<p>Should I apply for scholarships if I qualify for full financial aid from my college choices? I want to know if it would be a waste of time to apply for a ton of scholarships and drive myself crazy if I qualify for for full FA and FAFSA says I dont have to contribute any money towards tuition?</p>
<p>FAFSA is a form that tells you if you qualify for a Pell Grant, $5645 max, and you can get a $5500 loan from filing it. It doesn’t tell you that you don’t have to contribute to tuition. Only a small number of schools claim to meet full need. Are those the colleges you are applying to? They are generally the hardest schools to be admitted to. And those schools ask for additional financial information through the CSS Profile or their own form and may come up with a larger expected contribution than the FAFSA EFC. How do you know you will get full finaid? Have you run the net price calculator at each school’s website?</p>
<p>In July, you posted that your college applications would be sent to Georgetown, Cornell, UMich, SUNY Bing, and Penn State. Of those schools, only Cornell and Georgetown guarantee to meet full need for all accepted students. BUT both school’s require the Profile in addition to the FAFSA. UMich only meets full need for instate students. Penn State and SUNY Bing do NOT guarantee to meet full need at all. </p>
<p>So…the only two schools where you might receive full need are Georgetown and Cornell…and that is assuming that you do not have divorced parents (and therefore a non-custodial parent who will be required to provide information).</p>
<p>At UMich you would only have a chance at getting full need met IF you are an instate student.</p>
<p>Penn State and SUNY schools do not guarantee to meet full need.</p>
<p>if I qualify for for full FA and FAFSA says I dont have to contribute any money towards tuition?</p>
<p>FAFSA doesn’t say that. FAFSA is just a federal form for federal aid, which isn’t much. A 0 EFC is not an order for ANY school to give you full aid. Not at all. The feds can’t require any school to give you full aid just because you have an EFC of 0. </p>
<p>FAFSA only schools don’t meet need.</p>
<p>Plus, some of your schools use CSS to determine need.</p>
<p>Do you have a non-custodial parent? If so, that will further complicate things at some schools.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Definitely:
Cornell
Columbia
UChicago
Notre Dame
University of Michigan-- Ann Arbor
Washington University in St. Louis
Penn State</p>
<p>Maybe:
UC Berkeley
Stanford
Northwestern
UPenn
SUNY Binghamton</p>
<p>I have a 3.85 UW and 4.1 W. But what’s going to knock me out of the competetion is my low SAT score (1690) *</p>
<p>Your SAT is not competitive for most of your schools. You really need a better list of schools to apply to. Plus, take off all those OOS publics.</p>
<p>Actually, for the list posted above, I think a sub 1700 SAT won’t get you accepted to any with the possible exception of Penn State.</p>
<p>How did you craft that list? Was it for schools that meet full financial need? That list in the post above this one includes many of the most competitive admissions in the country. Your first hurdle would be to get accepted. I’m hoping you retook the SAT and plan to take the ACT (some students just do better on the ACT).</p>
<p>Are you instate for Penn State, Bing, or UMich? If not, they will likely NOT be affordable IF you get accepted. We know plenty of instate PA students who did NOT get accepted to Penn State main campus with SAT scores that exceeded yours. Bing and Umich are both iffy as well. </p>
<p>With a sub 1700 SAT score, acceptance to Cornell and Georgetown would be unlikely, in my opinion. But I’m not an adcom.</p>
<p>I really think you need to make an adjustment to your list of schools.</p>
<p>You say that you also have some safety schools to apply to…what are those?</p>