<p>hey guys,
I know Columbia gives need based financial aid, and up until now, I wasn't aware that any type of scholarships help when it comes to ivy league education (as in, if you get a 5k scholarship, don't they just take 5k away from your financial aid????)</p>
<p>but I have a dad who wholeheartedly thinks scholarships help and scream at me to apply for 1k scholarships that require up to 5 essays. Can someone please confirm whether these outside scholarships lessen the burden????? </p>
<p>Much gratitude</p>
<p>They can reduce work study and student contribution.</p>
<p>When you say, “financial aid” do you mean loans? If you do get 5k scholarship and they take it out of your “financial aid”, it doesn’t matter. You as few loans as possible. That’s 5k that you don’t have to pay (back). </p>
<p>If you get a 5k outside scholarship, do they take 5k away from your institutional scholarship? I can’t imagine that’s the case. If so, that’s kind of effed up. </p>
<p>Scholarships are a good thing. You’re dad’s arguably correct. These days, it’s often recommended to apply to a lot of small scholarships rather than a few large scholarships simply because you’re a LOT less likely to win a large, insanely competitive scholarship; whereas there are an insane number of small, obscure scholarships out there for which very few people apply.
5 essays for a 1k scholarship though… that does sound a little excessive. On the other hand, if you write those 5 essays, you will have 5 essay topics covered for many other essay apps. So it might ultimately actually save you some time.</p>
<p>One book I recently read on the subject suggests weighing the time/ effort you take in writing those essays with the possible (but unlikely) reward. Five essays that you have already written for the Common Application would be fine. But, five new essays in addition to your studies and other obligations? That you should think about. Even the $10,000/yr scholarships that my D is applying to only ask for between 1-3 essays.</p>
<p>And, if my D is lucky enough to get any of those scholarships, we fully plan on informing the colleges, but will also negotiate with them to make our finaid offer better (either by turning loans into grants or by lowering the overall family contribution). After all, my D is the one who located, applied and wrote essays for these scholarships. It simply wouldn’t be fair if the colleges took all that money and did not offer her any monetary relief. If that were the case, why on earth would any student who needs financial aid go to the trouble of applying for outside scholarships?</p>