<p>I'm trying to understand more of how this works as far as applying early (let's say rolling admissions to make this easy) and scholarships a kid might be entitled to. Say my son applies to a college in October and they had rolling admissions. On the web site I had noticed he would be eligible to receive a good merit scholarship. When they send his admission notification to him, would they indicate the scholarship award at that point? And since it is still early in the year, the FAFSA hasn't happened yet and what if he then turns out to be eligible for extra financial aid? Does the college then consider it all again and re-do the financial aid package, or do they hold the scholarship news until the FAFSA time period is over? I guess what I'm asking is do colleges ever tell you the scholarship news for merit-based awards ahead of the time when the FAFSA is filed?</p>
<p>yes (10 char)</p>
<p>In some cases right after a rolling admission and merit award letter arrives you will get a letter from the fin aid office. It asks a few financial questions so they can estimate their fin aid offer. You are under no obligation to fill out the form and their numbers can change but our's was pretty darn close to their final offer. We had the estimated fin aid letter back by end of Nov.</p>
<p>My son was accepted in October (2006) under a rolling admissions system. He received a phone call alerting him that he had been accepted. A letter arrived within a week confirming acceptance and another letter was attached outlining his merit scholarship award.</p>
<p>After filing FAFSA the next February, an additional financial aid letter was received mid-March. This letter outlined additional need-based aid (well, none really, other than unsubsidized Stafford loans) and noted the merit-based aid again so that we could see the whole picture. This letter also stated the correct tuition and fees to be accessed for the 2007-2008 school year and estimated books and transportation costs.</p>
<p>My d was accepted to a rolling admission school in October but the financial aid offer wasn't sent until March. So all that time she knew she had an acceptance but we didn't know if we could afford to send her to that school. When the offer came it did not make it possible for her to attend, but by that time we had other offers.</p>