<p>I'm a low income student who's looking into transfer into schools that offer great aid or possibly no loans at all. </p>
<p>Northwestern's No Loan Pledge seems to be very strict and explicitly says
"Students admitted to Northwestern as transfer students are not eligible for consideration
for the Pledge Scholarship. "</p>
<p>yet, I meet all the other requirements EFC < 20%, pell grant, etc.</p>
<p>Northwestern is my top choice, but should I even bother applying? With its low admittance rate, even if I were to get in, I wouldn't be able to pay for it. If I haven't made it clear by now, I don't necessarily have $75 + cost to send scores lying around. </p>
<p>However, it also does say for all students who have accumulated $20,000 in federal need-based loans, after the family covers any EFC, the University covers the remaining student budget with work-study and grant aid. </p>
<p>Which is ideal yet unclear as I would indeed take around 20k in federal loans but not immediately at the time of my admittance, so I don't what they mean by accumulated. Can anyone clear this up for me?</p>