<p>AND do I need to fill out that CSS profile (due this Saturday) if iit s indeed merit-based and a scholarship?</p>
<p>Some grant aid is need based. It may come from the federal government (Pell grants), state government (CalGrant in California, for example), or the college itself from their own funds. Your family would need to stay below the income threshold to maintain this kind of aid. </p>
<p>Other grants are based on academic performance or talents like music or dance. These types of grants are usually referred to as scholarships. The student must maintain a certain level of performance to have them renewed each year. </p>
<p>If your kiddo is applying ED or EA…yes, it’s due on Friday. And if it were me, I would do it. You never know what it will yield.</p>
<p>It depends upon the specific award and individual school policy Read up on the website and then call with specific questions. </p>
<p>Though the NPCs are much more specific to each school, running the EFC estimator is useful in that the EFC gives you a bottom dollar amount that your family has to pay at any school before getting any access to federal grants, federal work study, federal subsidized loans, and in some cases state monies. Many schools also use that EFC as an absolute bottom line, in that they will not give financial aid until that federal EFC is met. Merit money is not usually affected by EFC, pure merit anyways. </p>
<p>Hey, @singermom4, we’re in similar situation, getting all zeros on NPC. But we did the Case Western NPC, and LO! we got lots of aid. Our D is not applying to Case, so we just also did the Rhodes College (Memphis) NPC and found AID, at $16,000. Thanks for your advice. Now, what do we do with that information. We’re discussing ignoring all this CSS work, especially if that merit aid is coming anyway and not based on need. We’ve done the NPC for Harvard, Georgetown, UChicago, Northeastern, BU–all zeros. So essentially, we have no need, according to them. Their conception of our need does not match OUR conception of our need. 
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<p>Southernhope - I am filling out the CSS profile for Case only as there is a cost for each report sent out. Even though I am quite sure it was based on his stats and not on our financials, I am hoping it still falls in the ‘aid’ bucket vs.‘scholarship’ so the the pressure will be less to maintain it for the four years. </p>
<p>OP:
If you are not qualified to any need-based aid at other colleges and Case is offering you some form of grant/scholarship, it could be merit. Try to put a very ACT/SAT low score and see what happens. My D, accdng to schools’ NPC, is not qualified to any aid from any school last year (except HPS) but Case gave us 30K.</p>
<p>With Rochester, if you do NPC it will show need based aid, for merit you have to check and see which profile you fit and you can get an estimate if merit based on that.</p>
<p>Bingo 2018dad! Nothing with the lower scores. I still need to see if it is classified separately if I do fill out a CSS profile. I’ve already gone through most of the work but will give Case a call.</p>
<p>Check out Fordham University. U of Denver is also a good one. You want to check out schools that have some nice merit money. The smaller Catholic schools often have merit money too. </p>
<p>Spoke with Case and they didn’t clearly answer my question on whether I was coming up with merit or aid money on the net price calculator and strongly recommended filing the CSS (though that’s a lot of personal info). So I guess I will file.</p>
<p>I suggest playing around with the NPC. You can up you income by a lot and see if you are getting similar aid and drop it and see the what the changes are. You can also change the test scores and see what happens. </p>
<p>cptofthehouse - yes I did all that and the award seems clearly based on the marks/scores but npc for Case does not call it merit and when I called their financial aid department they would not commit as to which bucket it will come out of. I am unhappy with their vague answer (spoke to two people) and would have preferred not to divulge so much personal financial detail unless absolutely necessary. </p>
<p>
Contact their supervisor.</p>
<p>Yeah, it sucks that they can’t be transparent about merit vs. need-based aid. It makes no sense to require all the detailed personal financial information if the aid is completely based on GPA and test scores.</p>
<p>The NPC are required to give you a financial picture, and therefore need financial information. The school could have another calculator based just on merit (my DD’s school just has a graph, ACT scores on one axis, GPA on the other), but that wouldn’t be compliant with the NPC requirement. The calculators at both of my daughters’ schools included everything possible - merit, grants, Pell, work study, PLUS loans, state grants and scholarships - but it was all clearly marked as to what it was.</p>
<p>One way to tell if it is merit is to change the stats. Put 25 in for ACT rather than 34. Put 3.5 in for the gpa not 4.1. If the award changes, you know it’s merit.</p>
<p>I explained how I played around with the NPC so I knew it was based on GPA and financial aid still wouldn’t say if it could only be merit. The requirements to keep aid vs merit are also different which is another reason I wanted to know - maybe I should call again. I just worry that if they have all my info and see I could be full pay, he won’t be awarded merit. </p>
<p>Called Case AGAIN. Spoke with two people AGAIN. When I persisted that my question wasn’t being answered, the second person said he would talk with his supervisor and get back to me. Which he did. The grant/gift aid bucket does include scholarships. So I will not be filing a CSS profile - too much info to throw around unnecessarily you know? </p>
<p>I just got a call back from Case - pretty good considering I left a message two hours ago and tomorrow is their EA deadline. I had a different question about the Profile and they answered it. Impressed. Decisions - with FA awards - will arrive by 12/15, she said. </p>
<p>D also applied EA to Case and submitted the CSS, altho we didn’t think we qualified for any FA until we did the same Net Price Calculator calculation (which, after reading above, we now see includes merit). @OHMomof2, Case only announces FA awards with EA acceptances - they don’t decide merit until Spring, correct? </p>