<p>Hi everyone, I was recently accepted to Duke ED and I was curious if any of you knew of some good scholarship opportunities. I know of scholarship.com and similar sites but it seems as though I would have little chance at those. Any input would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>The best scholarships come directly from the colleges. Since you were accepted ED, did you receive a need based aid award? Can you afford to attend?</p>
<p>Yes I received some need based aid. I can afford to attend but it will require loans and substantial sacrifices. I am just looking for anything that I could do to make it cheaper. Duke offers few merit scholarships</p>
<p>You need to check Duke’s policies regarding outside scholarships. At many schools, an outside scholarship will actually reduce your NEED and thus reduce your need based aid. Usually loans are reduced first (a good thing), then work study, and then other forms of aid like your grants.</p>
<p>If an outside scholarship will reduce your student loans…great. </p>
<p>In most cases outside scholarships do NOT reduce the family contribution.</p>
<p>As to your question…go to your high school guidance office. Ask them about local,scholarships. Most are not huge in amount and are for one year only…but every penny counts!</p>
<p>Congratulations on your acceptance to Duke!</p>
<p>I can afford to attend but it will require loans and substantial sacrifices</p>
<p>Any scholarships you get will cause Duke to change their FA pkg. They’re not going to let you just apply those scholarships to your “family contribution.”</p>
<p>When you say that you can “afford” Duke but you have to take out loans and have “great sacrifices”, what do you mean? How much are you planning on borrowing TOTAL each year (including any loans that Duke put in the FA pkg)?</p>
<p>Was your FA pkg less than you expected? </p>
<p>Private scholarships are hard to get and usually only for freshman year, so not really going to work…especially since Duke would adjust their aid pkg.</p>
<p>It was less than we were expecting but not a ton. I would expect that I will be taking out 5-10 thousand in loans a year. Really good to know about the outside scholarships though. What I mean by sacrifices is that my EFC is almost 1/2 of my parents income. They will be needing to cut back on many things to make it work… of course expected to some amount. And Thank you Thumper! I am going to do everything I can to make it work!</p>
<p>
Is this in addition to the federal loans that Duke includes in the FA package?</p>
<p>The way external scholarships work at Duke is that they will only reduce the self-help portion-- the federal loans and work-study. They will not effect how much your parents are asked to contribute.</p>
<p>I would read and understand here:
[Duke</a> Financial Aid: Outside Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.finaid.duke.edu/undergraduate/current/howitworks/outsideaid.html]Duke”>http://www.finaid.duke.edu/undergraduate/current/howitworks/outsideaid.html)</p>
<p>The one exception to my previous statement is if you choose to have the scholarship reduce the federal loan component (and Duke increases grant funding by the amount of the scholarship, up to $4,000), you can then ask for the loans to be ‘taken out’ again. I did this with my NM award this year-- Duke took away $2,500 in loans from my package, and I then took out $2,500 in Stafford loans. So it did reduce the parent contribution, and that’s possible for up to $4,000 (and is an option if the option is private loans or federa loans).</p>
<p>What I mean by sacrifices is that my EFC is almost 1/2 of my parents income. T</p>
<p>Sorry, but I don’t think that’s possible unless your parents are living rent-free somewhere or have a lot of savings. </p>
<p>Do you realize that EVERY family has 3-6 unexpected large unexpected large expenses every year? Car repairs, major appliance replacement, dental bill, whatever. Families can’t escapse these unexpected expenses. Over a four year college period, your family is going to have many, many unexpected expenses. How will those get paid for if half of their income is going to college costs???</p>
<p>It sounds like you have Student Loans in your FA pkg (maybe $5500-7000) and you have to take out MORE in loans? </p>
<p>So are you talking about borrowing $10k-$17k per year TOTAL??? (adding Direct student loans PLUS private loans)</p>
<p>The bottom line is that you’re not going to find private loans for FOUR years. </p>
<p>It really sounds like this school isn’t affordable. Almost half of your parents’ income sounds like your parents are earning about $60k-70k per year. If so, how could they possibly contribute almost half of their income unless they have huge savings.</p>
<p>I suspect that if you go forward with this that next year you’ll be posting that you have to leave because your family just can’t keep paying half of their income towards college.</p>
<p>Duke meets full need. If the family contribution Duke compute is half of the family income, there could be significant assets in play.</p>
<p>ETA…other thread indicates the OPs family has a second home. No question, this could significantly add to the family contribution.</p>
<p>And the student says the NPC gave an $8000 need based award…and the family was expected to pay $52,000… A year.</p>
<p>OP. please discuss the finances of this with your family to be SURE this school is affordable for them for all four years.</p>
<p>You can take a $5500 Direct Loan your freshman year…but frankly, that is a drop in the bucket.</p>
<p>Income Bracket:120,000</p>
<p>If your parents’ income is that high, and your family contribution is nearly half of your income, how much aid were you given? it sounds like you got VERY little if your family has to pay nearly half of the $120k to the school.</p>
<p>Unless your parents have a lot of savings and/or a very low mortgage I don’t see how it’s possible to pay $50k+ per year towards college.</p>
<p>Please get some applications in to more affordable colleges, so your family can have some options. This sounds unworkable and not worth it if your parents don’t have college savings to pay most of the costs.</p>
<p>ETA…other thread indicates the OPs family has a second home. No question, this could significantly add to the family contribution.</p>
<p>Is that a rental? does it have income that adds to the $120k? </p>
<p>Or are you the student who posted awhile ago and this second home is a vacation home?</p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t understand why your family is surprised by the “family contribution”. I don’t understand why they let you apply ED.</p>
<p>You never know what some families may do to make it possible for child to attend prestigious school if that is high on their list of values. If that home has lots of equity, they might sell it and use the money to fund college, then possibly buy another in some future year when they’ve recovered financially from paying for D’s college. </p>
<p>Not recommending that as a course of action, necessarily, just remarking that I’ve seen families make unbelievable sacrifices to fund some high-priced colleges.</p>
<p>And if there isn’t much equity, it wouldn’t help too much, except it would free up funds that currently go to mortgage payments.</p>