<p>Hi!</p>
<p>Does anyone know if you win several one-time scholarships ($1,000-$5,000) that send to the college do you have to use it all the first year or will it roll over to the next year?</p>
<p>Thanks,
Lisa</p>
<p>it seems to vary per school.</p>
<p>call the school</p>
<p>Whatever is in excess will be given to you as cash.</p>
<p>Read the scholarship information CAREFULLLY as there may be stipulations and also call the college to see how they will handle outside scholarships. Some colleges will use outside scholarships to offset grant aid. If you are full pay or your only aid is unsubsidized Staffords they may treat the outside scholarships differently.</p>
<p>
If there is financial aid involved this is not necessarily the case, in fact at most schools it is not the case. If federal aid is involved total need based aid plus scholarships can not exceed the COA of the school less the student EFC. Scholarships will often be used to reduce aid - fortunately most schools will reduce “self help” aid such as loans or WS before they reduce any grant aid.</p>
<p>You need to check with your school for its policy. Also you need to check with the particular scholarship for its policy.</p>
<p>thanks…
Here is her stats… I think only the Pell & SEOG is Need Based. Can they reduce the Pell? </p>
<p>Me & the Financial Aid department have already gone some nasty rounds so I will wait till Orientation next month and be in person… When her Merit Scholarship raised $500 do to a 27 on her ACT they just knocked $500 off her SEOG which was a thousand to begin with. Both My husband & I are currently Unemployed with hubby having NO income and they did not apply any SC Need Based Aid either. </p>
<p>COA = 23,986</p>
<p>Federal Pell Grant 5500
Federal SEOG 500
Federal Work Study 1200
SC LIFE Scholarship (Merit Based Lottery Money) 5000
Heritage Scholarship (College Merit) 1500</p>
<p>Outside Scholarships:
Sam Walton = 3000
APIASF/Coca Cola = 2500
Ronald McDonald House = 1,000
SC Elks Association = 1,000</p>
<p>What do you think based on this?
Thanks,
Lisa</p>
<p>Pell, SEOG, and work study are all need based. Pell is an entitlement and will not be reduced. But SEOG and WS will depend on the school’s policies. They are what is called campus based aid. This means the school receives *very *limited funding for SEOG, WS (and Perkins loans). The school determines their own criteria for awarding campus based aid. Schools usually do not have enough of these funds to award to all students who are eligible for them. (for instance my daughter has a 0 EFC and filed FAFSA in January - she was selected for verification and in the 2 weeks it took us to learn she had been selected and submit the required papers her school had awarded all their WS, SEOG, and Perkins funds and had none left leaving her with much larger loans than we hoped for in her final year).</p>
<p>It is quite possible they will adjust the SEOG and WS, depending on their policies. How they administer their very limited campus based aid funds is completely at their discretion and is a difficult balancing act as there are insufficient funds for all the students with need.</p>
<p>It is an excellent aid package. Congratulations.</p>
<p>Oh we are happy…
What got me was we paid for the 3 ACT Tests to get her score to a 27 for the extra 500 in Merit Aid and it actually cost us money because they didn’t increase her package just shifted funds so now it was why bother paying to re-take the test…</p>
<p>Yes, I can see why that would be frustrating. We also had my daughter retake the ACT 2-3 times to get a bump in her scholarship - I would probably have been a little irked if they had reduced her need based aid by the same amount. The good thing is if your family financial situation improves she will hopefully keep the merit money every year (assuming it is a renewable scholarship), so in the long run it may still be worthwhile. </p>
<p>A couple of words of advice - Make sure you check the criteria for keeping her merit scholarships and that she is aware of them. We know of several students who lost the same scholarship my daughter has - very bright students who just struggled or overloaded their freshman years and didn’t meet the GPA requirements at the end of freshman year. No one thinks it will happen to them but a lot of kids (especially ones who found HS easy) underestimate how different college is from HS and take classes that are too hard that first year or too heavy a load while they are adjusting to the change. my daughter has had some semesters with less than stellar GPAs but her freshman year GPA was strong enough that it gave her a cushion and she has kept her scholarship the whole time. Last year coming up. Phew! </p>
<p>Also make sure she is aware that she should not ever drop classes without checking with the FA department as well as her academic adviser (2 different departments with different areas of expertise). Full time enrollment is often a condition of both scholarship and need based aid components - aid like the Pell can even have to be partially repaid if classes are dropped before a certain point in the semester. We see students get hit by this because they are unaware of it when they drop a class.</p>
<p>I am printing this to share with her.
Thank You I really appreciate the advice</p>
<p>She is graduating with 33 college credits from D/E classes at the college do you know if those that transfer (most of them do) if those grades factor into her college GPA?</p>
<p>Winthrop professor’s at admitted student day stressed that their program is really tough and more than half of the students in the Biology program lose their SC Life money their first year because of the GPA requirement. So she does have some idea what she is facing and yesterday looking at her final transcript she said you know if I had pushed myself in the 9th grade I’d probably be ranked the 1 spot higher fo Palmetto Fellowship (the biggest SC Merit Scholarship) she literally just missed it by 1 rank. she is 15th in her class and had she been 14 it would have been almost full ride for her and is a full ride at some colleges.</p>
<p>Thanks Again!
Gotta get today THE DAY started 
Take Care,
Lisa</p>