<p>If I get a presidential scholarship, will it offset any other financial aid? Say if my EFC is 30k, and if I get the presidential scholarship, is it possible for me to get any financial aid at all?</p>
<p>at the financial aid session at explore, the financial aid officer said that the scholarship would take the place of grants that you would receive from usc and then if there was left over money from the scholarship it would take away from loans. i'm not exactly sure if that's all right, but I think that you would still get financial aid.</p>
<p>The guy at the financial aid session I attended at explore started off by joking that we really do not need to be worried about financial aid because our scholarships will cover most. The scholarship will bring the total cost of attendance down, and THEN other types of financial aid are applied to the new figure. So if your EFC is 30K and the scholarship brings the COA to less than 30K, you get nothing. So the trustee people (hopefully myself included) will have to have an EFC less than $12,000-$14,000 or whatever the cost of room & board turns out to be. You can still apply for loans though, so that will probably be the only type of financial aid you will get.</p>
<p>Don't quote me on anything, as this is just from what I heard at Explore and have learned through more research, but of course I could be completely wrong.</p>
<p>your explanation was way better than mine:)</p>
<p>In addition to his acceptance to USC, my son was also accepted to USD (Univ of San Diego), their Cost of Attendance is almost identical to USC's and they have already given their financial aid packages. My son received the USD Trustee scholarship which is equivilent to USC's Presidential scholarship (half tuition) . What 'hereandthere7' said is accurate, our EFC was about $35,000 and after applying the scholarship, we were offered a total of about $35,000 in parent and student loans. So you want to get as much merit aid as you can when you have a higher EFC.</p>
<p>I was wondering if anyone could comment their financial package after they got the Presidential scholarship. What kind of numbers did you get? </p>
<p>I'm terribly afraid of what my USC EFC is going to turn out to be. Oddly enough on the College Board calculator, my Institutional was about 2,000 less than my Federal EFC (granted USC takes the higher number). I have my fingers crossed that's the way USC will see it (someone said that they were told by the FinAid guy at USC that the CollegeBoard IM calculator was a good estimator for their formula). </p>
<p>Would a Presidential scholarship help reduce the amount of loans I get? It only makes sense that it would... or else what is the point of it?</p>
<p>@qzar...This had me confused as well. As someone whose EFC (24k) is less than the cost of attending USC with the Presidential scholarship (around 30k), what were the incentives for me to fly out to CA for the Presidential Explore session back in the beginning of this month? I ended up attending Explore anyway.... rightly or wrongly assuming that I would get a better total financial aid package attending the program (compared to my finaid package if I had not gone). To me, getting the Presidential just seems like a way for them to offset grants that they would have given me regardless, based on my financial need. Is this logic flawed?</p>
<p>qzar, it isn't really that USC uses the "higher" number - they use the FAFSA EFC to disburse Federal aid: Pell Grants, Perkins and Stafford loans, and Federal work/study. They use their own formula and the CSS/Profile to disburse USC Grants. That is why it is hard to give estimates or compare packages - so many factors go into the calculations. </p>
<p>ihdb, I think your logic is just fine, but... The difference is that you will get the Presidential for four years regardless of your financial need or if your paperwork is late or lost or... whatever. Circumstances can change year-to-year, so it is nice to know you have at least 1/2 tuition covered no matter what. (Oh, except you DO need to maintain a 3.0!)</p>
<p>Also, many of the Trustee/Presidential Scholars (including my D) seemed to be awarded an additional scholarship - the University Scholarship - later in April. The University Scholarship, if awarded to financial aid recipients, can be applied to work/study or loans.</p>
<p>Try to be patient - it is only a couple of weeks and you will have all your acceptances and financial aid info - GOOD LUCK!</p>