My S just received the email inviting him to apply for the Harvey Scholarship. All applicants are required to complete the FAFSA by March 1, 2017 in order to remain in consideration for the scholarship which leads me to believe there is a need based component in addition to merit based considerations, although the selection criteria doesn’t specifically mention anything about it.
Does anyone know why the FAFSA is required?
Congrats on the invite- my S just received the same email yesterday. Some colleges seem to require the FAFSA be filled out annually in conjunction with merit awards. My older S has a full ride at another school and they don’t require it, so we’ve only filled it out once for him.
My guess is that like many schools, they want to maximize the funds with any potential offset. If a kid is Pell grant eligible then perhaps the school will replace some of the merit with the Pell, thus making the big pot of Harvey $ last that much longer.
I didn’t see a need component to it either.
@missbwith2boys Thank you for your response. That makes perfect sense and is very helpful. This is the first time we’ve been through this, so we are still learning along the way. Congrats to your son as well and good luck!
If the scholarship covers tuition, would the Pell not be used for room and board? Adversity.
It’s a full ride scholarship, so it covers everything, not just tuition.
Copied from post by JulieCC
aN-aN-NaN at NaN:aN am edited February 2015
My son was invited to apply last spring. There were about 675 of the 800+ freshmen class invited. From there, 34 were semi-finalists (son was one) and then 12 finalists. It is SUPER competitive, not only with the essay but also the semi-final interview.
We’re not sure why our son wasn’t selected but he was 15 at the time of interview (a 16 y.o. junior now) and our income is “high”. Not sure if they decided on kids who otherwise couldn’t attend w/o out.
It’s NOT a “full ride”. It’s tuition and books - no housing (which is ~$12k/year). It also includes international study.
I would suggest watching the YouTube videos about the program.
@Shoestring1 Thanks!
I think Mines also gender balance the Harvey Scholars so a full 50% girls get the award although about 30% of Mines students are girls. So boys will have a very hard time winning, so much competition. They also seem to balance out the majors so not all 12 winners can be petroleum engineers for instance but a few will be. Look at who won in the past to guage your chances. Harvey Scholars do outreach , so ask yourself if you want to do outreach, as it adds to your workload at Mines.
My post above is COPIED from a previous post as stated at the top. I received a PM from someone thinking it was my post and asking if I could provide an idea of the type of questions that were asked in the interview with my son and recommendation of things to include in the app. My response was that would be UNFAIR.