<p>im kinda confused about how scholarships work. for the ones provided by colleges, is there some type of special application that i need to fill out or are they just handed out based on the colleges discretion?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>You’re not going to like this answer, but…it depends on the school. Some school require separate applications (with deadlines that may or may not line up with application deadlines at the same school); some don’t.</p>
<p>You will need to check the FA page for every college you plan on applying to for information specific to that school.</p>
<p>by FA do you mean financial aid? i thought financial aid only came into play if you needed financial help paying for college. Are scholarships also considered financial aid?</p>
<p>FA =financial aid. And there are two types of financial aid: need based and merit based.</p>
<p>Merit based FA awards are often, but not always called scholarships.</p>
<p>But the above applies–you will need to check on the financial aid page of every college you plan on applying to for information about merit awards. Some will require separate applications for merit aid consideration; some won’t. It depends on the school’s policies.</p>
<p>At D2’s school all applicants are consider for merit aid without a separate application; at D1’s college, you must file a separate merit aid application. (Two, in fact–one for each category of merit award: state based and institution based.)</p>
<p>Additionally at some schools for some of the highly competitive scholarships, you have to be nominated by your high school in order to be considered.</p>
<p>thanks so much for clearing that up!</p>
<p>I was VERY fortunate in that DD1’s school called to ask if I meant to apply for a NMF scholarship. I knew they had one and that she would qualify but completely missed that it required a separate application. Really drill down on their FA website to find out.</p>
<p>S received some merit scholarships just for applying to certain schools. They were automatic based on GPA and SAT. Other scholarships from same schools had separate forms with deadlines that sometimes matched the application deadline, sometimes didn’t. At about half of S’s schools he had to apply early for the best money. Some required early submittal of profile. You really have to research each school to find out what the requirements and deadlines are.</p>
<p>Our school has some scholarships that everyone who qualifies is automatically considered, others that you are considered for if you complete a general scholarship application, others you are considered for if you complete a departmental application (for instance an accounting department scholarship), and others that you must complete an application for that specific scholarship. </p>
<p>Those variations are just within one university. So you need to check with the schools you are interested in - AND PAY ATTENTION TO DEADLINES.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies! Basically what I got from this is every college has different scholarship policies so I’ll need to check each one.</p>