What can scholarships be used for?

[yengx7788]

If I were to win any scholarships in the near future, would it be possible for them to be applied towards books, textbooks, and electronics during my time at Penn? Most of the scholarships I was applying for send the check directly to the school for tuition assistance.

According to my financial aid package, I only have a parent contribution and a student contribution to pay for. However, on the Penn financial aid website, it says that it doesn’t allow outside scholarships to be applied towards the parent contribution. If this is the case, what can the scholarship be used for at Penn?

I was hoping to purchase an Ipad for educational purposes, but I want to wait for scholarship money. Would I be able to purchase an Ipad with scholarship money at Penn?

[sparkleybarkley]

Most likely it would knock off work study if you have that in your financial aid package. We are in a similar situation. My son received full tuition scholarships at 2 schools. He is also in the running for a scholarship through his fathers work. If he gets the scholarship it will only go reduce his full tuition grant and really we will see none of it. I checked into Penn and if he gets in it will only knock out any work study.

[ucbalumnus]

If you mean outside scholarships, see

Outside Scholarships

@University of Pennsylvania

We will apply your outside scholarship funding to your package to reduce or replace some of the funds that you as a student are expected to contribute or earn. We will first apply the outside scholarship funds to reduce or eliminate the “summer savings” component of your financial aid package, which is reflected in your Student Contribution. If necessary, we will then reduce or eliminate the work study allotment you would be expected to earn throughout the year.

If your outside scholarship is larger than the combined value of your summer savings expectation and your work-study allotment, the remaining amount will replace university grant funding. Outside scholarship funding cannot be used to reduce your Parent Contribution.

In other words, the outside scholarship can replace your student contribution (the work earnings that they expect you to be able to contribute).

[TomSrOfBoston]

All outside scholarships must be reported to your college, even if they send the check to you. Which they very seldom do.