Skip FAFSA & CSS?

<p>Try this NPR piece on for a look at merit scholarships and enrollment management.
<a href=“How Colleges Fight For Top Students : Planet Money : NPR”>How Colleges Fight For Top Students : Planet Money : NPR;

<p>Mom22039 - Thanks for the article. It is right on the mark. From that article, this statement was the “most telling”…

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<p>My student CAN be “bought” by offering us a competitive financial incentive that is 1000000% percent independent of “need”. The problem (at this point) is that we haven’t heard a “peep” out of the nearby school. The distant one presented us a 25% discount in their acceptance paperwork. I started this thread to ask if a FAFSA was REQUIRED to get the merit awards. Answers were all over the place but it looks like there is no actual need to file a FAFSA in pursuit of merit awards. As this article pointed out, the colleges will pursue viable candidates and will fund them (mostly) independently of ability to pay. They will then (subsequently) evaluate needs to determine if any additional $'s need to be extended. This makes perfectly logical sense but all schools may not do it this way. </p>

<p>This has been an interesting thread.
There are at least 10 schools with higher ranked Japanese studies programs than WSU, but with lower acceptance rates( on average) , so they may not offer as much merit, but they might offer need based as a few are private.
Did he apply to any of them?</p>

<p>EmeraldKity4 - As with anything, it’s more in “who” you know rather than statistics. My son takes Japanese from an instructor. That instructor had another student that went to WSU and loves it. That paired with "its as far as a kid can go and still be in the US paired with “it’s closer to Japan” logic… rather than the raw statistics you indicated and that I may have influenced.</p>

<p>Then pair that information with schools who offer programs in International Business. Then look for the top school offering both the Japanese and the IB, you will find his #1 choice that is the crux of this thread who we have not yet heard any merit awards yet as they don’t announce the merit awards until the next few weeks. At least we now understand that the FAFSA is not required for this college to consider him for merit award</p>

<p>Here is the description for my son’s #1 choice… It’s a Japanese minor that would be paired with his International Business/Finance Double Major…

I am not even knowledgeable about the term anymore but when I went to college I “klep’d out” of nearly all my 1st year classes and if he could do that with his Japanese, then he’d have a solid head start on that component of the equation. The one concern would be that he would actually enjoy classes that he might test out of so it’s a bit of a 2-edged sword.</p>

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<p>Wait.</p>

<p>Part of the “enrollment management” game is that the college is factoring in the likelihood of attendance, and close geographic proximity is a factor that increases that likelihood.</p>

<p>Now that your son is in, you want the college to start to question whether your son will attend. </p>

<p>Given that it is presumably large public institution, that may never happen. Your son may just be a number to them.</p>

<p>But the point is, the merit awards don’t always come with the admission letters. You may see a letter and and offer down the line. You don’t have to accept until May 1. It’s probably worth the investment to risk the deposit for a housing reservation, if your son is facing that pressure from any college - other than that, there’s no particular reason for your son to make moves early on. The distant university might also up the ante and sweeten its offer over time, as well. </p>

<p>Partly it depends on whether the son’s proficiency in Japanese is particularly valuable to the university. Your son is something of a prize to a university with a strong but under-enrolled language department – but might be considered expendable by a university whose department is overenrolled. I wasn’t focusing on merit aid, but my daughter had specific strength in a language and I targeted colleges by counting the number of faculty for that language at each university and comparing that to undergrad enrollment levels in the language classes. That became my daughter’s hook for admission at several reach colleges – and it was an admissions strategy that certainly paid off. </p>

<p>So you might find that doing that sort of research right now will give you an indication as to how much each of the current two contenders may be willing to put out in order to snag your son as a student. Keep in mind that your son has something to offer to each university – and an academic scholarship is their way of paying for that something. </p>

<p>He may not be anything more than a number and that is OK with us (at this point) as long as that number equates to a waiver of out of state tuition fees. His “numbers” are sufficient to qualify for merit award strictly based on the numbers published by the school itself so we are hoping that numbers do provide that vehicle. I originally had a concern because one school sent the award in the admissions package which through us off a bit. Now that we know that we won’t hear anything from the second school for a bit, we are better so we are “good” just playing the waiting game. I did hurry filing my taxes in order to complete the FAFSA but that is not entirely a bad thing (at least they are done).</p>

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<p>If you’re making this statement about colleges in general, the answer is, it depends on the school, which is why answers “were all over the place.” If there’s no information on the school’s website about whether or not FAFSA/CSS is required to qualify for merit awards, you should contact the school directly to ask.</p>

<p>If you’re making this statement about specific schools that you have already determined don’t require FAFSA in order to qualify for merit aid, then never mind.</p>

<p>It’s good to have the tax info ready, in case either college requests the FAFSA.</p>

