<p>If we get outside scholarships that send a check to the school, they will obviously know that we have outside aid so why do we have to report it? Cant they just adjust it accordingly? If we dont report this aid, what is the worse that can happen... they lower the aid? Wasnt that going to happen in the first place anyways?</p>
<p>If they give you the check to your name to “send it” to the school don’t do it, cash it and put it in your bank account, they won’t know, however, if they send the check to your school then they will know and they will take out the federal money and will put the check in that place.</p>
<p>I heard that they reduce your loans first.</p>
<p>no, this happened to me last year, as I got notified of more and more scholarships, and I used the self-report, they progressively took away more and more aid. first to go is grants, then work-study, then subsidized loans, then the last to go is unsubsidized loans. The smart thing to do is to not report scholarships that are going directly to you as checks. if the school is getting it, then you might as well report it, so you won’t have to jump through any hoops if your need is overmet.</p>
<p>what?!?! I talked to my financial advisor and he told me that they first reduce your loans. thats bs if they would reduce other “gift aid” such as grants first.</p>
<p>I reported everything I received, including checks that were sent directly to me. If the school finds out, you can lose ALL of your aid and it wasn’t worth it for me to lose all of my aid, so I reported everything. They took away my loans first, then work study, then grants. They can’t touch your pell grant though.</p>