<p>I just found the Michigan State Government has updated the Scholarship status. If you are from Michigan and has applied to this scholarship by giving them your SSN over the phone within the first semester in senior, you can check your status online. The information is hard to find but I have dug it out and posted in the thread below:</p>
<p>Awesome. Thanks for the update! Do you know if the financial aid office deducts the award from your grant amount or do they add it in on top of the current award?</p>
<p>I did not know until now. They just took out the exact amount of my D’s another external scholarship from the grant. So it may happen to this scholarship too if you have a grant from the university. That scholarship was shown as stacked initially for a couple days until they change the award summary with smaller grant today. I guess we will see another revision like this soon.</p>
<p>Interesting. They have a different school listed for my son than the one he ended up accepting. </p>
<p>@2016BarnardMom I think that is the first one on FAFSA it was listed. You can correct it on the scholarship status site.</p>
<p>Thanks but this is an automatic thing, so why would you even need to check?</p>
<p>@beckstiles What do you mean automatic? Not everyone receive the Michigan Competitive Scholarships even if you submitted the SSN. Also, as someone pointed out, you may havea different institution listed on your record. It is not a scholarship coming from the University but from the State government. It is not automatic and it does not give to every in state student. Of course, the money will come in automatically if you get it just like other scholarships.</p>
<p>@Miw140 I got an official response from the FA office. They will reduce the need baased aid by the amount of the scholarship accordingly. It will start from loan and work study before hitting the grant. As the loan and workstudy for my D has been replaced by the University grant in the official FA package already, they just offset the grant by the amount of scholarship. At the end, we do not gain anything. Too bad that this is the second scholarship in vain for my D. :(</p>
<p>Automatic, as in the threshold to get this award is very low and literally anyone in-state attending U-M has the numbers for it. Why would a different school be listed on your record? Just make sure U-M is at top of list on FAFSA and you’re good. All U-M awards for in-state students were given with the assumption the MCS would hit in the summer.</p>
<p>@beststiles Do you know what is the cutoff? Perhaps everyone accepted by UMich would be above the cutoff as you said. Still you need to check if they have the right school on record.
On the other hand, UM cannot assume all in-state students would be given the MCS as they need to submit their SSN by the deadline. In other words, not all in state student would get it if they don’t apply.</p>
<p>23 or better on ACT, so 99% of incoming U-M students get this award automatically as long as U-M is listed first on FAFSA. And I think it would still go through even if U-M wasn’t listed first, it just wouldn’t hit until the fall.</p>
<p>@billcsho That’s unfortunate. It would be nice if they could just add it on to the grant amount. Luckily I still have loans and work study that they can reduce.</p>
<p>@Miw140 I guess we should not complain as the grant was free money from the university to replace the loan and work study at the first place. Just that we may have save some effort if we know it would not make any difference at the end. The grant was not in the package at the time of application and interview for the other scholarship.</p>
<p>Just as a warning, make sure you’re proactive about making sure you get the scholarship. I had to fight with them for several weeks because they couldn’t find my information. Turns out that the computer didn’t recognize the apostrophe in my last name. It was a known glitch and I wonder how many people missed out on the scholarship because they weren’t proactive about getting it. </p>
<p>If it doesn’t appear in your package and you’re entitled to it, make sure that you call the state to see what’s up. Don’t trust them to just figure it out. (I used to work for the state. They’re not that competent.) </p>
<p>^ Yeah. It makes sense to check it out if one may assume it is “automatic”.</p>
<p>Also? </p>
<p>This has a need based component. So not “every instate student” is going to get this. Like my kid- FAFSA determined zero need. </p>
<p>Just thought I should point that out, for other people who read this thread and wonder why they did not get it. </p>
<p>^ Very good point. FAFSA is required for this scholarship and it does require the demonstration of need. So it is really not automatic for everyone. One can only say the ACT cutoff is pretty much too low for everyone.</p>
<p>Maybe it is because I checked his info on my ipad, but that wasn’t a field I could change. While it would be nice to reduce his loans I don’t want them to reduce his work study. It might not be worth pursuing. We alphabetized his schools on the FAFSA and didn’t think it would matter because he didn’t intend on staying in state. Admissions offices at the out of state schools apparently didn’t agree with his plan!</p>
<p>It does mention in the FAQ that one should list the in state public on top of the FAFSA list. I think they may have locked the entry now as funding decision is out. It was an editable field when I checked it before but it is not now.</p>
<p>It is definitely a strange way to do it. I wonder if that money will be sent to Albion even though he isn’t enrolling there. I found a way to get it corrected so we’ll try that.</p>