D is a high school junior. We have been researching the college process for a little over a year - she’s our first and only. She is a fan of large southern public schools and her stats are good enough that we expect her to be accepted to the majority of her choices and to be a contender for merit money.
From all that we’ve read, we understand the single best source of money to be the school she attends. At some of her choices, there is guaranteed merit for her stats and it’s fairly significant. U of Alabama is a favorite, and she will qualify for full tuition unless they change the requirements for next year. Having filled out some NPCs for her choices, it is apparent that we cannot expect to receive any need-based aid. But we are fortunate enough that most of her choices should be affordable for us. I know that Alabama will stack scholarships, but understand that many schools will instead reduce the amount of aid they give by the amount of the outside money.
Because of these reasons, and because she’s a busy kid, we have pretty much decided not to spend much time researching and pursuing small external scholarships. She’ll apply for the local ones we know about, but whether or not she receives them will not make the college choice for her.
But recently I was with a group of parents who are seriously working the external scholarships. One who is working with a college consultant said that the consultant recommends spending an hour a day working toward finding and applying for these scholarships. And while we can afford her choices for the most part, it’s certainly preferable to work with other people’s money!
Are we being short-sighted by not working harder to find outside scholarships?
I think you guys are on the right track pursuing schools with lots of merit money and secondarily looking at the local ones that you qualify for. There are some good outside scholarships out there but at least in my experience it was a “high effort/low reward” activity. It’s possible that the scholarship consultant can help research likely scholarships but if the approach is to just mine through scholarship databases like Fastweb it might be more time than your daughter or you want to spend.
I think in addition to the local scholarships another avenue that you could pursue is to talk to your high school guidance counselor for more leads.
I think you are on track. Avoid the frenzy. Your friends’ kids are not as dialed-in as yours is. You have identified a strategy that works for you.
Even if the schools “stack”, they will not reduce your contribution with outside scholarships below your EFC (only internal, merit, scholarships will do that!). So COA - Merit - EFC = max outside scholarship $ that will NOT reduce your merit $. Since your EFC is high, the Merit scholarship is the best you can do.
For peace of mind, you should call Alabama and clarify this; but it seems to be the way even the MOST generous schools operate. (well, I think Princeton will up the basis to (COA + new computer)).
^^^ “Even if the schools “stack”, they will not reduce your contribution with outside scholarships below your EFC (only internal, merit, scholarships will do that!).”
Some schools do allow you to stack all the way through the COA (any grant aid would be reduced, but not merit), so the OP should check w/each one.
Personally, I think it depends on how good at writing you are/what sort of life circumstances you’re coming from. For me, applying to outside scholarships has very much been a high effort, high reward activity – but I know others who haven’t received any external money at all.
The best source of outside merit opps are those that are local…so ask your GC about those. However, those are likely for only one year…and are small amounts.
Many outside awards have a need component, so you’ll have to determine whether your income is likely too high for your child to be considered.
The last thing I would do is pay someone to work with me on scholarships. As noted, the best awards are from the schools. How much are they paying ths scholarship hunter?
I think you have a good strategy. Your daughter likes the schools, and her chances for merit will be good at the schools you are targetting.
I would suggest adding University of South Carolina to your list. They have some good scholarships for OOS students that also reduce the tuition to the instate rate. The Cooper and McKissick were the awards when my DD applied. They are not guaranteed but are awarded based on the strength of the admissions application. She got one that reduced the tuition to the instate rate, and then gave a $ stipend as well. In addition, they have the McNair, which requires completion of their scholarship/honors college application…which is a doozie. But if selected, it’s a full ride. U of SC allows stacking of merit aid as well…up to the cost of attendance. You can get a NM award, and a departmental scholarship too…and add them right on.
College of Charleston also has some nice awards, but it has a smaller college feel to it.
My D got two external scholarships but both offsets the grant amount on the aid package. At the end we gain nothing financially. However, those scholarships have small amounts and are non renewable. What turns out to be helpful are two additional lines on my D’s resume and the interview experience.
Usually no…for a variety of reasons. A “better” school isn’t going to care that a lesser school gave you merit. And, typically, most schools don’t have a lot of money budgeted for merit. Some schools don’t give any merit at all.
