<p>I recieved a letter in the mail saying that I won a scholarship in the amount of $35, 916 per year therefore it is renewable. I will be attending upenn in the fall and the price tag is almost 50K. Penn has offered me quite a bit of need based grant and my EFC is $5,500. So, now that I have the $35,916 to help pay that EFC will Penn lower my grant or will I get the money reimbursed back. I am extremely confused about this scenario.</p>
<p>You should probably give Penn financial aid a call.</p>
<p>Outside scholarships are not used to pay the EFC because "need" decreases with that scholarship. Penn will remove loans, workstudy, student contribution, and some grants. Your parents will still be responsible for the EFC of 5500.</p>
<p>Congratulations on that large scholarship.</p>
<p>No, your financial aid will change. Basically, you HAVE to pay your EFC no matter what. I received a handsome scholarship to an elite school and I was under the impression that the scholarship, coupled with my fin aid, would essentially allow me to attend the school for free. Doesn't work like that. They will restructure your financial aid package, but the bottom line still remains: you pay your EFC.</p>
<p>First of all, congratulations on the scholarship!</p>
<p>Schools have a Cost of Attendance that includes tuition, room & board, fees and personl/travel expenses. Some schools show you the COA (Vanderbilt does) and others show you just the tuition/room/board/fees portion. When the school figures out your financial need, they use the COA, which is bigger than just tuition/room/board/fees. You probably won't be able to figure all of this out yourself ... call the financial aid office! While it is true that you will be responsible for your EFC, if the school pads its COA nicely, you may find that you will make out better than you think.</p>
<p>bump....................................</p>
<p>so i will still need to work during the summer to meet my EFC. am i better of not accepting the scholarship? kelsmom--penn uses the COA.</p>
<p>If the $ comes out the same and there are no problems with renewing the scholarship each year, why not take it out? It will make a nice listing on your resume when you apply for scholarships, internships and grad school.</p>
<p>It's happened to me</p>
<p>This is in response to those postings who say that the student/parent must pay the EFC out of pocket. Please be aware that this is NOT always the case. At the University I would for, many of our students do NOT come out of pocket for their EFC. For example: Our Cost of attendance is around $24k for an undergrad (living allowance, tuition, books). Actual expense is closer to about $10k (books, tuition). I process one student last month with an EFC of 99,999. The student's award packet was for $7,500.00 in loans (independent student). Another one I processed had an EFC of @ 45k and she was given $3,500 in unsub and $10k in PLUS Loans (dependent). Neither situation called for them coming up with their EFC out of pocket. For our students who receive outside scholarships (which are few and far between because of the program in which I process for), rarely are their loans reduced and never are their grants. I even have some students whose tuition is paid 100% by an outside scholarship and they still receive any grants they are eligible to receive as well as their full loan eligibility. </p>
<p>The key is to look at the total cost of attendance and the specific formula for calculating need. Typically it is prescribed COA - Total Aid Received [grants (Pell, SEOG, ACG, Smart, etc) - Scholarships - Reimbursement - Federal Work Study] - EFC = Total Need for subsidized Loans. For non-need based loans: COA - Total Aid Received - Sub Loans. Parent PLUS: COA - Total Aid Received - Sub/Unsub Loans. The total of the "Total Aid Received", Sub Loans, Unsub Loans, Perkins Loan, and Parent PLUS Loans cannot exceed the total cost of attendance. The EFC is not added to this calculation...it is not EFC + Total Aid Rec'd + Loans. This figure can be more than the Total cost of attendance.</p>
<p>The important thing in the post above is that at this particular school, outside scholarships do not affect grants or institutional scholarships. This is not always the case, so it is important to find out school policy when comparing aid packages.</p>
<p>I must disagree with the idea that a family does not pay its EFC if it uses loans to cover it. They ARE paying their EFC when they take out loans!! This is NOT free money. Families must consider the cost of loans when they use them. This is not to say that they shouldn't take out the loans (although they may find better ways to finance than PLUS loans, IMO) --- but it is a caution that they should look at each piece of the puzzle when seeing how much things actually cost --- and realize that loans do not come without associated costs.</p>
<p>kelsmom, I would partially agree that taking out Stafford, Perkins and PLUS loans could be considered as paying out of pocket..but the main concept I was trying to undo is the idea that the EFC must always be paid out of pocket. I have seen so many posts on this message board stating that scholarships and loans cannot erase a student's EFC...and this is just not the case at every school. Blanket statements like that can actually cause more harm, as students/parents might stop looking for outside scholarships for fear they will always lose their grants and school-issued schoalrships.</p>
<p>You are right about not stopping the search for outside scholarships. My brother attended a college planning workshop & the presenter actually told them that they don't need to bother with outside scholarships if they are going to be eligible for financial aid, because it will end up being a waste of time ... two bad assumptions: 1) that the financial aid package will be all grants and 2) that these grants will always be taken away due to outside scholarships ... PLUS, what about using the scholarships instead of loans?! I can't believe the advice. </p>
<p>Parents & students, do not assume that outside scholarships are ever a waste of time!!</p>
<p>My son has been awarded merit based scholarships through university of Missouri-Rolla and a small grant...he has been applying for every outside scholarship possible and has one several now. It does not affect the small grant (it would have affected the Stafford loans had we accepted them...but we declined them). We were looking at paying for just the room, board, and books but with the outside scholarships we are down to a very small amount of money for the next two years. Junior and Senior year will be a little more due to a scholarship that is good for the first two years and several that were just a one time deal.</p>
<p>Believe me....outside scholarships are not a waste of time!!!!</p>
<p>thanks. this post was really helpful because i'm encountering the same confusion since my need was overmet by outside scholarships.</p>
<p>You can ask to have your scholarship reduced so that it will pay for the loans and work study portion of your scholarship. They will save the extra money for future winners.</p>
<p>If your EFC if lower than the estimated cost to attend the institution, is it almost guaranteed that you will recieve at least enough loans to cover the rest of the cost (im asking specifically about public schools in cali).</p>
<p>Student who receive $$$$$ from outside scholarships, can pay their share of work-study and summer job. However, Ivies do not lower parental EFC. Any extra money after $5500 for work-study and summer job lowers the $$$$$ grants given by the Ivy schools. We are now happy that most of this year (and fingers crossed may be next three years) works study and loans are paid by private scholarship worth $5,500 each year. With scholarship money, one can buy up to $2500 in laptop or computers as a freshman in college (only first year school allowed this exemption). Some scholarships are willing to pay scholarship money during graduate studies. That is a bonus. Ask the scholarship people, they tend to do it.</p>
<p>really?? i received exactly $5k in totaly from outside scholarship it covers of my loans and part of work study.</p>