<p>Is it based on merit? For example, if I am very qualified to attend a school, will colleges be more likely to meet my needs in terms of financial aid?</p>
<p>Need based aid is usually not based on merit. In most cases merit scholarships are awarded through the admissions office and are determined by whether or not the student meets the standards (a minimum GPA and/or a minimum SAT or ACT score). Need based aid is awarded through the financial aid department and is determined by set standards for government aid, or the school’s financial standards for the school-supplied aid. The need is determined by the income and assets of the student and his/her family.</p>
<p>Depends on the school. There are some schools, like Willamette, who give generous merit aid but also base their need -based aid on quality of student. For example, student A and student B might get the same amount of “need-based financial aid” from a college. However, if student A is the more desirable, then student A could get more grant and less loan while student B gets less grant and more loan. </p>
<p>Not many schools are like that though. For most, there is a clear divide between merit and need-based aid. If you are highly qualified for school, you might get some merit aid which is fantastic! After that, the financial aid department looks at your FAFSA and perhaps the CSS Profile and figures out how much you need based on income and assets.</p>
<p>There are also merit aid with need component. In that case, students with great scores and have need may get more aid.</p>
<p>Most need based aid is calculated based on parent I come and assets primarily. At some schools, packaging of need based aid is preferential, meaning that if you are a sought after applicant, you might get a package with more grants than loans. Also for schools,that do not meet full need, if you are a sought after student, you might get more aid than a less competitive applicant.</p>
<p>BUT…YMMV. And in all cases above, if you do not have financial need, your need based financial aid package will not be increased because of your academic merit.</p>
<p>ETA…there is a net price calculator on each college website. You should run your family financial figures on the ones for colleges you are interested in attending. This will give you an ESTIMATE of your potential need based aid.</p>
<p>"""
34 ACT: 35 E, 34 M, 33 R, 35 S
4.0 UW, school doesn’t weight GPAs (it may drop after this trimester )
(school doesn’t rank)</p>
<p>By the time I graduate, I’ll have taken 5 AP’s, 6 Honors courses, and 1 dual enrollment at a local CC.
ECs are low:
- Film Club (3 yrs)
- Chess Club (3 yrs)
- Guitar Club (1 yr)
- Recycling Team (2 Yrs)
- Summer in the City (volunteer in various urban gardens over the summer in Detroit, 2 summers)
- National Honor Society (2 yrs, next year I will be a representative of the senior class on NHS board)
- Tutoring kids in math and science
- At least 250 hours of community service total
- Will have a part time job this summer at a grocery store</p>
<p>Awards:
6 departmental awards. (2 for Japanese, 1 for Earth Science, 1 for Chemistry, 1 for English, and 1 for History)</p>
<p>My father attended University of Michigan Ann Arbor, so I am legacy.</p>
<p>I am probably just gonna apply LSA and transfer.
“”"</p>
<p>You are instate for UMich. Are your parents low income? UMich meets need, but uses CSS profile to determine need.</p>
<p>Have your parents run the NPC on each school’s website.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids My parents are divorced. I usually live with my mom, and she makes about $45k/year. </p>
<p>If you are applying to University of Michigan, you will also have to complete the CSS Profile, and your father will have to complete the non-custodial parent profile…so HIS income and assets will also be considered.</p>
<p>As others have said, it depends upon the school. No school meets full need as defined by the FAFSA EFC. That number tends to be the minimum you will have to pay before getting federal financial aid. (PELL can be excluded). There FAFSA is the form you have to file for eligibility for federal aid, and that will use your mother’s income/assets and possibly yours. Primary Home equity not included in assets. </p>
<p>Those schools that tend to meet full need, tend to define that need themselves, often using the PROFILE form, and often BOTH parents financials are needed. A non custodial Parent form would likely be necessary for your father for those schools using PROFILE. THere are some exceptions, however, and you might want to look at what schools those are.</p>
<p>If you are in the upper echelon of students, someone a college really wants, merit aid from those schools that have it may be offered. Do be aware that merit is often integrated with the financial aid so unless you get a scholarship big enough to be more than fin aid, you could end up with about the same amounts. Do look at the schools on our board that have some large merit awards available.</p>
<p>In my state, financial aid is just that, and full need is generally met in terms of tuition and fees, but not for room and board. Doesn’t much matter if you are a top student or not, the aid is distributed pretty much evenly, though some of the state schools have merit which is a whole separate thing-need does not play a role in that. But there are schools that do give merit within need and the top applicants tend to get the better packages.</p>
