<p>^ Interesting… Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I’m an admitted transfer student for Fall 2010 and I received an email from USC stating that my award information was updated. When going over the award I only see a Federal Unsubsidized Loan of about 6k and nothing else. Is this my whole financial aid package? Thanks for the help.</p>
<p>I have a question.</p>
<p>I have a college funding company that I pay to apply for my financial aid. After applying to USC for admission, I contacted my college funding company to apply for FA from USC. But there was a problem in communication and they did not enter USC in the applications for both FAFSA and CSS. However, they still submitted both around February for my current school, Bowdoin and they have since added USC onto both the fafsa and css. Does this constitute as a late financial aid application since both apps were submitted before the deadline, just without USC on them?</p>
<p>Yes, your financial aid application is late because it was not submitted to USC by the deadline. Because you missed the deadline, USC does not guarantee to meet your need, but some late applicants are occasionally awarded some aid. You will still, at minimum, be eligible for any Federal aid for which you qualify.</p>
<p>For others reading: There is no reason to pay anyone to submit your FAFSA and/or CSS/Profile. ALL of the information on both come directly from your tax returns and bank statements. The book “Paying for College Without Going Broke,” has line-by-line instructions for both forms. You can buy it for $17 or check it out from the library if you find the forms confusing. (This year, the FAFSA was even easier than ever - it took about 15 minutes to complete.)</p>
<p>Hi alamemom,</p>
<p>thank you for your quick reply. You made it sound as if USC does not award late applicants, which would not be a good thing. If you could clarify this point, I would be more than grateful. Thank you.</p>
<p>
I did? I thought I said,
To clarify, USC guarantees to meet 100% of USC-determined need for applicants who meet all financial aid deadlines. For those who miss the deadlines, the guarantee no longer applies. Everyone who files a FAFSA is eligible for Stafford loans, their parents can apply for PLUS loans, and if you have an eligible EFC you can still get any Pell grant for which you qualify <a href=“http://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/P1003PellPaymentSchedules.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/P1003PellPaymentSchedules.pdf</a> . Stafford plus Pell, however, adds up to - at most - about $10,000, leaving $45,000 to cover.</p>
<p>As for USC grants, I do not know what will happen. There have been posts in the past from people who submitted their applications late, and they received great aid - but they were not nearly as late as you. There have also been posts from people with late applications who felt their aid was much less than it would have been if they had been on-time with their applications.</p>
<p>Let us know what your results are - it will help anyone in the same position next year.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Hi, Alamemom!
Thank you for your infinite knowledge about the financial aid process and how it all works.</p>
<p>I believe (and I apologize if I made a mistake) that the following question has not been answer on this thread. I went through all 33 pages of this thread (by using the search function) to make sure that you didn’t answer this.</p>
<p>Do you know how is summer financial aid calculate through USC? Like, any specifics? Any stories (personal or from others) that you can share, so that I can get an idea of whether or not summer school is possible for me (being an Engineer who wants to minor in musical studies is… somehow turning to be a stressful thing =/)? Any help would be great! Thanks!</p>
<p>P.S. I’ve already look at USC’s website on Summer Aid. All it says is that students should apply early (a few months or something before summer term starts – although, I plan to do it ASAP in late fall/early spring) and there are a lot of federal grants and loans available. But do you know whether or not USC gives out University Grants (how much, etc.) and when would be the deadline to apply for everything. Basically, I have no clue how to apply for summer financial aid and how it works.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance and for everything you’ve done so far!</p>
<p>Thanks for searching for the answer first! And you are right, there isn’t much about summer aid so far - mainly because I don’t know much about it. :)</p>
<p>The very little I do know is that there is now some summer additional Pell grant eligibility - this is brand new, so I am just finding out how it works. There is a short discussion about it in posts #457-461, with a link to some information from kelsmom (a great source) on another thread in post #461.</p>
<p>For Cal Grant, I know you can use part of your Cal Grant for summer, but whatever amount you use is subtracted from your total Cal Grant eligibility, so it isn’t really “additional” money, it is just paid out on another schedule.</p>
<p>As far a USC grants and additional loan eligibilty… I’m sorry, I have no information. 
