I have a question for all those that have previously gone through this process. In general, when the school assigns your grant by need, will they assign the amount based on the applicant’s EFC before taking into consideration any applicant’s merit scholarship or afterwards? Putting my question into numbers, let’s say the cost of the school is $60,000.00, the applicant’s EFC is $30,000.00 and receives a merit scholarship of $10,000.00, will the total package offer will be $60,000- $30,000 - $10,000 = $20,000.00 (expected yearly cost of attendance) or $60,000 - 10,000 - 20,000 = $30,000 (expected yearly cost of attendance). If it is the latter (which I believe it is), then shouldn’t the applicant be expected that most acceptance offers will fluctuate around the same number (EFC) regardless of the merit scholarships assigned unless the merit scholarship goes beyond the EFC? Am I assuming this right? Thank you in advance in sharing your thoughts and experiences.
“Putting my question into numbers, let’s say the cost of the school is $60,000.00, the applicant’s EFC is $30,000.00 and receives a merit scholarship of $10,000.00, will the total package offer will be $60,000- $30,000 - $10,000 = $20,000.00”
yes.
ANY $$ that is given by colleges, regardless of what it is called- merit, FA , grants- all comes from the same “pot”. And all will be lumped together when calculating the total amount of aid a student is offered.
Hmmm…in my experience and discussion with other parents, it was the later. So be aware there can be differences.
The schools suspiciously seemed to give merit and aid (loans) that got you right around the EFC. With your numbers for example the $30,000 is not generally excused…at best it’s covered by merit aid and at worst loans - usually a mixture.
However with music and academic merit, there can be surprises based on needs and talent level. So the offers can be better than the EFC. But I noticed a trend … and other parents commented on it too.
I enjoyed the “Congratulations! You have been awarded a loan (so you can afford our school)!” As always I’m a cynic on the money stuff…other opinions may be healthier!
It depends. First on whether the school makes a commitment to “meet need”. Many of the top music schools/conservatories do not, e.g. Juilliard, Berklee, New School, NYU, NEC, Jacobs, Frost (it may for Florida residents?), UNT (it may for Texas residents?)… In fact, the schools that do are probably a shorter list. Oberlin does, so does USC. So, in most cases, you can’t assume that the school is going to meet your EFC in the first place. U.S. News publishes a list of colleges that commit to meet need.
Second, most schools compute their own EFC which may be significantly higher than FAFSA’s or the CSS Profile. Schools may or may not be willing to share the number they’ve computed for you.
I used the net price calculator for each school (usually on their website) to get an estimate for each school and, with one or two exceptions, the final cost of attendance after merit and FA were pretty accurate. The NPC tool typically asks for the intended major and if you say music, it seems to compute in an average merit award. I don’t think any of the schools ended up being more expensive than their NPC estimate.
With Oberlin and USC, both of which “meet need”, the final cost of attendance ended up being about the same, but the ratio of merit to need-based was different. Oberlin gave him more merit, USC more need-based. One of them, however (and I can’t remember which anymore) didn’t include loans in meeting that need. Another school also met their calculated need without loans (they told us what their calculated EFC was.) Berklee, who I don’t think even pretends to meet need, covered full tuition with a combination of merit, grant and federal loan. We declined the loan, so pay a little toward tuition.
The one outlier for us was our state school, mostly because the cost of attendance was so much lower to begin with.
In our experience, yes, merit was taken into account with the financial aid award so the total aid was the same with or without the merit. But some schools didn’t have much financial aid and the main aid was merit.
As for local scholarships, from Rotary and such ( the ones read out at a public school graduation), and “outside scholarships,” those are subtracted from aid so for needy students, those local scholarships really don’t help much. I sometimes wonder why so much effort goes into fundraising for them!