<p>It’s possible that in some cases they might consider your lack of need favorably in terms of merit money. That could be a matter of balancing funding – if they have $X available in the “merit” pool and $Y available in the “need” pool – knowing that you don’t qualify for $Y might make them more comfortable with spending more $X money. (Of course the fact that you haven’t applied for need-based aid is also a signal that you wont’ be taking any $Y money). Keep in mind that need based aid is a source of outside funding for them – it is not wise financially for a college to give so much merit aid that the student is disqualified from federal aid (Pell grants, federal loans, etc.). To the student, a grant is a grant – to the college, a Pell grant is free money from the federal government, a federal loan is money the college gets up front and the student has to pay later on. </p>

<p>Another reason that lack of need might be considered favorably is simply because this gives them a better sense of where they stand in terms of enrollment management. If they have a student who obviously has strong enough academic credentials to be accepted at a full need school – then even a generous merit offer might be futile, as high need student may be able to attend a top private school at essentially no cost. Even if the student is not a potential Harvard admit – high need can also telegraph to the school that even with generous merit aid, the student still won’t be able to afford to attend – so again, it’s not always a bad thing if the college knows your finances are strong.</p>

<p>But I’m not suggesting you volunteer the info unless asked – I’m just pointing out that it won’t necessarily work against you if the information is sought at some point. </p>

<p>Calmom - I understand and have considered that ability to pay could be a benefit but you are presenting this a bit like a negotiation which seems a bit “odd” to this parent planning for his 1st college age child. Based on what I’ve seen, applicants put their eggs in a basket (FAFSA, grades, whatever). The colleges tell us …“we will let you know what you qualify for in March”. This makes it look like a one-way street so where…exactly… do applicants get an opportunity to “negotiate”. Have some applicants had a school say “We will give you $5K in merit aid to help offset costs” only to (somehow) tell (someone) at the school that it’s not enough based on your other options? From what I’ve seen (so far) it’s basically a black door behind which the State institutions are making decisions but perhaps that is not reality. If that IS the case, then I would be interested in how others have handled those discussions with schools. Is there an existing thread on that type of discussion?</p>

<p>You may or may not be able to negotiate aid depending on the school.</p>

<p>I would act on the assumption to assume that aid is negotiable unless told others.</p>

<p>However, you wouldn’t call up the college and say, “can we negotiate a better deal?” (bad form).</p>

<p>Instead, your son might call up and School A. and say something like: “I really would like to attend School A, but School B has offered me $X in merit money, and my parents are pressuring me to attend School B. I’m wondering if I qualify for any scholarship from School A?” </p>

<p>or call School B and say, “Thank you so much for your generous scholarship offer! I really want to attend but my Mom objects to me traveling so far from home. But my Dad says they would let me come if out-of-state tuition was waived. Do you think that’s possible?”</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s appropriate to play one school against the other for the sake of getting increased aid from both - but it makes sense to give it a try based on your son’s true preference as to first choice school. </p>

<p>With need-based aid the negotiation process is a little more straightforward: the student “appeals” the aid award and says he needs more money, sometimes sharing a financial aid offer from a rival school if it is significantly better. If the school has already met 100% need, the student might ask them to reassess need in light of the other school’s determination.</p>

<p>I don’t have much direct experience at the undergrad level, but I definitely made it a practice to talk with someone in financial aid to go over the award and look for possible adjustments. Graduate level, both of my kids were initially offered no funding at all and then later given 50% tuition scholarships/discounts after meeting with appropriate people at their respective schools (public U. for my son, private U. for my daughter).</p>

<p>Sorry for being so blunt in my initial reply. I know how to negotiate effectively. If you re-read this thread you will see that the long distance school has essentially already offered us a waiver of the out of state fees via their academic award of $9K but you are right that there may be additional $'s that may be available from them. They already pointed me to departmental groups to uncover those potentials. The local school is the one that is a bit of a mystery as they haven’t even hinted at ANY merit-based availability yet I just learned (today) that they HAVE offered out of state waivers for other applicants. Most on these boards are saying that we will have to wait for the scholarships that he is qualified for to arrive but we do still have concern that they may not even be considering him even though he qualifies for those merit-based awards. The last thing we want to do is to 'sit on our hands" waiting for an offer, then learn that we aren’t being offered anything and then then school saying …"You didn’t cross this T or dot that I so…THAT is why we didn’t offer you any additional incentives and all the scholarships have already been extended so…you can come and pay the full price as your only option :(</p>

<p>You can probably get something by just making a call. Ask them if any merit might be coming later and if not - talk your kid up. At least you will show them that you are seriously considering their university. We got our original “generous” merit offer of 1K improved by another 2K by arguing our case with an instate public university that is desperate to raise their national profile to become a “public Ivy” and reserves most merit for out-of-staters. Meanwhile our public flagship that seems to value locals with good stats offered my kid a full ride.</p>

<p>CCDD14 - Was your child’s award a merit or needs-based offer? I ask because my child is also awaiting a decision from a local $60K/year college at which we feel he may not be able to get into (due to a lower GPA than they normally make merit offers too). For the most part, we’ve given up on that one because we know we won’t be able to afford a $60K/year university with the cash we have reserved and we are not willing to take ANY loans out for his college.</p>

