<p>I just went through some minor (but close to ending up a very, very costly and stupid mistake) hassle after filling my financial aid application out wrong. Since I've been seing other international applicants on these boards reason in the exact same way I know I did, I figured we shouldn't be re-inventing each other's wheels.</p>
<p>If you are receiving or intend to receive governmental assistance for your tuition fees, do NOT, I repeat do NOT include the loan portion of your assistance when applying for financial aid.</p>
<p>My error was sheer reflex: I did not think twice about jotting down the full amount of "aid" I was entitled to, thinking I wanted to be completely honest about my resources. I did not receive any financial aid at my current college and so only had to fill out the "certification of student finances" form before coming here, where the total sum of all assistance needs to be reported. </p>
<p>Well, guess what, unless you explicitly jot down otherwise the college will assume ALL of your aid is a grant - and so reduce the scholarship amount, resulting in you being expected to contribute money you don't have (the loan portion). I was completely oblivious to this until I started looking at taking a private loan in addition to the student one, and realizing they could not possibly have me amassing optional debt as an official part of a financial aid package. </p>
<p>To my college, it just looked like a $20,000 governmental grant - even though 90% of it is made up of optional loans. "How could I possibly cover my EFC", I wondered before realizing my error: "my student loan is already calculated in!" Simple, it should not be. </p>
<p>Learn from my mistake. Go on to your government website, find out the exact dollar amount of your grant portion, then put down this amount and that amount only. You may think this is stating the obvious, but you'd be surprised - I've seen the exact same "well, they already know about my loan, so do I need a private one for the EFC" question on another forum twice within this same week now, and then today a girl voicing the same concern here on CC.</p>
<p>/frrrph, savin' your day since February 2007</p>