We only looked at colleges where our kids would get high merit scholarships, as we knew we would not qualify for any need-based aid. My DD applied, and won outside scholarships that had no need component, that can be used for room and board and other incidentals. None of these affected the scholarships that would cover tuition. So for us, yes, it was worth it. From a time perspective, I think it was well worth the effort. Besides her NROTC and AROTC scholarships that she won, she applied for 16 scholarships and won 7 of them totaling $20,200.
@MidwesternHeart, I would LOVE your original list, your process/methodology, and the final 16 you chose to chase! I will be treading this path soon with my DD (class of 2016) and would love some orientation. PM me?
We knew that she would not have the stats for the “big” national level scholarship, so we focused on the national scholarships that had local/state components (i.e. AXA, Elks MVS - which DOES say it has an income component, but we knew would not prohibit her in the local scholarship competition, and P.E.O.), Employer scholarship (I worked for a national company), those with a Military slant (since we former military officers) and of course local club scholarships, like Rotary Club. There were scholarships that we saw, where we felt that she would have a good shot at, but once we read the “fine print” found out they would only cover tuition. So we did not apply for those, as we knew she would only be going to a college where she would get a full-tuition scholarship based on merit or would be going to a school on an ROTC scholarship that covers all tuition at the selected school. Most of the scholarships are only 1 time scholarships, but a couple renew for all 4 years. Again, I don’t think we really spent a lot of time on this and the amount she got was more than she could ever earn working 4 years of summer jobs. When all was said and done, she ended up with a Navy ROTC scholarship that pays all of her tuition at the University of Notre Dame and the others cover almost 2 full years of the room and board!
Thank you, @MidwesternHeart! Where did you dig these up? More precisely, what process did you use to unearth these?
@CourtneyThurston, could you share specifics of your process, too. I understand doing an internet search, and burrowing into High School websites for curated lists, as well as going to the library and to the GC office. Is there more method to this madness that you could share?
We used the internet only in our search. I looked at the scholarship links on this site, the typical sites like FASTWeb Scholarships, a local high schools college counselor’s scholarship link and would use key words search on Google like: college scholarships (with local city, state), or military college scholarships or Women Engineering Scholarships. We’d follow the links and read the criteria. If it applied to what we were seeking, we’d add it to an Excel spreadsheet with the website, the date the applications opened, the deadline date and what the application requirements were (i.e. recommendation letters, transcript, etc.). We did this during her Junior year and as soon as the applications opened for her in her senior year, she would complete them. She didn’t feel overwhelmed, because she knew ahead of time when they were all due, what they required and their weren’t a ton of them on the list.
@ItsJustSchool My advice is to cast a wide net at first and see what works for you. I haven’t won a single local scholarship, but haven’t lost any of the “big, national” scholarships yet – I really have no explanation for that, but it’s happened to a few other people I know as well.
It’s understandable to not want to apply to everything all through the year, but I think that’s the best approach at first.
Also, just a note that I don’t really get the impression that sky-high stats (GPA/ACT/SAT) are needed for most national scholarships (they matter for Elks); “pointy” achievements (founded a non-profit, published research, etc) or personal circumstances (experience with poverty, etc) matter much more.
We found that scholarships and how “easy” it is to win them vary greatly by region. One DD won 14 or 15 scholarships, but we lived in a small town at the time. They included Kiwanis, Elks (local and state), Soroptomists, 3 or 4 military ones, Ronald McDonald local and I forget what else. After we moved to a much more populous area with a higher education level among the population, the odds went down. Her sister won one military one and that was it. There were way more applicants for each scholarship.
I agree with Courtney that some of the really big scholarships need to have other impressive “hooks” in addition to good stats. Our daughter was the above average, well-rounded student who had great grades, good test scores, was athletic, multiple-team captain and school leader. She definitely did not have any special, extra-ordinary extracurricular activities that would have set her apart in the national level competitions. When I read some of those previous national winners’ bios I am totally impressed on what those kids have accomplished. As a point of reference, we do live in a large, metropolitan city area (top-10 in the country).