<p>What’s your FAFSA EFC, now that you’ve finished?
Did he apply to any schools that met need?
Even if a school requires PROFILE, they don’t always use that number instead using the ( usually lower) amount to administer aid.
My daughter was accepted to a $60,000 school that met need, even though her grades & scores were below the median. They also used the FAFSA EFC to determine need not the PROFILE.</p>

<p>This is MY experience with merit awards. Most of them do not take ability to pay into consideration at all, in that they are offered most of the time by the Admissions Office and are so offered to entice the most desired candidates to come to the school. Those merit awards that are distributed by the financial aid office, yes, there has to be need in order to get them. But those in Admissions that I have seen tend to truly based on merit. There are schools that meet full need where it could be money “wasted” by Admissions if such an award is given to someone who is going to be getting aid, since that money would just reduce his need, and not have made any difference, but MOST, not all, but most of the “name” schools do keep Admissions and Fin Aid separate. They are different personnel in different offices not even close to each other. The schools Admissions offices do not see the FAFSA and FIn Aid numbers. </p>

<p>But, there are exceptions. Also, though none of the schools that I know request a FAFSA for consideration for merit awards, some of them I found out, do require it before the funds are released. We never got that far, so we did not know, but found out from others. Also, I do know some scholarship panels that do require a SAR (from FAFSA) at some time in the process. Some schools that have citizenship requirements and other things that FAFSA vets want the SAR for that reason. Also some outside scholarships do take need into some consideration even though not having it does not eliminate a person from the award. I know one such award where several non need kids won many years, in fact, few needy kids got the largest price. The need could be a tie breaker in the award, but not a factor otherwise.</p>

<p>But things have been changing rapidly in the way colleges are doing things and all sorts of enrollment management is being done in ways that it’s difficult for us to keep track. It comes down to the individual school. </p>

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I know you are trying to help here but it looks like you’ve missed a few of my KEY comments in this thread with this question. Specifically, we don’t expect ANY needs-based awards and we are NOT willing to accept any student loans as that goes against our principles. As a point of reference, the (updated) EFC is right at 54,000.</p>

<p>We have basically budgeted between $60K & $100K (top end) for his 4 years. At this point, I think everyone in here now knows that we already have those $s set aside for him.</p>

<p>His SAT is pretty decent @ 1330/1920 having only taking it one time early in his Junior year. Now that he has had additional advanced classes (like calculus), he probably could have re-taken it and gotten a 1440/2100 Super Score but he’s not one to bother if there is not an obvious direct benefit. His GPA is 3.61 and will likely only go up as he has A’s in all but his AP class in which he currently has a B (on a 5.0 scale that may be a 4.2 or so, right?). The schools that we are considering DO offer merit awards for those numbers so we are simply waiting to see what they will offer (at this time). If they don’t offer or if the offers come in low, he can always drop back to his second choice ($36K in pocket for 4 years on that one) and he’d be just fine. We’ve also spoken to that college’s departments and they are indicating that they could 'find" additional $'s IF it would get him to commit there so it’s not all bad.</p>

<p>Our objective is to get him into a $40K/year college for $25K. Filing the FAFSA may well have hurt our chances to get merit-based awards but others say that is not the case. None of that matters now anyway as I did go ahead and file the FAFSA.</p>

<p>@ndabunka – I think that you should make inquiries at the closer school that has offered no aid at all – don’t just wait – but have your son make the calls if possible. You can coach him through on what to say – you can even be in the room listening when he makes the calls – but he might be able to arouse more sympathy when he calls. The staff at the university may view you as a person with lots of money who is just being greedy – but they will understand that your son has limited funds of his own and can’t compel parents to contribute more than they are willing. So without talking about need-based aid, your son can talk about “need” – in the sense that there is a gap between the school costs and what his parents are willing to pay.</p>

<p>It’s very hard to predict things because each school has different practices and different funding levels, especially given that you are dealing with public rather than private colleges. In some states the public schools are really being squeezed for money and they rely heavily on payers of out-of-state tuition to help with finances; some states offer little or no merit aid at all, and may favor the in-staters rather than out-of-staters. </p>

<p>But you have nothing to lose by trying. </p>

<p>Everyone - Thanks for all the fish*… er, help!</p>

<ul>
<li>You have to be a fan of Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy to get this reference</li>
</ul>

<p>So referring back to your favorite local school mentioned up thread, this statement is on their merit aid FAQ.</p>

<p>“Approximately 10 percent of each enrolling class will be offered a merit-based scholarship”</p>

<p>The Freshman Class Profile shows an ACT “middle 50” as 30-33 and SAT middle 50 as 1900-2190.</p>

<p>The CC brain trust seems to indicate that merit is rarely given for middle 50 students and is really targeted at the top 10 pct of applicants–unless someone has a magical hook.</p>

<p>I hope you will come back and tell us how this all works out!</p>