Recently, I was admitted into UIUC, but not on any scholarships or anything. I’m out of state and definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed. (Merit based scholarships are out of reach for me.) I had a 26 ACT with 3.9 GPA and lots of extracurriculars and leadership roles. I did fill out my FASFA, but I honestly have no idea how any of that works. I’m a first generation college student so the financial part of paying for scholarships confuses me. I also qualified for a free fee waiver, so I guess I do fall under the ‘needs-based’ category.
I’ve also looked on the website and it doesn’t show a lot of scholarships for out of state residents. Are there any out there that I don’t know about? How do I get my FASFA grants and etc? Thanks for any answers and insight!
You are not definitely out for all scholarships yet since many are not even awarded until after the February regular admission date and you can qualify if out-of-state for many of the scholarships that are awarded by the specific colleges rather than the university. Nevertheless, with your test score, you should probably not expect anything in the way of scholarships. As to need based aid derived from FAFSA, you will likely have some serious issues being able to finance attending UIUC. FAFSA provides your family’s financial information upon which a determination of need based aid is based and there are formulas a university can apply to that information to determine how much need you have. Aid can come in the form of loans, grants (that do not have to be paid back) or work study (they give you a part time job while at the university), or a combination of any of those. You will be informed of your finacial aid package likely during the last half of March or early April. There are some colleges that are generous with financial aid and meet 100% of need. UIUC is not one of those.
Based on the fact that you gualified for a fee waiver, I am assuming you are going to need a lot of finacial aid because your parents are not going to be able to pay much if anything. The problem you are llikely to face with UIUC is that the aid you may be awarded will be mostly in the form of loans and will likely leave you unable to attend unless your parents can separately come up with a lot of money to contribute, e.g., probably between 20% and 40% of the total annual costs of approximately $47,000 (tuition and fees, room and board, books, and some money for travel and other costs). You could get lucky and get more financial aid but you should definitley be seeking other places to apply, including your home state college, where total costs will be a lot less and financial aid awards may be better.
