $19,000.</p>
<p>If you feel you don’t have home equity or other assets they may have considered, first check your FAFSA and CSS/Profile and make sure everything is correct - be sure your mortgage of $400,000 is listed and check what value is listed for your home. If the value you listed was far lower than the typical home value in your area, USC may have adjusted it.</p>
<p>If there were errors on the forms, make corrections online for the FAFSA and handwrite the corrections on your copy of the CSS/Profile and FAX it in. (No online corrections for the CSS/Profile.)</p>
<p>If all your numbers were correct, call or email financial aid and ask why they determined your family could contribute $19,000. If it was the home value issue, you can try to present information to substantiate the lower value - find recent sales (from around the time you submitted the financial aid forms) of nearby homes of about the same size. </p>
<p>I guess bayareatrojan is the only one who has it so far…</p>
<p>By the way I have been going over several posts on this thread and I gotta tell you, you are not only extremely knowledgable about the subject, alamemom, but also very supportive to everyone.</p>
<p>Financial aid for returning students in particular (freshman have a choice of attending USC or not, returning students have a choice too, but it is much more difficult for them to transfer out and the timing etc) is extremely critical, particularly for those of us who genuinely cannot attend without the same aid as we got the freshman year. Therefore, this is an extremely stressful period and the anxiety levels amongst all of us who depend on this aid are very high too. </p>
<p>You perform a great service by reassuring everyone with your calm, thoughtful and knowledgable responses.</p>
<p>:) Thanks! yes, bayareatrojan is the only returning student to post so far (though I am sure many have received aid packages among non-college confidential users!). And bayareatrojan’s package is similar to last year’s - so that is reassuring news.</p>
<p>The emails being sent out when only the scholarships had been posted seems unnecessarily stressful and confusing - if anyone from USC financial aid happens to look in on college confidential, hopefully they will consider waiting to send emails next year until the packages are complete.</p>
<p>Thanks for your kind words! :)</p>
<p>P.S. Even alamemom holds her breath a bit waiting for my kiddo’s aid package - as confident as I am in USC financial aid, there is always that tiny bit of worry that creeps in!</p>
<p>So I haven’t gotten my financial aid yet, they finally asked me for some extra forms, I turned them in, and they were all from my dad, since I listed him as my custodial parent (my parents are divorced). and now they’re asking for my mom’s information? I didn’t think she had to submit hers, she makes a lot more money than he does, plus, as part of their divorce agreement my father is required to pay for this year of my schooling. Is this something I should tell USC? Do you think it would factor in for any financial aid I receive?</p>
<p>If your high school address doesn’t seem to match up with your Dad’s address, they might be thinking you actually live with your mother - the parent you live with more than 50% or the time is the one who’s information they require. The divorce agreement doesn’t really affect USC - it is an agreement between your parents. Colleges generally do not consider how much parents are *willing to pay <a href=“as%20stated%20in%20a%20divorce%20agreement%20for%20example”>/I</a>, they only consider how much a parent *is able to pay *as determined by the financial aid forms and tax returns. They will sometimes ask for all pages of a divorce decree, but that is generally to determine if there are assets that might have been left off the FAFSA or CSS/Profile rather than to see about who plans to pay for college.</p>
<p>If the issue turns out to be which parent you live with, you can try to produce proof that you actually lived with your father more than 50% of the time with a letter from your high school counselor or something like that.</p>
<p>Hmmmm. I’m a transfer student… I lived on my own last year, with my dad for like 3 months. Right now i’m back home with my mom, and therefore using her address. Perhaps this is why? I emailed USC and asked who my custodial parent was, gave them the situation, and they said it was my dad. Now I have no idea what to expect.</p>
<p>Hello alamemom, I have recently did some research and took your advice on finding out what exactly was wrong with my award, and it turns out I had inputted my family’s contribution as $11,736 on my CSS Porfile for the 2009-2010 year at my current university. The lady at the financial aid office told me the reason why they had expected my family contribution to be $19,302 was because I had reported I paid $11,876 for my education this year, but in actuality I only paid $6,300 total. The $11,736 was derived from the projected net cost by my university financial aid office, and me and my parents when filling it out, mindlessly put that number when it was just a projection for what we may pay, but the financial aid office at my university always over estimates and I unknowingly reported that number. So USC’s financial aid believed that I could at the very least afford $11,736 towards my education costs, but with my parents’ low income and no assets, I explain that there is no possibility that I can pay the entire $19,302 expected of me.</p>
<p>Anyways, I e-mailed you through your user name of my entire lengthy appeal letter and analysis with many numbers and calculations that I hope you can take some time out of your busy schedule to read and possibly give me some feedback to see if my appeal letter holds water and makes a good case. I don’t know if you will receive the e-mail since I sent it through the CC website. Please let me know your feedback or if any problems arise of receiving the e-mail.</p>
<p>Thank you once again, I hope to hear from you soon!</p>
<p>I’m a transfer student and am still waiting on financial aid. I am hoping to get some money from the transfer merit scholarship and have a couple of questions that are (hopefully) answerable.
