My son is a national merit finalist, and I was expecting that he’d also receive some other stacked scholarships on top of his award for being a NMF. We do not expect to qualify for any need based financial aid so we did not bother with the FAFSA. Is this going to cause a problem with receiving merit based offers?
Also, his howdy portal financial aid awards only shows the presidential endowed scholarship. Has anyone else that is in the same boat already received more information in award offers? Did you fill out the FAFSA? Did you also qualify for need based financial aid?
I have been told multiple times that we don’t have to fill out the FAFSA for a scholarship, but it’s bugging me that it says I have an incomplete requirement on the Financial Aid Portal: "We have not received your application for financial aid. If you wish to apply you will need to fill out the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA). " – In particular, I’m hoping for a Corps scholarship.
Some merit based ones do NOT need fafsa , but some do require it to be filled out – if you don’t file, you just wont be considered for those. We also had to file to be eligible for some non-university merit based scholarships. We do not qualify for need. You can decide what you want to do–either approach works. We did receive a couple of merit based ones that required filing.
To add to the above - we were discriminated against due to our high FAFSA amount for university based scholarships. I was quoted back our FAFSA number as reasoning for lack of scholarship by FA for my oldest (one child in school) along with her stats not compensating the lack of need- she was an academic admit, but at the bottom of the score portion & mid rank section. So you’ll need to weigh the pro/con for your child. Would she have gotten something if we had not filed? IDK, but my guess is no. I didn’t know enough at the time – I thought an academic admit was ‘high’ in the sea of applicants, turns out they are a dime a dozen in Mays which runs about 80% academic or auto admits.
Well I just heard back from Katelin Clark and she says all merit scholarships have been awarded except for lingering departmental or college awards. So I’m going to guess that was a negative against us. My son is above the academic admit requirements top 5% of class and 1460 SAT. But other than the national merit awards we currently haven’t received any additional scholarships which all of the past A&M parents swore up and down would happen.
We filed FAFSA and are not eligible for need. (Our EFC is higher than our income due to the fact that we co-own farmland, but that’s another story.) But, both boys have received scholarships. One got the PES and a small Opportunity, the other Corps 21, which was an upgrade from the Rudder. The first is still waiting to hear if he will receive a Corps scholarship.
@3boysmom92 We are also waiting to hear about a Corps scholarship. My son has free tuition due to the Hazlewood Act, but we still have to pay room and board. I’m hoping they will still give the $1000 scholarship that I hear that most get. I’m wondering if they won’t give the $1000 due to Hazlewood, which I understand.
@rvhappynow we got an email but only after bugging her and sending about 3 emails over the course of 3 days IIRC and then I left a voicemail which got us an email reply.
Is it normal for a NMF to not also qualify for additional merit scholarships? Stats are class rank = 11 out of 406, SAT = 1460. 4 year letterman in football. Some EC’s but not a lot. Many AP courses with almost all 5 AP scores.