Since merit aid comes before financial aid, is there really any chance of it being useful without a full ride if you need substantial financial aid? And are outside scholarships at all pointful when you need a lot of financial aid?
Yes, because many schools will let you replace loans and/or work/study with outside aid first. And it is always great for the impressiveness of your resume to have awards to list.
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Since merit aid comes before financial aid, is there really any chance of it being useful without a full ride if you need substantial financial aid?
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When you say that you need “substantial FA”, then what do you mean? Are you low income? Or do your parents have a good income, but can’t pay much for college? How much can your family pay each year?
For many people, getting a tuition scholarship (not a free ride) can make college affordable. It just depends on your situation.
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And are outside scholarships at all pointful when you need a lot of financial aid? <<<<
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Sometimes, but don’t let those fool you. They’re often only for one year.
@BrownParent that’s interesting to know. Every school I talked to said that financial aid was considered after all merit aid.
@mom2collegekids Our financial situation is weird, with things like having to pay for private school not really influencing financial aid decisions. We can afford to pay $6,000 or so a year, and my parents are really adamant that I don’t have any loans.
To me, it looks like most non-full ride scholarships are for trivial (compared to full tuition) amounts. For example, my dream school’s largest scholarship is for half of tuition, and I haven’t seen many better options (although the school in question isn’t terribly fussed with financial aid, so they may not be a fair example- except that I’ve found little even matching).
It all depends on the school and the scholarship. In general, having merit scholarship still help as mentioned above. But there are situations that merit aid make no difference. For instance, if you have no loan but only grant, the merit scholarship may just offset the grant amount. That happened to my D last year. Also, certain scholarships may have some limitation. My D got a small but renewable scholarship from the state. It specifically said cannot be stack with other state grant. So even my D has loan this year, that scholarship just offset the grant amount. Nevertheless, her institutional scholarship will still replace loans and workstudy.
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@BrownParent that's interesting to know. Every school I talked to said that financial aid was considered after all merit aid.
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FA is after merit aid. I think BrownParent is talking about OUTSIDE merit.
however, since most schools gap, it really depends on the school as to how an award will benefit you.
I think you’re misunderstanding @brownparent 's post. At some schools that meet need, if you receive an outside merit scholarship, then they’ll apply that to loans and work-study.
BUT…not all do this.
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financial situation is weird, with things like having to pay for private school not really influencing financial aid decisions. <<<
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^^ What does that mean?
We can afford to pay $6,000 or so a year, and my parents are really adamant that I don’t have any loans.
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Loans will likely be in your FA pkg.
What are your stats? what schools are on your app list?
For my daughter’s first year, we didn’t have need based aid, but she had a school merit scholarship, an athletic scholarship, a state grant, a state merit award (bright futures), and an outside private grant. All stacked. This year she has all those except the outside one, but now qualifies for some need based aid. Still stacks because it is not from the institution.
If you know you will get 100% need based aid, and that loans won’t be in that package, good for you. Most schools do not give 100% need grant so you’ll have to make up the gap with loans or, sometimes, they’ll let you have an outside scholarship.
You are right that IF a school gives 100% need based aid, it is probably a waste of time applying for outside merit scholarships, especially the little ones. However, someone posted earlier that Harvard allows a certain amount of outside awards before it starts reducing your aid; I think it was about $6000 to buy a computer and cover some personal expenses.
It’s up to you if you want to take a chance and apply to some.
@mom2collegekids I’m applying to all three UMasses (2 have full rides, Amherst is just… there), UMaryland (full ride available), Emerson (completely unaffordable but my dream), Brandeis (probably unaffordable even if I get in), Bar Ilan (very cheap, but only three majors so a fallback), and Harvard (you can start laughing now).
I have around a 3.7 GPA and a 2120 on the SAT (I’m retaking in October).
@twoinanddone If I get into Harvard, I’ll probably get enough financial aid. If not, my mom is open to taking out small loans for me to attend Harvard (although I’d still rather not).
I have applied to a few (they haven’t been decided yet), I’m just wondering if it’s worth the effort to try to find more.
