<p>*I thought that at schools that did not meet 100% need, the merit aid could basically fill the gap, or even help you pay your EFC. It seems many people are seeking schools that offer merit aid and financial aid. I thought it was for this reason. *</p>
<p>Yes and no.</p>
<p>People who seek out HUGE MERIT, often do so to reduce their “family contribution”. If the school allows that, then fine.</p>
<p>$8k…is what the family pays (as long as the school allows stacking)</p>
<p>The $35k EFC family now is paying a small fraction of their EFC.</p>
<p>There are some smaller privates that seem to say, “merit can only be stacked up to tuition”…or something like that. Those policies must be so that they can spread money around to other students.</p>
<p>However, if the school was giving out need-based aid (not Pell) to the student and some of these scholarships were awarded, the school may take out their need-based aid…even if there still is need.</p>
<p>Slithy Tove is right of course, except that it is good to make an effort to learn about policies just because it is so disorienting and sort of demeaning to feel like you don’t understand at all what the heck is going on, you know,‘how the h*** do schools determine these packages anyway?’ If there is any chance your child will end up at a place where COA is surely below EFC, like a state school, then absolutely it is worth it to go after the little outside scholarships, even if you aren’t sure how those scholarships will be treated at the private schools.</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes, thank you for finding and clarifying what some of those schools have stated. I have looked (and will again) at several college website for the info, and sometimes I guess I just don’t know how to dig for it, while other times I read it but feel as confused as ever.<br>
Somehow I must have given the impression that I didn’t think outside scholarships are worth the effort. I don’t think I said that…but in case it seemed like it…I don’t mean that. It’s just that most of my confusion is with the merit scholarships that come from the colleges themselves, so that’s my focus right now. Plus, the outside scholarships that I know of would apply to almost any school, so probably won’t play a large role in choosing a college.</p>
<p>Right now I want to take advantage of the time we have (D is a Junior) to visit and see what she likes, but I don’t want her to visit and like schools that we won’t be able to afford, especially since grad school is a good possibility. </p>
<p>I am plugging in numbers to the calculators and reading the requirements for scholarships, and I know that a lot can change in the next year as far as test scores, gpa, class rank…even our finances, so do we go and visit the schools that might, maybe possibly work out financially while we have the time to do it…which could also serve as a motivator to achieve the scores/grade needed for scholarships, or do we not visit to avoid falling in love with a school that might be out of reach?</p>
<p>shoboemom: Wellesley meets 100% financial needs. They have the ability to do so because of their large endownment - 1.5 billion. For families with income less than $60,000, there are no loans in your financial aid package. For families with income between $60,000 and $100,000, the total loan amount over the entire 4 years is not to exceed $12,000. The rest of the financial aid is about $2,500 per year for work study and the rest in grants (free money). COA - EFC = financial aid (loans, work study, grant). For COA, Wellesley includes tuition, room/board, books, travel, and personal expense.</p>
<p>When my kid applied to SC, they stacked all kinds of aid up to the cost of attendance…merit and need based. I do not know if that is still the case.</p>
<p>I’ll give you a few examples from schools that meet 100% of demonstrated need.</p>
<p>MIT (my son’s school):</p>
<p>Billed amount (room, board, fees): Apx. 53K
MIT need-based aid: Apx 45K
Suggested loan: $2500
MIT work study: $3000</p>
<p>Looking at this, without loan and work study, we’d need to come up with about 8K.</p>
<p>Now, MIT has a policy that a student can bring in up to 6K in outside scholarship. My son did that. What it did was wipe out the loan, work study, so in the end, we were left to pay a little over 2K last year at MIT.</p>
<p>Compare that to Harvey Mudd:</p>
<p>Billed amount: Apx. 10.5K (After Mudd need-based aid and Cal Grant)
Loans in package: 5.5K
No work study in package
Cal Grant A: Apx $9700</p>
<p>Because of the Cal Grant, had my son bring in the 6k of outside scholarship, the scholarship would have gotten eaten by the Cal Grant (basically, they would have simply reduced the Cal Grant by 6K); so, in the end, he would have still been stuck with 5K worth of loans each year.</p>
<p>Princeton would have also allowed him to bring in some outside scholarship, but since the billed amount was only about $5300, I think there would have been some cap-I don’t know what it would have been, though.</p>
<p>Well, that is an issue of semantics. If you call reducing the self-help stacking, then it is. But note the clear indication that this does NOT reduce the EFC. </p>
<p>PS Some “stacking” is allowed by using outside scholarships to purchase a computer. Check Brown’s policies for an example.</p>
<p>AFAIK, true stacking requires all merit aid, except in … exceptional circumstances. Rearranging parts of demonstrated need with outside help is not really stacking.</p>
<p>Wellesley is like MOST other colleges that meet full need. You FAMILY contribution will NOT get reduced. It just won’t. You could get tons of outside scholarships, and the best that will happen is that your self help portion of any need based aid awarded by Wellesley will be replaced by that scholarship. In other words, your work study and loans will be reduced first.</p>
<p>Stacking up to the cost of attendance means that any merit and need based awards can be added together up to the Cost of Attendance to pay for your college costs. This includes outside scholarships, merit and need based aid from the school or any other source. VERY FEW colleges do this stacking…very few. </p>
<p>In the vast majority of cases, a merit award will reduce your need, which will reduce your need based award…or allow replacement of the self help portion (work study, loans) of your need based award to be replaced with a merit award. </p>
<p>Of course, a student could get the loan amount on their need based award reduced or eliminated, and then request the Direct Loan to help fund their studies. I believe this is possible.</p>
<p>Having merit aid replace the loan portion would be helpful. Paying the EFC would already be a stretch. We wouldn’t want to go into debt on top of that.<br>
I guess, like so many others, I am just struggling with several aspect of this…We all want our kids to have the option of going to the school that is best for them (Yes, I get that best includes being able to pay for it…but you know what I mean.) It is frustrating to find that all your kid’s hard work and achievements might get them a merit scholarship that may be meaningless, and can even possibly work against them.<br>
If a students gets a 10K Merit scholarship, renewable…there will be contingencies that they maintain certain grades, etc…which may affect what classes they take, and the stress…and also means that if they don’t maintain the grades, they won’t know what financial aid they might be able to get and would fear having to leave that school, but if they got that same 10K as NEED based aid, then, as long as their finances stay the same, they can feel relatively assured that they will get it the next year. There would still be contingencies, but not as strict as would be attached to merit aid.