Hmmm… ideas… Trustee and Presidential Scholars can use “Exceptional Funding” over the summer towards tuition… PURF and SOAR funding can be used for summer research, but I doubt if they can be applied to tuition… You will have to be our info guy - whatever you find out, come back and post! :)</p>
<p>In the meantime, you might start a new thread asking if anyone has experience with receiving summer financial aid - there might be students who don’t typically look at this thread who have some info.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>PURF and SURF can be used for tuition. Well, indirectly. There’s an option for them to mail you a check. Presidential and Trustee exceptional funding is done way back in March, so you need to plan ahead to get that.</p>
<p>Ah. Yes. I saw those posts of the Summer Pell Grant.</p>
<p>Thank you for the advice anyway! I will look into summer financial aid and report back. In the meantime, I’ll go ahead and take your suggestion to post it as a new thread. Thanks!</p>
<p>Oh - also on the Exceptional Funding - yes, as Hawkwings says, you have to apply way back in March and many of you don’t really know for sure what you will be doing over the summer - we discovered this year that you can apply for Exceptional Funding, be approved, and then at the last minute change your mind (this was discovered accidentally when daughter changed her mind at the last minute… 
). The Exceptional Funding (8 units max) is then still available for future use.</p>
<p>So if you think there is a *possibility *you will need it for the summer, go ahead and apply and you can change your plans later if another summer opportunity presents itself.</p>
<p>You have to have some idea of what you want to use the exceptional funding for though. They won’t accept “Well I might need it” as a reason to give it to you.</p>
<p>Hi - So last year family income was just a little bit over the amount allowed for a Cal Grant and we did not get one. Then this past year, my mother’s income was cut by 20% (everyone at the company received this / no just her) and Yay we thought we would qualify. But they said that it now was a “competitive grant” rather than an “entitlement grant” and we didn’t win against the others. So it seems that Cal Grant is totally unfair – if you qualify the lst year out of high school then you automatically get it for four years even if your family income doubles or triples. BUT if you don’t qualify the first year but qualify the 2nd year you’re screwed – even if you family income is reduced every year, you’re likely to lose out due to family size, income, etc. How is this fair? People could game the system by purposfully lowering their income the first year and then gleefully raking in money for four years after that BUT still get a Cal Grant. If 2nd year students have to requalify why don’t ALL student have to requalify. This is so unfair that I hope they do eliminate the Cal Grant for everyone if its going to be so unfairly distributed.</p>
<p>Rosieoney, I am sorry you are upset and disappointed about not qualifying for Cal Grant. It is unfortunate that your disappointment has caused you to hope that the thousands of students who depend on Cal Grant to attend UCs, CSUs, and other California private universities will have that essential funding taken away because you did not qualify.</p>
<p>At USC, however, there is no “penalty” when California students do not receive a Cal Grant (as long as all applications were submitted on-time). USC will calculate your USC-determined need and award aid. If your need is $30,000 and you gualify for a Cal grant, they will add Federal loans, w/s, etc. and USC grants to that to meet your need. If you do not qualify for a Cal Grant, they will go through the same process, but your USC grant will be $9,708 larger. </p>
<p>So USC students, such as yourself, will be unaffected if Cal Grant is eliminated, but thousands and thousands of other students will be in a terrible situation. But as long as *you *feel that would be more “fair…”</p>
<p>I got my transfer acceptance package on July 2nd… when does the aid package usually come?</p>
<p>I CAN’T TAKE THE AID PACKAGE WAIT ANYMORE!!! How long does it usually take?</p>
<p>Congratulations on your acceptance!</p>
<p>If all of your fin aid applications and tax returns were in on time, it is usually about two weeks after your acceptance. Hope it turns out great!</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>How do I tell USC about an outside scholarship? </p>
<p>I asked the organization to mail USC the check a while ago, but I didn’t realize that I had to tell USC too. I also checked USConnect for any forms, but I wasn’t able to access any because I never applied for financial aid.</p>
<p>I am not aware of any official form. What we usually do is type up a short letter stating that:</p>
<p>*I (the student) have received a scholarship in the amout of ($$$$) from (sponsoring agency) that can be used for (put whatever restrictions the sponsoring agency places: tuition-only, tuition/room/board, tuition/room/board/books and expenses, or “any college-related expense…”). Please use this scholarship to replace (all or part) of my (subsidized Stafford loan or work/study) award.</p>
<p>Thank you,</p>
<p>Tommy Trojan*</p>
<p>Be sure to reference your USC student ID # and include a copy of the award letter from the sponsoring agency.</p>
<p>If you don’t let them know about it before it arrives, they often just reduce your USC grant automatically - it never hurts to try to get it applied to your loans. (Recently a student reported that they did not reduce his loans - they reduced the grant - so it doesn’t always work.)</p>
<p>Congratulations on the scholarship!!!</p>
<p>What does it mean when you get an income expense declaration form? I had to fill one out… and I couldn’t really find much about it online, other than some people who got asked for it got PHENOMENAL aid.</p>
<p>archieg, see posts #381 and #382 (page 26) of this thread - there was a short discussion of the income-expense declaration form. Good luck!</p>