<p>+1 for rocket. The maturity you have displayed on this thread, in the heat of an intensely personal “surprise” issue for you, outdoes many of the adults, specifically including myself. Quite impressive. That quality and your determination will both will shine through to colleges.</p>
<p>I do believe colleges stretch to make EFC workable where they see an extraordinary applicant and understand the basis for extraordinary need. Scripps hinted as much in a phone call I made, and I know from your posts you have cleared an incredibly high hurdle as a merit finalist at that college. Obviously no one can guarantee, but you should feel confident you are an applicant colleges will want to help as best they feel they can.</p>
<p>According to Kalman Chany in “Paying for College without Going Broke” Princeton Review, merit aid does not usually reduce your EFC. That is his opinion on it. There are of course, exceptions. </p>
<p>H had once won $1,000 scholarship through a professional organization. We requested that the organization put it on the child’s campus account to pay for books and personal expenses for school year. This was easily done when we explained the college would no doubt just reduce the child’s grant by $1,000! The professional organization was glad we told them & so decided to make that their policy from now on-whoever won that $1,000 scholarship, it would have to go toward books and personal expenses at child’s college, therefore, not affecting the financial aid package.</p>
<p>me either, and I’m too much of a newbie here (also will not be around long term either) to track the thread.</p>
<p>But I think a thread title “merit + need friendly colleges” or similar would be great value if anyone takes it up.</p>
<p>And an opening statement that colleges meeting 100% need may be flexible as to calculating EFC, with a cross-link to 100% need colleges (guessing CC already has this covered)</p>
<p>So I think:</p>
<p>St Olaf comes off
Colorado College
Swarthmore College</p>
<p>Should there also be a section for colleges that may have need-award gaps, but merit potential to bridge gaps?</p>
<p>Not so easy. In the case of both Smith and Scripps, the initial answers I received glossed over the EFC issue. I had to be specifically aware of the EFC nuance and ask very pointed and direct follow-up questions to tease this out of both FinAid reps. It just ain’t that easy to get the straight scoop without a pretty high level of background knowledge like this site provides. </p>
<p>I love WC’s and don’t think this is an isolated disclosure problem to these schools.</p>
<p>Mmmh, I actually brought up Swarthmore as a counter example because it will reduce self-help by half, not dollar for dollar. It’d be useful if someone compiled a full list of top schools (say, start with the 100% need schools) and their policies with regard to institutional merit and outside scholarships (often treated differently).</p>
clueless dad - I do not see where they say the outside scholarships reduce EFC! They say they reduce self-help (loan and workstudy) by a portion, and then the rest reduces the scholarship…</p>
<p>No, no, Swarthmore doesn’t allow EFC reduction. I don’t know of any college that does as a matter of course (not special circumstance/petition). Outside scholarships can reduce only self-help, meaning summer and academic-year workstudy since the school has gone no-loans for everyone. After that, it will reduce grant dollar for dollar.</p>
<p>Here is the whole quote, again. Read it very carfully.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I specifically responded to this statement that was specific about advertising to kids that cannot afford their EFC, which is all she brought up in this post, and to that only said “how could the colleges know (which kids cannot afford their EFC)” There is nothing general about that, the kids that cannot afford their EFC is a particular subset of the universe of FA applicants. You have to be hugely obtuse to not see that. It is simple, plain language. I am not talking about the whole thread. I was responding to that one statement, and that was extremely clear.</p>
<p>1) where is the information that Colorado College belongs on that list? Because the language on their website sounds like they don’t:
The lumping together of “scholarships and grants” sounds like merit aid and need-based aid all go into a common pool to meet need, the way pretty much everybody else does it.</p>
<p>2) on Swarthmore’s site, the scholarships are in variable amounts dependent on need; essentially, they appear to be merit-guaranteed full-need grants. That would not help somebody in rocket6louise’s situation, since EFC would remain EFC. It’s true that the Evans and Lang scholarships include fixed grants, but they are earmarked for specific uses.</p>
<p>3) The Ursinus FA site is quite vague and confusing on the subject of need-based aid. Can you point me to where it says that merit aid can be stacked on top of need-based aid? I’m not seeing it.</p>
<p>I really don’t think we’ve found what we’re looking for yet–i.e., a college that offers merit scholarships that are independent of and in addition to need-based aid.</p>
<p>I started an Excel spreadsheet but don’t really have time for idle research at the moment… if anyone wishes to do so, PM me and I’ll send you the pre-formatted list of full-need schools.</p>
<p>Colorado College was brought up because it allows the full stacking of OUTSIDE scholarships, which are not equivalent to institutional merit scholarships. Swarthmore has very little in the way of merit aid, but EFC remains EFC regardless.</p>
<p>
Cynical me doesn’t think that such a college exists, but I hope I am wrong.</p>
Only those that feel they deserve something for nothing, as you define full value at least. A $25,000 scholarship is a $25,000 scholarship, no matter if it goes to the family of a millionaire or someone below the poverty line. The impact is different, and their ability to take advantage of it may differ, but the nominal value is exactly the same. How it can possibly be perceived that the university is responsible for rectifying this wealth disparity is beyond me.</p>
<p>From their website: Private scholarships received from organizations other than Colorado College will not reduce the college’s commitment of grants and scholarships unless the total of the CC grants and outside scholarships exceeds the cost of attendance</p>
