<p>Argh! What do you think of this....
my daughter is finishing her second year in college - we don't have a financial aid award yet.
I called today and the secretary tells me they can't give awards until the end of May/beginning of June since they need their grade in before they make awards.</p>
<p>This isn't true for my other kids' colleges. What the heck??</p>
<p>JustaMomof4: It is true of some other colleges, though. My son’s college regularly doesn’t send out packages for upperclassmen until June. Usually, FA offices deal with the incoming freshmen, and returning students have a later date to send in documents, etc. </p>
<p>So it’s not strange, it’s just that you’ve been lucky with the other schools.</p>
<p>But they don’t HAVE to right? They choose to.</p>
<p>If they base their awards for returning students in part on performance, or if they have awards that require a specific academic performance to renew then yes, they “have” to – to the extend that FA offices “have” to do anything that isn’t federally mandated, I guess. </p>
<p>Honestly, I’m not one of the experts. I just know that in my experience – as a student and as a parent – our schools have always waited until early June. In fact, my son’s college sometimes doesn’t send them out until mid-July.</p>
<p>I think it just varies by school. My daughter’s school seems to process returning students FA fairly promptly. She does have 2 merit scholarships (non need) and a Need based federal grant (SMART) that have minimum requirements (GPAs, different for each, and minimum hours, also different, for the scholarships and GPA and being in a SMART eligible major for the SMART). The awards are in her offer but if she misses the requirements between now and the fall (including any summer classes) then they can betaken away.</p>
<p>My son’s school is just slow.</p>
<p>Both of my kids received their FA pkgs in June/July during their upperclass years. In fact, they weren’t required to have their forms/taxes in until May. We liked being able to do our taxes, then send in all the forms/taxes all at once. NO updates needed. The FA pkgs didn’t change all that much year to year. My oldest’s school gapped so even as our income went up, she never lost any grants or scholarships. She even received additional scholarships as the years went by (so I guess grades and applications needed to be reviewed at the end of spring term (the end of May). No way could they have processed her info any earlier.</p>
<p>My D’s school doesn’t do upperclass awards until grades are posted, either. Tuition pay is supposed to begin in May, but we don’t get the award package until June.</p>
<p>The public school where I work awards earlier. The downside to that is some awards are reduced later if the student’s grades are below the minimum for a particular grant.</p>
<p>My S attends the same school his sister attended. We just received his preliminary FA award for the fall. </p>
<p>I almost fell over as the EARLIEST we usually got hers was in mid July. One year I received it two weeks before the term started. </p>
<p>We have to wait for some of his awards to be added since they are based on grades, like the ACG, or on state funding which has not yet been allocated.</p>
<p>D’s school gets them out in May. Nobody seems to excited, because if you’ve got a scholarship that requires a certain gpa to keep, you probably know if you’re at risk, and otherwise the university’s FA is pretty predictable. </p>
<p>They work hard to get out FA for new students because they don’t have experience with the school and need the FA to make the go/no go decision.</p>
<p>S’s college generally gets them to us in late April to early May. The finaid office actually called me a couple weeks ago because they are working on S1 and S2 at the same time (S2 applied as an incoming freshman and was accepted to S1’s college but hasn’t decided yet). The finaid office told us we’d be in the first 200 that were done for returning students but since there was a freshman and they try to get those out first of April they just wanted to give me a heads up on the timing and a general idea how it would all play out with 2 at the same school. My son’s school generally processes returning students based on FAFSA submittal…first in/first out…but I do know that only the freshman finaid letters get done in early April at S’s college. I’m guessing they base the merit scholarships for returning students on cume GPA in the most recent semester to continue merit since the finaid is awarded before the second semester grades are posted.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids EVER had their financial aid as returning students before summer. We began the monthly payment plan in August for DD and in July for DS and we always had to ESTIMATE because we did not have the finaid package. We knew some of it because their merit awards were guaranteed via GPA. But the official award didn’t come for returning students until summer.</p>
<p>Current school releases award information mid-May for renewing students. Quite the bummer.</p>
<p>Wow - this is amazing since this is my fourth child in college entering her third year. I have another kid at another school who got her award weeks ago. Last year, the award was not this late - we had it mid-end April. In fact, about a month ago we got a request for verification and I sent that off. I called to make sure it arrived (there was a problem with usps tracking) and they did get it and I was told she would be processed in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Frustrating especially this year since our financial status has changed significantly. She now qualified for a Pell Grant. I really need to know if the Pell grant will take away from her institutional grant or not. There is no way I can know what will be expected of us and the bill is due July 1. ARGH!</p>
<p>^^Could you call them and ask them the specific question regarding Pell and institutional grant? They may be able to answer that especially if it’s a smaller college and not a huge flagship institution.</p>
<p>I know our state schools have been in limbo because the legislature has been slow to approve the state budget. The blockage may be upstream from the fin aid office.</p>
<p>The secretary asked if I wanted to speak with the director of FA. Naturally, it went to her voice mail and she has yet to return my call.</p>
<p>Olymom -that is typical for state schools and they don’t typically award institutional grants…
this is a private college and she will get an institutional grant but I have no idea how much…</p>