Oops, double post, ignore.
You are kind of contradicting yourself. You state that at UMd, there is a full ride available, but your initial question was why would you apply for merit aid. That full ride IS merit aid. Wouldn’t you rather have a full ride merit scholarship than take the chance of getting full need based aid? If the tuition is $30,000, would you rather apply for merit and get the $30,000 as merit, or take the chance on need based filling that entire need? What if Maryland said “You need financial aid and qualify for it. We’ll give you $6k as a pell grant, $15,000 in institutional need based aid, and loans of $6000. You can have work study of $3k, so that equals $30k.” Which would you rather have? And if you took the merit $$, you’d still get the Pell grant to put in your pocket.
@Hamotron I don’t understand how you are making the statement that you will get enough financial aid at Harvard, but not the other schools. You are right that Harvard meets full need and that the other schools might gap you and not meet full need, but at this point you do not know that.
I get the impression that you may not qualify for much financial aid from some of your other posts–which is why your statement about Harvard is confusing. Schools like Harvard won’t provide merit aid and may end up costing more than a school that offers a good merit aid package.
Your stats do not seem high enough for you to realistically count on full-ride scholarship, particularly at a school like Maryland.
I know you say that you NEED substantial financial aid (sounds like parents pay for yeshiva for your siblings)–but the question is, does your family QUALIFY for substantial financial aid? If not, the best you can hope for is merit aid. It is improbable that you would qualify for much more than $15k to $20K at schools that offer merit aid ( and that is if you are extremely lucky!) Which would mean an out of pocket cost of about $35K a year at private colleges.
Again, this would be easier for you if you knew and shared your EFC and ran the net price calculators at schools you are interested in.
@uskoolfish I’m basing this off the calculator’s and what I’ve been told. I don’t actually know anything, you’re right.
We qualify for some financial aid. The real problem is that my parents don’t want me to take out loans, which most colleges assume you’ll do.
UMaryland is a stretch for the full ride. I’ve been told that if I get my SAT up, I have a chance. We’ll see what happens.
Dayschool, not yeshiva (yes, it makes no difference to anyone not us.) I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to see.
I don’t know my EFC. My parents both work at non-profits, so their salaries are extremely variable. For my sister they were able to pay $6,000 (no, that’s not really possible and it was a huge mess, hence why I’m trying to get infomation early).
It sounds to me like it’s just a game of chance as to whether merit or financial aid will be bigger, so I guess I’ll just try my best to get both and see what happens.
@Hamotron Almost all colleges will expect you to take out subsidized loans and will probably offer work study. Those loans will be be from $5,500 to $7,500 a year depending on the year you are in college. Sounds like your parents will either need to come up with that money or allow you to take the loan offered.
The bigger issue is that your expected family contribution might be well above what your parents are willing to pay-- so if your parents will only pay $6,000 a year, then the difference would have to be in unsubsidized loans if your parents don’t have the resources. And then on top of that, many schools still gap and that would require bigger loan amounts.
The truth is that the information that you need early is not from the schools, it is from your parents. They need to become involved in this process and need to run the financial calculators based on their real income from this year. Without that information, you are just running around in circles and may be researching a lot of schools that are unrealistic.
I don’t see how there will be many schools that will cost below the $15,000 or $16,000 a year you would need to pay for tuition, room and board in-state in MA.
Good luck!
@uskoolfish My parents are busy, but you guys are right- I should try to get them to do some calculators with me. Thank you.
As busy as they are, sitting down with you before you apply could save a lot of time and money later as applying to colleges that are not going to be within your price range is wasting time and money.
Also, it is possible that the amount of money you need and the amount of financial aid the college determines that you need could be different amounts. My hope is that you do not end up without affordable choices on your list. Applying to Harvard is not something to laugh about, but with the slim chance of admission to all applicants, it isn’t something to rely on. Neither are many “full ride” scholarships as they can be just as competitive. The UMD students who are awarded one have the stats to be admitted to an Ivy, and often are faced with choosing between an Ivy and the scholarship benefits.
