What happens to unused scholarships?

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

<p>So, as we all discovered this audition year, a student can attend only one school. However, the odds for admission being what they are, these students also must pour a lot of effort into applying to several schools in hope of that elusive acceptance and, if they are lucky enough to be accepted and choose to attend, look for any sources of funding to try to make that happen. Wow...what a sentence.</p>

<p>As we're coming to down to decision-making, kiddo has some different situations with school-issued scholarships, and along the line of the thread with suggestions of how to say "no thank you" to a school, here is one about this virutal money.</p>

<p>At some of her schools, she was accepted into the college or university itself, but not the BFA program. She has been offered the opportunity to attend in a theatre BA or other major at these schools. They have awarded her academic merit scholarships, which she will not be using. Does she make a point of saying, in her no thank you letter, "don't forget the money you had tagged for me -- please give it to someone else?" (And oh, if we could name the people she'd like to pay it forward to...but anyway.) I wonder if those funds, since they were never actually "spent" just stay in the school's general fund, as some were "automatic" awards for high-stats kids, with application and award deadlines even before the auditions began. She does need to relinquish her Fellows status at Elon, and we know they have alternates for those...so are very excited that some other person will have a very happy day with that scholarship, and are hoping for good scholarship/school karma for my d :-)</p>

<p>She also has been fortunate to receive some talent scholarships at schools she will not be attending (back to the "you can only go to one school" maxim). Again, when she notifies the school she will not be joining their MT or dance program in the fall, will those funds be re-disbursed to another student?</p>

<p>So...does she mention the awards at all when she contacts the school to tell them she's not joining the class of 2015? