<p>This might only apply to re-entry or independent students who have been working and have high personal EFCs, I don't know...</p>
<p>I applied for and received two $500 scholarships from my community college of which I informed Berkeley after my initial financial aid offer had been made to me. On that initial offer, I had been offered over $4000 in UC Berkeley Undergrad Scholarship which was broken out over fall and spring semester. After notifying UCB of my $1000 scholarship, I have learned that UCB replaced their $4k+ scholarship with the $1k scholarship! They basically took away $3000 just because I earned two small scholarships. I was expecting them to reduce the UG Scholarship by $1k, but not completely eliminate it. The only other aid I was offered were two unsubsidized direct loans, so this is a significant chunk of change that I worked my *** off to "reduce". I am very angry since now it will be that much more difficult for me to quit working while attending school and I might have to apply for a reduced course load. I want to avoid taking personal loans if possible, but I guess I might have to! </p>
<p>Has this happened to anyone else? What is your plan of action, or if this happened to you last year, what did you do to fix it?</p>
<p>why don't you just call the financial aid office and ask why this happened?</p>
<p>Crisis averted... I called and they said they had made a mistake and that they only reduced the UG scholarship by $1000. Well, that's a lot better than having it completely replaced, but I still would have preferred that they reduce the loan instead.</p>
<p>hey do you guys know when we have to log into our Offer letter in bearfacts to accept or decline out award?</p>
<p>Also, can we convert our work-study to loans?</p>
<p>i wish i could convert my loans to work-study....you guys are lucky...i got zippo. i'm glad you got that thing figured out though....it would have sucked to loose $3K!</p>
<p>IF you get UG scholarship from any UC it has been my experience that pretty much ANY other aid, or grant, including calgrants , etc, will reduce that b4 it will reduce the loan. Being that they are a state school they want you to be responsible for your education, so when you see your financial aid the portion of loans to grants you have in there pretty much will stay constant regardless of where the grants/scholarships come from. </p>
<p>It sucks, but thats how it is. Thats why i never bothered with outside aid because i would have had to actually come up with the whole cost of attendance in aid in order to reduce the loan amounts.</p>
<p>When I first received my outside scholarships, I asked my Financial Aid officer what exactly would be reduced first. She told me that they first reduce the subsidized loans, and then the university grants. I think the key word here is "subsidized." UCB only offered me UNsubsidized loans for some reason.</p>
<p>do you have a really high EFC? That is unlikely considering you are still getting the UG scholarship..... </p>
<p>i always thought in order to get unsubsidized you had to max out your subsidized and be independant because otherwise you would get parent loan as the second option, only after that is maxed you get Unsubsidized. Unless you are in grad program.</p>
<p>My personal EFC is around 18k. I am an independent student. I'll be filing a student contribution appeal in August, after I quit my job or work out a part time schedule with my boss.</p>