What did your financial aid packages look like? (and a few other questions)

Transfer Students
1

<p>I'm in my first semester at a community college and I want to transfer out hopefully the fall semester of next year but whenever I go to the schools' websites that I'm interested in, the aid they list is kind of disappointing because I know I'm going to need a good amount of scholarships because I don't qualify for grants through the FAFSA (<em>tear</em>).
I'm taking 16 semester hours now and I'll be taking 11 this summer and no more than 14 in the fall when I plan on taking harder science/chemistry and math classes. (I'm a chemistry major)</p>

<p>Should I look more at public schools because they're cheaper or private schools because I've heard they give out more aid? I'm from Ohio and I want to go to school in-state so I'm looking at Ohio State University and Miami University for public, Case Western Reserve University, Kenyon College, the College of Wooser and Ohio Wesleyan University for private and maybe even the University of New Hampshire. I know that's a lot, but my final choices will be where I can get the most aid.</p>

<p>How much of your aid recieved was grants and scholarships? What school did you transfer to? And, what was you GPA (if you don't mind my asking)?</p>

<p>So far, mine is looking to be a 4.0 and I'm aiming to keep it as high as possible to make me eligible for more and more aid. Oh! And, there's a program that my CC offers that gets science majors into research labs as assistants at some of the universities in the area depending on where we want to tranfer--John Carroll University, Case Western Reserve University* and Cleveland State University and a few others--and it's very likely I'll get to join and get the job at Case (or John Carroll. The final decision where I want to go is up to me). Will that impact the aid recieved? </p>

<p>God, this is such a headache. It was bad enough last year when I was in high school, but to stress over this all over again is a major pain.</p>

<p>TIA.</p>

2

<p>I don’t know the specifics of the OH schools you’re looking at, but in general, there is much less in the way of merit scholarships for transfers compared to fr admissions. </p>

<p>While it may help in general to ask if a school is generous or not with FA, it’s mostly going to depend on your family’s financial situation since it’s need based. For instance, for a school that gives 100% of need, a student who’s parents make 50K/yr may get fantastic FA, but a family making 100 - 200k/yr will likely get nothing.</p>

<p>The private schools may use Profile for institutional funds, as well as FAFSA, which is only for Federal money. Your EFC using Profile could be either higher or lower than FAFSA, as they take more factors into account (eg. home value, cost of private HS).</p>

3

<p>miami’s fa is horrible. The only grants i got were for about $3000 and my efc was 2285. the rest were loans</p>

4

<p>^^^ Really? I’ve heard from people that applied there and got in that they got a good amount of aid. But they came from families with two or three children and I’m an only child, which according to this counselor at my high school will give me less need aid even though our household income is, like, $60,000 a year.</p>