<p>Hi, I know that Vanderbilt gives a 5000 per year renewable scholarship for national merit finalist.</p>
<p>I was just wondering whether the scholarship removes a percentage of the expected family contribution (the money I have to pay) or if Vanderbilt will just give me less grant aid after I get the scholarship.</p>
<p>My daughter also received the $5,000 for being a National Merit Finalist (in addition to some pretty generous need-based grant money). The way it worked for her was that $2,500 of the scholarship was used to eliminate the Work Study portion of her financial aid package and the rest was applied to reduce our expected contribution. However, I was told that Vanderbilt has an “internal EFC” (my term not theirs) that they have calculated for each student. They will never give you a combination of Grant & Scholarship money that would reduce your obligation below this “internal EFC” amount. </p>
<p>Your original financial aid package may have left you with an EFC that was actually higher than the “internal EFC” (this was true for my daughter). This means that there is a possibility that most or all of the $5,000 NMF scholarship could go towards reducing your portion. </p>
<p>The way it worked out for us was that the $5,000 ended up eliminating $2,500 of Work Study and further reduced our contribution amount by $2,500. However, we were told that this puts us right at the minimum “internal EFC” so any additional scholarships my daughter received would simply reduce the need-based grant amount and not have an effect on what we would pay. </p>
<p>My advice is to call the Financial Aid office and have them run the numbers for you. They were great to work with over the phone and had everything recalculated for me within 15-20 minutes. They’ll be able to tell you exactly how the $5,000 will affect your overall package and what your expected contribution will be.</p>