Hello - I am curious to know if there are instances where merit aid is excluded from an acceptance offer due to high income/assets of the applicant family? In other words, for those schools that are transparent about offering merit scholarships for students meeting certain GPA/Test Score/State Residency requirements, is that aid basically guaranteed regardless of family financial profile or does the school use discretion such that higher income applicants may not receive? I appreciate any thoughts or experiences along these lines. Thanks!
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The vast majority of merit awards do not consider your income and assets. They are merit….which is based on your strength as an applicant.
Most don’t even require that you complete the financial aid application forms for merit aid only….so in that case…the colleges would not know your family income and assets.
There are some colleges where some merit awards DO consider your level of financial need. If that is the case, and you have no need…you might not get those awards. So check…
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Typically they will tell you upfront - merit or merit but preference given to those with need.
Typically, merit is irregardless of need but there are a few instances that some have noted on the board of colleges requiring a FAFSA, even to give merit. I’d say few - I saw one a couple years ago and the college told me it was posted that way in error.
I’d be surprised if you found any - but merit with a preference to need - you may see that - especially on the “additional” scholarships. But not typically on the auto or main merit scholarships.
Good luck.
I never felt they did with my older kids, but I think colleges are doing it now much more, and without announcing they are considering need.
@vistajay are you guessing this is the case, or do you have actual proof this is the case?
Just a feeling based on results I’ve seen this year, coupled with announced decisions of many schools that they are restricting merit aid in favor of providing more need-based aid.
A lot of schools have said they are transitioning from merit heavy to need-based heavy - as they try to diversify their student body to be more inclusive and the endowment has built with investment gains to justify this.
So it may be more a case - more money has transferred to the need based side from the merit based side.
But a merit scholarship should still be based on merit - but the pool of merit funds avail at many schools may have shrunk and so families who saw merit on a previous student may not see it the second time around. Or it may require much stronger stats than the first go round.
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I was a financial aid director, and I was in charge of scholarships. Merit scholarships in general do not require that there be demonstrated financial need, but some endowments do specify that the recipient of their scholarship have financial need. In that case, I would assign that money to a student with demonstrated need. A student selected to receive a merit scholarship would have received a scholarship no matter what - it would have been from a different endowment fund if they didn’t have demonstrated need.
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Thank you all for the responses, very helpful in putting a plan together and setting expectations!
I will say that for merit scholarships that are presented at the same time as acceptance —before financial aid has been evaluated— those are true merit scholarships. I have never heard of them being taken back when it turns out there is no need. They are used to lure the most desired students, not as a bait and switch.
The scholarships that use need as a criterion are generally not given until the financial situation has been evaluated and are included in the final financial aid package or later, based on my experience.
Some schools use endowments earmarked for those with need to award scholarships as part of meeting need (that is, not strictly merit scholarships). For example, a donor may specify that their endowment funds go to a student with need who has been involved in significant leadership activities. A student will be identified, and some/all of that student’s need will be met with a scholarship from that endowment fund (rather than from institutional grant funds). That student would have received the same amount of money if not awarded that scholarship; it just happened to come from a restricted scholarship fund.