I am aware of this thread at http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1869907-should-i-submit-fafsa.html and am interested to know if there is a list or resource that can identify merit scholarships that require completion of the FAFSA. Perhaps there is a website of scholarships and what their requirements for applying are? Counselors are recommending students complete the FAFSA even if they do not think they will qualify for financial aid - just in case merit scholarships might want that. Our situation: daughter was happily admitted to Stanford early and we are fortunate that we not qualify for financial aid, so we are not inclined to do the FAFSA. If I knew there was some merit scholarships out there (other than school specific ones like the UCLA and Texas ones identified in the other thread) that required these forms yet didn’t require some financial need, we might rethink that and do the FAFSA. Thanks for any input!
Even if you do not qualify for merit aid it is always a good idea to fill out the fafsa anyways. It’s free and if you filed a 2015 Tax return it will automatically auto populate the fields. This way if a scholarship does require it then you are all set to go.
Is your daughter applying for scholarships? If so, the scholarship application requirements will be clear. If it were me…I would wait since you apparently do not need aid. If a scholarship,requires the fafsa…then complete it then.
You can’t submit the fafsa without a place to submit it…to…
Most merit scholarships are from schools directly. I don’t think Stanford has any merit scholarships. Most of the very competitive schools only give need-based FA. Congrats to your DD on the acceptance.
@thumper1 is right.
Unless your DD has identified an outside scholarship that she’s going to apply to and the rules state that FAFSA must be submitted, where would you be submitting FAFSA to? (Again, Stanford doesn’t give merit, so…)
Has your DD found outside merit scholarships to apply to? If so, have her look at the requirements stated for those awards. If nothing is said about FAFSA, then you don’t need to.
As mentioned above, if you do find that FAFSA is needed for a scholarship that your DD has found to apply to, then it can quickly be done and your 2015 info will auto populate into the fields.
Very helpful, thank you! I will hold off on FAFSA and see if any identified scholarships require it. Being new to this, I didn’t know the FAFSA had to be submitted somewhere, but that makes sense.