According to the USC Scholarship section, the transfer merit scholarships will not be sent out until June 15th. Since I’m still waiting on fin. aid, do you think they will send them all together in one package? EDIT: I have a 4.0 at my current university and am fairly confident that I will get something from the merit scholarship.
On the subject of the transfer merit scholarship, does anyone know how much people typically get from it? I read on a different thread here (Can’t remember which one though) that it’s about 10,000; any confirmations or disagreements?
If they needed my Spring 2010 grades from my current university, would they have sent out a request already? Or should I just send them anyway?
And is it common for students who are applying for financial aid to have to send in “Parent’s Debt Documentation,” “Parent Cash and Savings Documentation,” “Parent Investment Documentation,” or “Income and Expense Documentation”? I feel like it was an odd request, and I haven’t read anything about it on here (unless I completely missed it), so I wanted to know about it. Also, are there any implications I can take from sending the forms, meaning, can I assume that they’ll offer me a lot of money because they wanted more from me? I have no idea what to think about it and I’m getting anxious about the financial aid! EDIT: I found where this part was answered from before (thanks alamemom, you really rock this thread!!).</p>
<p>Staying up late does have it’s benefits! I got an update to my financial aid award at 12:44 AM, Pacific time.</p>
<p>It’s still not finished though. Right now I have a University Grant in the amount of $6564, and I really hope that stays around, because they have in the past taken some of that away because of outside scholarships and whatnot (they subtracted the amount of my outside scholarship from my grant, meaning no net change).</p>
<p>Speaking of external scholarships, they haven’t been posted yet. So that’s how I know my package isn’t done yet. The Stafford loans are posted though.</p>
<p>My summary so far:
Presidential Scholarship
Mills Scholarship fund
University Grant
Federal Subsidized Stafford
Federal Unsubsidized Stafford</p>
<p>I corrected my fafsa and the fafsa says that I am eligible for a federal pell grant up to $555. But USC does not have the federal pell grant on my financial aid. Is there something I need to do to get the grant?</p>
<p>Filling out the FAFSA is all you have to do to get the Pell. It takes some time after you do the correction to have your package updated. As long as USC is listed on your FAFSA they will get the information.</p>
<p>Still, I would suggest printing out your new FAFSA confirmation page showing the new EFC and estimated Pell and FAXing it to USC. Put “FAFSA correction” on the cover sheet. The correction may impact other areas of your aid and it can’t hurt to be sure they know (sooner rather than later) that they need to recalculate your package.</p>
<p>If the correction you made would change any of the numbers on the CSS/Profile, take your copy of the CSS/Profile and cross out the incorrect numbers and fill in the new numbers and FAX that in, too. Also write “CSS/Profile correction” on the cover sheet.</p>
<p>alamemom: how would you suggest I go about taking your advice? I’m thinking just send an email to financial aid explaining the situation and attaching the relevant documents. Problem is, I don’t think I have the relevant documents… Though my outside scholarships are all for four years, so they should know about them already.</p>
<p>Just send an email saying you have received a scholarship (they don’t seem aware that 4 year scholarships are coming until the check actually arrives) for $X and you would like to request they replace your subsidized Stafford instead of your USC grant. Sometimes it works - so it is always worth a try! If you have the award letter, send it along, but if you don’t they will just wait for the check to arrive.</p>