<p>I'm applying to several schools that promise to cover 100% of demonstrated need, like Harvard and Stanford. According to their net price calculators, the tuition would be around 3-5 thousand a year. However, I'm also hoping to get a few thousand dollars from outside scholarships, including National Merit if I'm lucky enough. How would these affect my need-based aid? Technically, my need would be lower, so would the aid decrease by the amount I get from outside scholarships? Or would it stay the same no matter what?</p>
<p>Outside scholarships reduce your need, so most schools then reduce your need based financial aid accordingly.</p>
<p>Outside scholarships do reduce your need, and thus your need based aid. In most cases, self help forms of aid are reduced first…Direct and/or Perkins loans, and work study. If the outside scholarships exceed that amount, then institutional grants could be reduced. </p>
<p>You really MUST contact each college to find out their policies as these vary from school to school. </p>
<p>In most cases, your aid including school and outside awards cannot exceed the cost of attendance at your college. Most colleges will NOT allow these scholarships to reduce your family contribution either.</p>
<p>When you say your tuition would be 3-5K per year, I assume you’re talking about cash. But your financial aid package will in many cases also include work study and loans, which is money you will need to earn during the year, or eventually pay back. Usually (especially at those top tier schools) if they do include those self-help pieces in your package, you’ll be able to use your outside scholarship to replace those. So if you earn a $2500 NM scholarship, instead of $5500 in loans, you could reduce that to $3K. (Some of those schools do packages without loans as well, but you may still have work study that you could replace, and then still get a regular job if you wanted to work.)</p>
<p>Well, I’m new to this, but I think 3-5k is just total cost minus the need-based aid. Using the Stanford net price calculator as an example, the result I get is $60,800 for total cost; $55,400 for the “Estimated Scholarship/Grant”, and $5,400 as the estimated net price, of which my parents are expected to pay $400, the rest covered by my job (or any other means, I guess). The Estimated Student Loan value is 0. So, let’s say I get a 5k outside scholarship - will that be added to the net price, or does it mean that I won’t have to get a job during the first year? And I understand that no one can say for sure until I actually get the financial aid package, but I wanna hear any educated guesses on this, since I’m just trying to figure out the basics.</p>
<p>For Stanford in particular, they will reduce the amount that you are expected to contribute from summer and academic year earnings, as shown here:</p>
<p>[Outside</a> Awards : Stanford University](<a href=“Financial Aid : Stanford University”>Financial Aid : Stanford University)</p>
<p>So if you got $5K in scholarships, you wouldn’t need to get a job. But if you got $5400 in scholarships, they would reduce your grant aid by $400 and your parents would still be expected to pay the $400. (If that is a problem for them, since there are no loans in your package, you could get a Stafford loan to cover that $400.)</p>
<p>Thanks, that’s a lot more clear. I guess I’ll just check each school individually. I didn’t know that they had it all spelled out like that. Really useful.</p>
<p>That Stanford page is exceptional. Not all schools are that clear, but if you’re confused about what any of the other schools say, post here saying what their NPC said your package would consist of and what you’ve been able to figure out about their outside scholarship policy, and we can try to help you work it all out.</p>
<p>And if you get an outside scholarship to a school you are attending on a full ride, then what happens?</p>
<p>Your scholarship total cannot exceed the total cost of attendance, so if your “full ride” covers <em>everything</em> in your COA, tuition, R&B, books, transportation, etc. then your full ride scholarship would be reduced by the value of your outside scholarship (or I guess you could decline it and let them award it to someone else). If, as is more typical, you full ride doesn’t cover books, transportation and personal expenses listed in the school’s cost of attendance, then you’d usually be able to keep the scholarship funds toward that. Also in some cases like this, the school may work with you to increase the official COA in your case so you could keep more of the money. For example, if you need to buy a laptop the first year, if you will be living in more expensive housing than the average worked in, sometimes even if you want to join the school’s fitness center, or if you can show that your travel expenses will exceed the average included in the COA.</p>
<p>If you are in this very fortunate situation, you should talk to the school(s) involved to see how they will work that out with you.</p>
<p>Both of you should note that grant/scholarship aid beyond the cost of tuition is taxable income for the student.</p>
<p>Full ride has many definitions. </p>
<p>D1 had the Shipman at UMichigan a few years back when it covered tuition, R&B for OOS students. She also had the outside Byrd scholarship (which no longer exists), UM cut her a check at the end of the year for the Byrd minus some expenditures she had made. </p>
<p>Of course, like most things, this is likely to vary by school.</p>
<p>@mathmomvt</p>
<p>And I take it that “personal” can be quite liberally defined?</p>
<p>Personal expenses is a pre-defined category on the school’s official cost of attendance. It’s usually in the $1K to $2K range. If you have a specific reason why yours would be more, you might be able to get them to increase your COA accordingly, but they can’t/won’t let you keep scholarship money in excess of COA. I haven’t heard of a school allowing a vague increase in COA for high personal expenses. Usually it is for a particular additional expense.</p>
<p>Sigh, looks like country club memberships just won’t fly…</p>