I understand why colleges do this but it still doesn’t sit right. </p>
<p>So it seems it boils down to- merit aid would be helpful in certain circumstances:
-Full ride
-The merit award is larger than what the school would give you for need based aid
-You would otherwise be full pay
-It might be allowed to cover the loan portion of the school’s need based aid.</p>
<p>Is that correct, or am I still missing something?</p>
<p>Merit is a good option if you think your family finances will change over the four years. Need based aid is recalculated annually. Merit awards from the university are continued based on a minimum GPA requirement but are not related to your finances. </p>
<p>By the way…your kiddo will also lose federally funded need based awards AND/OR institutional grants if they fail courses or they end up on academic probation or don’t meet Satisfactory Academic Progress at their university.</p>
<p>There are other benefits to merit over need-based grants in some cases.</p>
<p>School merit awards may come with automatic admission to honors program so can bypass whatever application process they have, or even better, membership in the scholarship’s ‘club’ with it’s own special advising, mentoring, summer opportunities, trips, talks and so forth. Thinking of things like Duke Robertson and NEU University Scholars. At NEU, until this year when NMF scholarship was reduced, NMF and University Scholars received the same basic financial package, but University Scholars got paid travel to come for special weekend in advance of start of freshman year and many other extra benefits and opportunities NMFs did not receive (not that the NMF full tuition scholarship was anything to sneeze at.)</p>
<p>Also, if the merit is a well known highly competitive scholarship, like Robertson, say, it is something you always have. You won a prize. You can’t write that you received X dollars of need-based aid on your resume, but you can list the big named scholarships. </p>
<p>On the campus itself, recipients of certain merit scholarships may be perceived by faculty, administration and others to be a bit ‘special’ and accorded preferential treatment beyond the actual listed perks. They may find it easier to get jobs and research positions, get better pay, etc.</p>
<p>One of my D’s scholarships requires a 3.25 GPA and another 3.0 to renew. Not impossible, but somewhat more challenging than just staying off academic probation. Also must complete 30 credits within the academic year, not summer. Also not impossible, but gives one less flexibility to drop courses if having a particularly difficult semester.</p>
<p>Thumper I don’t understand this comment. If I had 10K or need and I brought in a 20K scholarship, are you saying they would only accept 10K of it ?</p>
<p>Kinda. They would take all of the 20K and credit your demonstrated need to the fullest (gaps, loans, work study, and in most cases your summer earning expectation,) leave your EFC alone, and reduce any grant. In other words, you will not lower the family contribution defined by the FAFSA or the IM method. </p>
<p>I think that is what Thumper was saying. :)</p>
<p>sort of, xiggi. What you say is very accurate in the majority of cases.</p>
<p>However, some merit awards CAN and often DO pay for some or all of the family contribution. That is why they can be much better than need based awards. </p>
<p>In the scenario presented above, if the student got a $20,000 merit award, it would actually be a LOT better than the $10,000 need based award…which would be lost if that $10,000 met full need.</p>
<p>As an example, my kid got a $10,000 merit award. Our EFC actually exceeded the cost of attendance. His merit award actually did cover $10,000 of our family contribution, </p>
<p>Most schools do not meet full need. There is a gap between the COA and family contribution…and aid. In those cases, a merit award can be used to fill the gap…which is a good thing. </p>
<p>In ALL cases, the amount of aid received cannot exceed the cost of attending the school…except in the rare cases when a student receives a FULL merit award from the college AND is entitled to the Pell grant as well.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that even “meet full need” schools generally have a student contribution (which they may offer direct loans or work study for).</p>
<p>They may allow merit scholarships to apply against the student contribution first (reducing loans and/or work study, if these are offered against the student contribution), but check the fine print for each school instead of assuming.</p>
<p>If I understand correctly, nothing will really effect the EFC that the school comes up with. My daughter is applying to a 100% meet need school. The NPC gave her a $34000 grant for an estimated net price of 28,000. Self help was $4,000 student loan and $1,900 student work and the parent contribution is $20, 200. If my daughter earned a $5,000 outside scholarship I think they would apply that to reduce her loan and student work. My long winded question is when all is said and done could she still get a $5500 loan and work study to ease our burden.</p>
<p>I do not think she can get work study to reduce your family contribution. Work study is used to meet need. If she no longer has need, she would not get this award. At schools that use Direct Loans, those are also used to meet need. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, if your child accepts an additional outside scholarship…and her loans are therefore eliminated, I believe she can ask for a Direct Loan. I’m not 100% positive, but I believe she can.</p>