<p>Alright so I was accepted to a college (my top choice) but without a merit scholarship or any substantial financial aid, can I still get money from the school? If I did really well my freshman year, would the school give me money or am I permanently left without any aid whatsoever...</p>
<p>Need based FA is reassessed each year, so if your family’s financial situation changes, your FA may also change.</p>
<p>Colleges tend to offer the most merit scholarships to fr admits, however many schools offer merit aid to continuing students, often through the various departments rather than university-wide. You should be able to look at the college website and see if there are any merit awards offered for continuing students, of course this wouldn’t be a guarantee, but it would at least be a possibility.</p>
<p>The departmental “continuing student” awards, if any, are also unlikely to be anywhere near as generous as the awards to freshmen. So if you can’t afford this school without generous aid, then you need to rethink your options.</p>
<p>It depends upon what the school has and what its polices are. As others have said, the freshmen are th priority in giving out packages, the renewal of those packages are also a priority. Giving out new money to those already in a school is not high priority most of the time unless some adverse, emergency occurs.</p>
<p>If your school is one that guarantees to meet full financial need, then if you qualify for need later, you may get the financial aid. However, even such schools have caveats to the guarantee which include international students, waitlisted students, transfer students and those students who did not apply for financial aid the first year. Some schools will penalize those students who do not apply for financial aid that first year by having a sit out period or no aid or will ask for at least two years of financial information to make sure there was a change in financial circumstance to warrant the need application. The schools that do this are often need aware in admissions and they don’t want students applying as a no need candidate and then asking for the financial aid in future years. So they have to see that there was no need that first year and that less money or another kid in college is what drove the request for financial aid the second year. So those factors can come into play, depending upon the school. Ask the financial aid office what their policies are for your situation, and what the prospects are for aid in future years.</p>
<p>I would not COUNT on getting significant aid from the school in subsequent years. If your school doesn’t guarantee to meet full need, even a change in your EFC per FAFSA might not result in increased need based aid.</p>