I was wondering if there was any insight to this. My son applied to a ton of schools and sent the FAFSA out to the 1st 10 because the application limits you to 10 at a time. We have since received some acceptances but have only been offered scholarships from the schools that we DID NOT send the FAFSA to. Why do you think this is? Not one of the schools who was sent the FAFSA listed scholarship money in the acceptance letter. I’m just wondering if the decision to send the FAFSA so early was a good one. Any insight appreciated.
You do know that you can submit the FAFSA to more than 10 schools.
If you need to do so, you go into the FAFSA and amend. You remove the first batch of colleges (do so only after that batch has been processed)…then add the other colleges…and submit.
You can send the FAFSA to tons of colleges…you can only do ten each submission.
Adding…the FAFSA is used to determine need based federally funded financial aid primarily.
“Scholarships” are typically merit based and have nothing to do with your financials on the FAFSA.
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thanks for the reply. yes we know that we an remove from the 10 and send to a new batch. i was just surprised that the 2 acceptances we received with scholarships were the ones we did not sent the FAFSA too at all because they were big maybes for us (out of state, different major). maybe thats why they offered scholarships? to entice us to come…
thanks again.
It sounds like you mean your child was awarded merit money vs financial aid - if that is the case, based on your child’s stats and value to the school and not your FAFSA. I believe many schools award Merit (scholarship) money without the need of a FAFSA and sounds like that is your case - Congrats on the awards !
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Do schools provide only merit OR financial aid or schools can offer both merit AND fin aid?
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Schools can provide both need based financial aid and non-need based merit. If non-need based merit is offered, it is part of the overall financial aid award package.
thank you! coffeeat3, you are right. but im still confused as to why it was only from the 2 schools we didnt send our FAFSA to. No other admission letter offered any money either way, by way of fafsa or merit. so it got me thinking i should have just left them all off… everything is so confusing.
i hope to hear from local schools about some Merit awards soon… maybe… i don’t know…
Honestly I think it’s just a coincidence. The thing is…merit aid is often offered with the admission offer because merit aid is usually determined in the admissions office. They would not know about your FAFSA at all.
Need based aid is what the FAFSA deals with. If these are rolling admissions or early action, need based awards likely would come when regular decision ones are sent…end of March beginning of April.
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Scholarships are often awarded through admissions offices, so what @thumper1 said makes sense.
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just a little update. those 2 schools are still the only ones who have offered us scholarships. no in-state schools we have been accepted to have offered us any scholarships. i guess it was just a coincidence, and i don’t think it was related to the FAFSA.
Lots of merit goes to OOS to students to get high stat students to give up their lower in state tuition.
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Are these public or privates?
yankeefan20, these 2 schools are 1 private and 1 public but both Out of State for us. He will probably stay in state, we are in Texas these days.