<p>slyvt, Does UVM award a sizable amount of scholarships to OOS students based on need (more than the 1-3k that comes with or soon after the acceptance letter), or is their money earmarked for instate students? I ask bc when my older son was applying to college I was shocked by their OOS sticker price, so UVM never made our list. Yet, they seem to fill so many seats with OOS students. Do students from the surrounding NE states get tutition break at UVM?</p>
<p>northeastmom: I don't know that much about UVM's financial aid strategy. I know there is a compact among some of the New England states that if your state school doesn't offer a specific major and another one does, you can attend the other state school for instate cost. I also know that for kids who help them make their enrollment goals (like diversity and high stats), there is more money -- but I don't know if that goes to OOS too. I know UVM uses an enrollment management firm so I'm sure there is some strategy involved. </p>
<p>Yes, UVM is very expensive, yet lots of out of state kids go there -- many more than instate.</p>
<p>slyvt, I guess they are giving out just enough to get OOS kids to attend, or they are finding a lot of wealthy OOS families (skiing would help find them since it can be an expensive hobby). Thanks.</p>
<p>Anyone out there have a sense if families can qualify for financial aid if their income is between 250k and 300k. Seriously. Don't flame me. We pay a ton in taxes and haven't made this sort of income very long. Full tuition is going to be very hard, with another headed to college in just two years.</p>
<p>newmassdad,
Colleges that offer merit scholarships state on their websites if need is a consideration. For instance, Grinnell's Designated and Endowed scholarships consider need as a factor, but their other scholaships do not. Need more examples? I've got em, just let me know. When combing through college websites last year, I had relatively little problem figuring out which scholarships had a need component. </p>
<p>sly_vt,
While I agree that in general your definition of FA grant and merit scholarship holds, there are exceptions, such as the above hybred merit & need scholarship at Grinnell.</p>
<p>cur,
Thanks for clearing up those errors on NU and Grinnell, your spreadsheet must look a lot like mine :).</p>
<p>One more thing, there are actually some merit scholarships that are for students with NO demonstrated need*: CMU's Presidential Scholar (1-13k/yr), BU's Dean's scholarship (10k/yr) and Founder's grant (5k/yr) and NEU's Acheivement (2-12k/yr).</p>
<p>*These are 1-2 yrs old, so check websites for current information.</p>
<p>newmassdad,
Is this the Atlantic Monthly article you're referring to? The Best Class Money Can Buy:
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging%5B/url%5D">http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging</a></p>
<p>If so, I don't see anything that discusses colleges using EFC/need as a factor in awarding merit scholarships. What it does show is how money that would be going to FA for kids with need is instead used to fund merit scholarships that go to students that have higher stats and tend to have less need.</p>
<p>Newmassdad, the years I used are correct.</p>
<p>In the financial aid process, you must do your taxes WAY AHEAD of the IRS April 15th deadline, if possible. </p>
<p>I can't stress this enough - students and parents wanting to file for financial aid need to be on top of their tax situation so the returns can be completed as quickly as possible. Sometimes it isn't possible and estimated information should be entered. Financial aid may be granted on that estimation, but can be adjusted when final returns are provided.</p>
<p>mammall</p>
<p>We just assumed we wouldn't qualify, so we didn't apply. Therefore, I'm not an expert, but I'd be very surprised if you'd qualify for any need based aid at that income level. I'd guess your best bet would be to look for merit money</p>
<p>mammall, agree with bethie, and I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>entomom, right link. I guess we read the article differently. I agree that the article does not specifically state EFC. But consider this: "To decide how to parcel out financial aid, the enrollment manager puts admitted students onto a grid with need on one axis and academic ability on the other. This is called "segmenting the class" or "table analysis."" Isn't this saying EFC is a consideration? Or this: "Schools also use detailed data to systematically cut aid to students whose behavior shows they are likely to accept admission anyway. A student who lists a school first when asked where to send test scores, files for financial aid with that school, and then visits campus has tipped his hand, and some schools will figure, why waste money to attract a sure thing?"</p>
<p>An article from the November 2003 Atlantic summarizes the situation a bit more succintly. The full article is only available to subscribers, so let me quote:
[quote]
Merit aid—scholarship offers to students with strong high school records, even if they don't demonstrate financial need—seems like a logical solution... What is different now is the routine use of smaller merit offers to attract students—and, surprisingly, to conserve a college's resources. How? An annual grant of, say, $5,000, offered in the financial-aid package that comes with spring admissions letters, might be enough to draw in a student whose family can cover the rest of the bill. That place might otherwise have been filled by someone whose request for need-based aid would have been much greater. "I call this kind of assistance 'non-need-based' aid, rather than 'merit' aid," says John Mahoney, the director of undergraduate admissions at Boston College.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If you read the article in your link closely, I think you will see that colleges use a variety of sources for enrollment management. I think the article was only pointing out some of the less obvious ways they gather data, like zip code based demographics. It's pretty clear (at least to me) that if they're given the data they need on a platter via FAFSA, it would be even better than imputing ability to pay from secondary sources.</p>
<p>O.K. I went and tried out the estimator on princeton's web site. The # I got was about $22K a year. We should be able to do that with just current income w/o tapping into saving nor equity.</p>
<p>NMD,
Please reread your quotes:</p>
<p>"To decide how to parcel out financial aid, the enrollment manager puts admitted students onto a grid with need on one axis and academic ability on the other. This is called "segmenting the class" or "table analysis."" Isn't this saying EFC is a consideration? </p>
<p>Of course it's saying EFC is a consideration, they're talking about FA in that quote, not merit scholarships.</p>
<p>"Schools also use detailed data to systematically cut aid to students whose behavior shows they are likely to accept admission anyway. A student who lists a school first when asked where to send test scores, files for financial aid with that school, and then visits campus has tipped his hand, and some schools will figure, why waste money to attract a sure thing?"</p>
<p>If you read the article closely, this quote is in reference to need blind admissions, which concerns FA, not merit scholarships.</p>
<p>A lot of apples and oranges here, your last quote starts out talking about merit aid and then switches to small grants within FA.</p>
<p>My experience with EFC is the following: using a college calculator, our EFC came to about 30% of our AGI! Which is way more than we could afford. Mostly due to the home equity.