Merit aid is very helpful to students in that space where full pay is not affordable and they are not likely to get much need based aid. The best chance of being awarded merit aid is to be at the top of the application pool. So, while many students look at “reaching” for colleges, looking at colleges that are not a reach, perhaps not the most sought after ones- may result in a merit award. Colleges use merit aid to attract students, and colleges like UMD have a lot of applicants to choose from- which is why merit aid is competitive there. Some colleges have automatic merit aid, but they may not offer what you are looking for.
When finances are a concern, sometimes there needs to be a compromise when considering “fit”- and considering a wider range of colleges. I recall a while back that a young woman on CC received a merit award from Yeshiva U- so while it may not be one of your top choices, I think they may consider the needs of families who may be paying for day schools. Another possibility is women’s colleges. Rather than think of a college, also think of an area where there is a good size Jewish population. Baltimore schools- Goucher, Atlanta- Agnes Scott, may not have large observant communities on campus but would have access to them.
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I’m applying to all three UMasses (2 have full rides, Amherst is just… there), UMaryland (full ride available),
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I haven’t looked at those “full ride” awards, but your Oct SAT would have to jump by about 200 points for you to be a serious contender.
Don’t misunderstand the UMass free tuition awards…those are TINY because tuition is frozen so they charge mega-sized “fees” which aren’t covered by the tuition award.
Financial aid is made up of grants and loans. I think perhaps you mean grants vs. loans?
My son has merit aid where he is going to college based on SAT scores. Then he qualifies for subsidized and unsubsidized loans. The remainder we will be paying.
Some colleges like Penn say they are full grant for all financial aid awarded, but often this is not 100% of need. The grants are need-based, not merit-based. Average loans for Penn students are around 20K I believe, over four years.
How much your parents pay is one thing. Realizing that unless you have a full ride, you will be taking out 8K or so of loans each year, that may matter a lot to you. 32K of loans to pay back when you graduate vs. 0K of loans to pay back makes a difference early in one’s career.
Unfortunately, as was our case, if your parents have pay that is inconsistent, what their total income was for 2015, assuming you are a senior in 2015-2016, is what will dictate any FA. If it was a “good year” for them in terms of income, likely you will receive less FA than you could have if it was a “bad year”. Also equity in your house (house value minus total mortgage), if your parents own their home, will affect certain college’s FA.
You do have to look at the costs outside of tuition. ‘full ride’ versus ‘full tuition’ - you still have room/board and lots of other costs/fees. You older sibling’s experiences can help you with some insight.
Are any of the schools commuter? If commuter, factor in the costs with that.
What do you want to study? Do you want to remain in your geographic area? How many schools have you visited? What is your parents’ input beyond what they can pay?
@mom2collegekids Can you give me a better description of these fees? Maybe a link?
And my scores are well within the range to get a full ride to UMass Boston and probably UMass Lowell. I need to bring my math SAT way up for UMaryland; that’s why I’m retaking. I’ll probably be getting tutoring and hopefully I’ll do a lot better this time.
@SO SConcern My sister’s either living with a relative or possibly going off to Israel, so room and board wasn’t a factor in her college decisions.
UMass Boston would be commuter, which would save a lot (except for train/ subway costs).
I want to be an English major, Creative Writing preferred. I would also like an English teaching certificate (high school), but I could do without that. My eventual goal is to edit novels for a publishing company while writing my own on the side. I’ve visited UMass Boston and Emerson so far, but because of scheduling concerns with my school I’d rather delay further visits until I’m trying to decide between schools that accepted me (unless it makes a huge difference in acceptance prospects). What do you mean by input?
https://www.umb.edu/bursar/tuition_and_fees
Tuition,mandatory fees, and educational operations fees for one semester - $6,341. Of that, only $857 is tuition - the rest is fees.
Tuition goes to the general assembly of MA. Fees go to the university. So it’s in the best interest of the university to charge primarily fees rather than tuition. But it’s very discouraging to realize what a “full-tuition” scholarship is worth in MA.