<p>We've all talked about how outside scholarship money typically reduces a student's "self-help" portion of their aid. I know there have been threads asking how different schools adressed outside scholarships and with only a few exceptions most replied that this was how their's was handled.</p>
<p>However, many schools do not "meet full need" For a FASFA school it is very easy to see if need was fully met. The package from our state school gapped us about $3000. Would a person in this situation expect the outside scholarship to fill the "gap" first.</p>
<p>Profile schools are a little different, because their "formula" seems like a huge secret sometimes. We don't always know how they treat home equity. However, according to USNEWS, the school my son is going to meets about 94% of need. When we received his package, it seemed pretty clear that they had assumed 5.5% of our home equity when determining our need. When this was added to our EFC there was a gap of about 6% (or about $3000- which meant they did in fact cover 94%)</p>
<p>Since my son has only received one $2000 scholarship, the chances of this thread applying to us is small because he has $7500 in self-help and we are more than happy to have this $2K applied to his loans. The chances of him getting any additional scholarships that would cover his entire self-help portion are slim to none. </p>
<p>However, this has been a question I've been wondering about for a while. Do schools figure that their percentage of covered need is the max a student can get, or do they only start taking away school grants once 100% of their calculated need is met.</p>