Using the College Board Federal estimator though [no HE taken in consideration], the EFC came down to a more realistic number. The difference between the two estimates is about $12k.</p>
<p>Recently, some colleges published their FA data for Fall '07 on the CB website. According to this, the same college above, awarded an average need-based FA very close to what I've got by using the Federal EFC estimator.
Keep in mind that these awards include student loans, grants and work/study.
Out of the above average FA package, about 75% is comprised of grants and scholarships.
Of course, these are "averages" and not a clear representation of a particular family and student.
I found this whole FA process very much like buying a car: you have the sticker price [cost of attending], three estimates [college EFC, CSS, FAFSA] and the final price paid [the actual EFC] is somewhere in between. It comes to the demonstrated individual circumstances to reach a final EFC that is affordable and than you'll be a happy customer.</p>
<p>entemom.</p>
<p>OK. YOU WIN. I give up. You are correct, nowhere in either article did it DIRECTLY state that EFC was a consideration. And pardon me for considering "Merit Scholarships" to be a form of financial aid. I guess in your mind, a "merit scholarship" is not "aid" or is it not "financial"?</p>
<p>newmassdad, the difference in most colleges is that need-based financial aid is awarded by the Financial Aid office, while merit scholarships are awarded by the Admissions Office. That's why "merit scholarships" are rarely considered to be "financial aid". </p>
<p>It may be a matter of semantics, but since different offices make the decisions, it's an important one.</p>
<p>deadlines to apply for merit scholarships and need based scholarships may be different. sometimes merit aid is awarded on a first come basis and those deadline dates to apply may be early, i.e., dec. 15 or jan. 15. </p>
<p>it would be a good idea to check with each college under consideration on the deadlines to apply for merit aid and need based scholarships. you'll also want to find out if only one application is required for aid awards or if separate applications are required for the various scholarships (merit and/or need based) . </p>
<p>Dad II.......if i remember this FA stuff correctly, the 22 k figure that you ran gives you the EFC for the parent's estimated financial contribution. the actual financial aid packages likely also include the student's $ contribution as well and these amounts are separate from your parent EFC..............the student contribution can include........ $'s from student's savings, $'s from student's summer earnings......and can also include student federal loans. keep in mind that the student can borrow more in federal loans in each subsequent year.<br>
you might want to do a spreadsheet with at least a 2 year projection ..........showing first year total out of pocket costs for both you and your student and then show 2nd year and so on. in a nutshell.......take total Cost of Attendance COA (include all required fees) minus free money (grants and scholarships) = out of pocket. ..................cur.......how'd I do? i know you can explain this better than me :)</p>
<p>Chevda,</p>
<p>I am not in higher ed administration, so I have no idea what percentage of aid awards are decided by whom. Maybe you or some others here have that insider knowledge. I just read magazine articles, talk to higher ed professionals and pay my D's tuition bills. And sometimes try to provide a perspective different from conventional wisdom, which is often faulty.</p>
<p>I do think some people on these boards spend way too much time parsing the meaning of "many", "most", "some" and a few other qualitative words.</p>
<p>They gave my sister 0 aid at all going to a Public school in PA which will cost about 20k or so per year.</p>
<p>newmassdad, I'm not in higher ed administration either. I know what we were told at all the colleges my d considered, those that her friends considered, and the end results. I know that we did not qualify for need-based aid and my d nevertheless got excellent merit scholarships at the schools that accepted her. (I also</p>
<p>If you'd rather rely on articles that can obviously be read differently (as is clear from this thread), and may have their own agendas, feel free.</p>
<p>Chevda,</p>
<p>FWIW, my own D received a full ride merit offer from an institution to which we provided no financial information. But that really only shows that some schools do make pure merit awards. This is well known.</p>
<p>What seems to be less known is that some institutions use what they call "merit awards" as a tool for yield management. What also seems to be less known is that at many schools, the admissions office and the financial aid office communicate and work together in deciding aid offers. How common this is I do not know. </p>
<p>What is clear to me is that the efforts some colleges go to in obfuscating their true intentions seem to be working well.</p>