How to Get Outside Scholarships?

Does anyone have any advice on how to get outside scholarships? I’ve tried Fastweb multiple times, but I have no luck. And then I was told that it is very, very difficult to win anything because you are basically going against everyone on the internet. I want to transfer to NYU, but NYU does not have any scholarships for transfer students. They also give out very little financial aid. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

How much of the cost do you already have covered? In other words, how much do you still need for an academic year at NYU?

^ Key question. You won’t be able to bridge much at all as a transfer. You might get a few thousand $. That’s on the high side.

Fastweb is just a database of scholarship. It just makes finding scholarships easier, but easier for everybody. The easier (less competitive) ones are usually from your local community or your parents’ employer. After all, most of these external scholarships are small and non-renewable. It is unlikely to give you much help.

Why is NYU better than your current school?

I’ll stick my neck out here. As you already noted, NYU does not give merit scholarships to transfer students. In addition, NYU is not particularly generous to transfers when it comes to need based aid and the school doesn’t meet full need anyway.

NYU costs over $70,000 a year. In my opinion, there is NO WAY to fully fund an NYU education as a transfer student. In other words…you won’t be able to find $70,000 in scholarships per year.

My question…why NYU?

ETA… From other threads, you are currently a CC student in CA. It also sounds like you are a CA resident. I would strongly suggest you look at the Cal State Us which are about 1/2 the cost of attending NYU.

@Madison85 The current school I’m in is a community college.

Again:

How much of the cost do you already have covered? In other words, how much do you still need for an academic year at NYU?

NYU costs over $70,000 a year. How much of that can you or your family pay without taking loans?

What’s the matter with CA public universities?

OP is planning on law school after undergrad, so he really needs to avoid undergraduate debt.

Well… My parents have $50,000 set aside for my college funds. And just by going to a community college and having the Governor’s Waiver, I do not have to pay for any of the classes I’m taking. Because of that, and working as a part time student, I’ve been able to save $20,000. Still, I would need enough money to do another 1.5 years there, since I’m planning on transferring in the Spring of 2017, if I were to get accepted. So that would be another $105,000 needed. I’m planning on continuing working to chip off some of that money… I guess the rest would just have to be loans? Yeah… I am planning on going to a law school afterwards.

I know the debt is an issue. But… I can’t think of any other school that I would equally like to go to as much as NYU. And if I get in, it would be a hard decision.

A decent salary coming out of even a top law school is absolutely NOT something you can rely on. The field is incredibly over saturated.

Are your parents going to take out $100k in Parent Plus loans?

^ Yes. You as a student can only take out $27K in loans (total over your four years). $5.5K as a freshman, topping out at $7.5K as a Junior and Senior.

I still haven’t heard a decent reason for you to attend NYU. Do you think you will have a better chance of getting accoted to law school? Do you think there is some law school cache for going to NYU undergrad? If so…you are wrong.

You are an instate resident for CA. Your current savings plus parent sings would,cover the cost as an instate resident at any number of public universities in CA.

Honestly…you haven’t said anything here…or anywhere else on this forum that is a compelling reason tomato to NYU.

NYU is a very exoensive undergrad school. If you really plan to go to law school…save your money for that. Get an excellent LSAT score and a terrific GPA. Then apply to law school…without the debt of a couple of years at NYU.

@thumper1 There are a couple reasons why I want to go to NYU. For one, I feel like I’m more suited for private schools because there are smaller class sizes. I mean, even if I do stay in California, I would be looking to go to private schools that are in that state, like USC. I like a lot of the programs that NYU offers, and I want to get involved in those programs, like Transfermation and alternative spring breaks. But I guess the MAIN reason why I want to go to NYU is because I REALLY want to leave California. (Yes, I know that is childish, but I am not happy here in California. I’ve gotten used to everything here after spending my entire life here that nothing much excites me anymore.) I need a change of scene, somewhere that I can see myself changing and growing in. ( I guess maybe I can look into other colleges over on the East Coast where financial aid is better than at NYU. More affordable colleges too, like maybe Fordham. Or at least I’ve heard that Fordham is a lot more affordable than NYU.) And also NYU and NYC itself has amazing networking opportunities. I’ve had several mutual acquaintances of mine transfer over to NYU. And they come from the same CC as me. I would not necessarily consider them to be rich people, so I wonder how they are managing to afford NYU.

Your friends who don’t seem wealthy are either wealthier than you think…or they are taking out huge loans to attend NYU.

Fordham is not more affordable than NYU. Not really.

Neither college guarantees to meet full need…and neither college does. Both are expensive private schools.

You will be transferring as an upperclassmen regardless of where you go. In most cases, classes in the major, for upperclassmen, are a lot smaller than the gen ed requirements that everyone has to take.

The bottom line is that you won’t be able to attend NYU or Fordham on the money you currently have saved. Both are too costly.

Also, you seem to think that you will only need to be at the new school for 1 1/2 years. I would strongly suggest that you make sure this is the case. There are many colleges that won’t award a degree to students unless they attend THAT college for two years. Also, you need to be certain all of your courses will transfer with no difficulty. This isn’t a “given” at these private universities.

BUT your community college probably DOES have articulation agreements with the four year publics in CA that would make credit transfer more likely.

In any event, you won’t be able to attend if you can’t pay the bills. Will your parents cosign additional loans to make these NY schools affordable?

Many students cannot the school they really like to go. When a school is not affordable, a school of dream would become a nightmare. You should make sure it is affordable to you before applying to transfer. As you have already known, there is little merit aid, if any, from the school for transfer students.

NYU and Fordham are too expensive and NYU is totally overrated in my opinion. There are thousands of other schools outside of California that are going to be more affordable than those 2 schools.

Will you qualify for any need based aid at private schools? Try running a Net Price Calculator for an east coast private school to see what your estimated family contribution is.

Another idea is to stick it out in California (maybe move to the other side of California from where you are now) and go to Law school on the east coast.