Getting Accepted does NOT mean that a Merit Scholarship will be forthcoming....

And it’s not the university…it’s a third party, paid to send promotional materials to all students with x GPA/y scores who live in zip code z. The university doesn’t know who the materials were sent to.

@Eyeleen

Nope. The student needs to get accepted first. Those marketing materials do not promise acceptance.

My kid got a TON of promotional materials from Wash U St. Louis… but we knew she was more than a longshot for acceptance. IF she had gotten accepted, she would have gotten decent need based aid because her first year, we had two in college. BUT she didn’t bother applying.

Those mailings are college junk mail plain and simple, and your kid received them because probably they checked a box when taking the SAT or ACT.

Interesting discussion here. I had to argue with my D19 who has a pretty compelling set of stats and activities to not apply to the ivies. They aren’t in our budget and as we all know, they don’t give merit. I asked her why she wanted to apply, and she admitted it was just to brag. So we nixed it. We did apply to 3 “reaches” that offer very limited merit - Vandy, Duke, and Wash U - but if I’d been more thoughtful we would have only done Duke, as she thought Vandy was just ok after a visit and only applied to Wash U to shut me up (I’m an alum) and she doesn’t want to go. I actually had a harder time trying to explain the reality to my parents.

Besides your “badge of honor” nonsense, @homeeducator, I find it incredulous that anyone would encourage scamming the federal government. I thought, in my naivete, that you, as a parent, are supposed to try to save money for your child’s/children’s education.

Relying on others, to pay your bills, just sounds too “entitled” to me. It backfires. Putting down your savings doesn’t “disqualify you” for other pay options from the colleges. Also, when you and your child electronically sign the FAFSA app, you are confirming that you have provided truthful information with your signature. Anything else constitutes fraud.

Um…no. If the money is YOURS, it doesn’t matter whose bank account it is in. Are you GIVING this money to grandma or grandpa without restrictions as a gift? In other words…not expecting to get it back and allowing them to use it for whatever? If not…it’s YOUR money and needs to be reported as such on the financial aid application forms. Otherwise, you are applying for need based aid using fraudulent information by not including YOUR money.

@BelknapPoint anything to add?

I think most households that would qualify for Pell Grant income wise would have a hard time saving a significant amount of money for college.

And for income under $50,000 if they qualify for simplified needs test, assets aren’t considered.

Let’s say a $60,000 income family managed to save up $40,000 for college.

Let’s say asset protection allowance based on age is around $13,000.

So they would have an increase in FAFSA EFC of around $1,000 (compared to not having the savings) and in both cases would most likely have an EFC too high for Pell anyway.

Nope. Well said.

[Besides your “badge of honor” nonsense, @homeeducator, I find it incredulous that anyone would encourage scamming the federal government. I thought, in my naivete, that you, as a parent, are supposed to try to save money for your child’s/children’s education.

Relying on others, to pay your bills, just sounds too “entitled” to me. It backfires. Putting down your savings doesn’t “disqualify you” for other pay options from the colleges. Also, when you and your child electronically sign the FAFSA app, you are confirming that you have provided truthful information with your signature. Anything else constitutes fraud. ]

Wouldn’t the appropriate step be to put the money in a Roth IRA in the parents name (since it is the parent’s money) and then use it to assist in payment of tuition? You can withdraw the contributions out penalty-free to pay for higher education costs. [There may be an impact to future year’s aid offset by the amount withdrawn, so people recommend withdrawing in senior year - if you qualify for substantial need based aid.]

Let’s not argue. Obviously resorting to fraudulent tactics is wrong, wrong, wrong.

@homeeducator

If your income and/or assets are interfering with your ability to get need-based aid, then do what many of us have done in similar situations…and that’s chase merit. Yes, that could mean limiting choices, but even when seeking Need based aid one has to limit choices.

There is an old thread from @momfromtexas who had to find free rides for her kids, who didn’t have top stats. She was able to do so, even if it meant that her kids would be going to lesser known universities. You may not need a free ride, and if that’s the case, finding those merit generous schools may be easier.

Sorry if this was posted previously but I didn’t see this specific question posed yet…understanding that baseline assumption should be that merit aid is not coming, looking for insights here re: how to best navigate in our daughter’s case.

She was accepted EA with no initial merit aid to her school of choice. We’re prepared to pay full OOS tuition but would obviously prefer not to unintentionally harm any remaining chance she may have of receiving any merit aid by putting down the official tuition deposit.

Specifically - does confirming enrollment help or harm either her pending application to the school’s Honor College or potential merit award?

Ie - does the school think “they haven’t committed yet, so maybe offering Honors College and/or merit aid increase the likelihood of this applicant enrolling?” Or does enrolling/committing now show that the student is truly interested and they’re not risking an Honors spot or merit award to some OOS kid who may not really be interested in attending?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Since she applied EA, not ED, there is NO reason to put down the deposit receipt unless she knows for certain that she wants to go there. Nor is putting down the enrollment deposit expected. She might want to ask her HS college counselor to reach out to the ad min at the college to see if he/ she knows if she is on the short list for merit/ honors OR if there is anything that she should do to increase her “chances”.

However, she may want to make the Housing deposit, as soon as she can ,IF rooms are delegated on a first come first serve basis. If she ends up going elsewhere you probably wont get that back, but normally its less than 1K. Doing so will not have an impact on her chances of getting merit $$/ honors status.

“Specifically - does confirming enrollment help or harm either her pending application to the school’s Honor College or potential merit award?”
neither.

I hear colleges are businesses. Can you take quote from one business and show it to other business and ask to match? Given one business is a in-state public institution and other is OOS (Both highly selective). Did anyone have success with this?

You can ask for more aid, either merit or need based, but most schools do not consider offers from other schools as a reason to grant more aid. The Ivies do with other Ivies, and some schools may give another $2000 if you show interest, but comparing an instate school to an OOS school is apples and oranges. Why would Missouri care what it would cost you to go to school in Illinois? How would they compare their costs and scholarships available?

Would anyone know if some schools would super score the ACT for Merit? I see a lot of schools will take the highest scores from each section in order to “create a new composite score” So does that mean that they will take the new composite score for the merit baseline as well?

Roth IRA in the parents’ name is a good option, a 529 owned by the grandparents is also another legal option. However, remember that the account would then be the grandparent’s asset. If the grandparents are getting close to an age where they would be entering nursing care, it would be considered theirs when calculating what they must spend down before Title 19 would kick in.

@got2laugh, I think that really varies by school.

Okay I’m new to financial aid,grant scholarship… and little too late . But I got in UCLA oos,my efc 0 . So I was little surprised about financial offer I got from them …25k grant scholarship( 17k non resident grant, federal pell grant 6k , UCLA non resident grant uship 2k ) than Loan options sub and non sub 6800k up to this point all good and manageable:) the rest 31k direct parent loan ??? My single mom makes 20k a year . It’s out of question , so why they even accepted me?? Knowing I can’t go?

@aamcgss Why did you even apply to UCLA given their policy of limited financial aid to OOS applicants and a 0 EFC?

@aamcgss
You’re VERY lucky UCLA gave you any sort of financial aid - they typically don’t. They typically only admit OOS students who can pay in full and help subsidize California students. They have enough full pay OOS students that they really don’t need to offer scholarships, so even though what they offered was little compared to what you needed, it was extraordinary by their standards.
I hope you have affordable options.