<p>In theory, purely need-based aid is based only on your financial information, and that of your parents if you are a typical student attending college immediately or shortly after high school graduation. Different schools calculate “need” differently; use each school’s net price calculator for an estimate.</p>
<p>This is in contrast to merit scholarships based only on your achievement.</p>
<p>There may also be scholarships or aid that combine both need and merit aspects. These can include merit scholarships whose awards vary by need, or “preferential packaging” of nominally need-based aid (i.e. no merit scholarship is formally named, but you may get a better “need-based” financial aid award than another admitted student with lesser credentials).</p>
<p>The schools that give the best aid, including UMich, will ask for BOTH parents income info (and the info of any new spouses).</p>
<p>the NPCs wont give an accurate result for you because both parents info will be used, but you could run it twice, once with mom’s info, once with dad’s info (including any new spouses) and then add the amounts that they are expected to pay (dont add grants, add the amounts that the parents are supposed to pay, but dont add what the child is supposed to pay).</p>
<p>if your dad pays your mom child/spouse support, you need to include that in her income.</p>
<p>so if mom’s result shows a parent payment of $2000 per year, and dad’s results shows a parent payment of $15k per year, then your family will have to pay $17k per year.</p>
<p>You need to talk to both parents to find out how much each will pay towards college. If your parents NPC results are similar to the above example, but your dad says that he will only pay as much as your mom does, then you obviously will have a huge problem. (Divorced situations can be tricky…sometimes NCPs refuse to pay, refuse to provide info, or wont pay a 'fair share." and sometimes they may pay for one year, but then a new spouse puts his/her foot down and wont provide info. )</p>
<p>You need to find out NOW, how much each will pay and find out which schools are affordable.</p>
<p>Either way, you need to identify some financial safeties for you. With your stats there are schools that will give you huge merit. Apply to a couple of those schools. Apply to a couple that FOR SURE will give you free tuition or more…just as back up schools…just in case over the next year parents decide that they wont/cant pay much.</p>
<p>what was your psat score?</p>
<p>I forgot I have responded to OP in another thread and he is a likely UMich CoE candidate next year. Based on your current score, you are not likely to receive merit aid at UMich. Nevertheless, if you retake ACT and improve your score a little bit, you may be eligible for merit aid (assuming there is no big drop in GPA). As for need based aid, UMich does meet 100% need for in state students in forms of grant, loan and work study. You should try their NPC and look at their sample financial aids on their web site.
UMich uses both CSS profile and FAFSA. They will use the FAFSA info to verify CSS profile and does not require IDOC supplement. For private fund, they use the CSS profile data but it is only required for freshman year. For State/Federal aid, they use FAFSA data. UMich’s NPC is quite accurate but they only give you a range on everything. You will see the amount range of loan, work study, and grant based on your data input. </p>
<p><<<
UMich’s NPC is quite accurate but they only give you a range on everything.
<<<<</p>
<p>I doubt it is accurate when parents are divorced.</p>
<p>Of course, special situation would make the estimate difficult. Self employ or with business income are hard to estimate with NPC too. But still, use the data from both parents to get a bottom line estimate. After all, Michigan is need met for in state. So at the end, it is not how much aid you can get, it is how much your parents are willing to pay (if at or below EFC).</p>
<p>Do you know anything about Michigan State’s financial aid? @billcsho thanks for all your help by the way</p>
<p>MSU does NOT have aid like UMich. UMich has a big endowment. </p>
<p>use the NPC on MSU’s website.</p>
<p>OTOH, Michigan State has some excellent merit scholarships (up to full ride) student could compete for.</p>
<p>Check out the Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride thread at the top of the forum. If you are interested in Engineering, Louisiana Tech and Alabama-Huntsville would be good safeties for you (automatic full ride).</p>
<p>UMich guarantees to meet full need for all accepted instate students. Michigan State does not.</p>
<p>And yes…Michigan State does have merit aid for high achieving admitted students. Not nearly as competitive for merit awards as UMich.</p>
<p>MSU requires only FAFSA. You are more likely to get more need based aid in loan at MSU. However, your score may get you a merit scholarship too. As merit aid is not shown in NPC, you should apply to MSU anyway as it is an in state public like UMich that it should be more affordable than other options.</p>
<p>with your act, you should get a decent award from MSU</p>
<p>run the NPC</p>