It all depends on the school, and merit aid is one of those things that is hotly debated. At a school like Juilliard, where so many of the kids they admit are talented (to varying levels, but still, the range of students admitted there is generally tighter than in other programs), their admissions people said merit aid was based on financial need as well, so if a family is relatively high income (according to their calculations), it is likely merit aid will not be that big. Obviously, if they saw a kid who was out there in the stratosphere even by their standards they might get a huge merit aid package together for their to try and entice the kid, but that from what their admissions people told me is pretty rare. Other schools are different, they give merit aid more based on talent, and especially where they are trying to attract higher caliber students they may give that aid regardless of financials of the family, it all depends…in the end, you won’t really know until they give the aid package, like with admissions it can vary all over the place, what people say happened one year may be very different the next.
This is all very interesting. I have also heard that some schools pony up scholarship money while deadline approaches as more money may become available. Am I correct to assume that it is advisable to hold on your decision until close to May 1?
@coloraturadad it CAN be beneficial. As with pretty much everything involved in this process the answer lies somewhere in the vicinity of you can’t know for sure but, yes, this sometimes happens. I would say if there isn’t anything pushing an earlier decision then your child might as well wait if it could affect their decision. Even wait until May 5th or 10th as some schools have been known to come out with aid later.
I should have added that there have been times when merit aid is absolutely critical to the family and a kid has waited until late May to write an appeal and found that more money has become available when other kids have turned down offers earlier in the month.
The corollary to that is that, if the student delays until end of May, they will likely have one or more schools pressuring them for a decision. Don’t worry about that. May is the one month that the student has total control in this whole crazy process and they can use the full month to decide, regardless of how much pressure a school may be applying.
"The corollary to that is that, if the student delays until end of May, they will likely have one or more schools pressuring them for a decision. Don’t worry about that. May is the one month that the student has total control in this whole crazy process and they can use the full month to decide, regardless of how much pressure a school may be applying. "
uh, NO…that is WRONG.
Students have to commit to colleges by the end of APRIL, so waiting until May to try to “negotiate” is a fools errand.
The month of April is when students, or their parents, can “appeal” their FA packages in order to try and get colleges to pony up more $$.
The bottom line is that colleges may offer more $$ to students they REALLY want.
Yikes, I think this is REALLY dangerous advice. All of my son’s acceptances had a May 1st decision date, after which there was no guarantee that they would hold the spot for him. I would say that the student has ZERO control after that date.
I think it’s perfectly valid to go back to accepted schools before the May 1st decision date and ask about additional scholarship or FA money. In fact, I think some of the schools appreciate it because it shows them that you have serious interest. Be prepared to tell them exactly what you need – what they don’t want to hear is that you’re just trying to go for the highest bidder. FWIW, one of the schools with a pretty low scholarship offer told my son that it was low because they knew they weren’t his top choice but, if he was actually interested but needed more money, they would work on it. That message came from the instrument professor. Schools that have a policy not to review FA package offers will simply tell you so.
YOU’RE RIGHT!!! I’m so sorry!! Everyone take everything in my last couple posts and wherever I said “May” substitute “April”. Must … have … more … coffee …
Thanks @ScreenName48105 for clearing that up!!!
If March moves at a glacial pace, April does not. You can have a lot to consider …schools and teachers to visit, housing to figure out, money to negotiate…or not. Maybe your kid knows where they want to go and its affordable.
It is nice to think you may be able to “negotiate” in April and play it out for a whole month. And maybe you will. I would encourage everyone to do a perfunctory request for more money - but the most successful requests will be backed up by numbers from similar schools in situation where schools negotiate. If similar type schools give different offers, it is definitely worth making the other school aware of it.
I won’t go into the mental gymnastics of which schools and which instrument and which teachers and which year etc will produce a result. You just need to ask and see the results. Some situations will be negotiable and some will not. Don’t be surprised by a “no”. For UG, the school where my D wanted to go at the end of a very loooong process had the second best offer. I won’t again explain the mental gymnastics of maybe getting one school lower and then bringing that to the first choice school (particularly when the spread was minimal and the schools weren’t really at the same level). She finally did a basic request to her first choice and got a “no” (I can’t remember the response now - I’m sure it was a bit more kind).
It was early April and it all seemed clear…it was affordable with a nice scholarship and a studio offer…so negotiations, shmgotiations…she accepted in early April and was glad to be done.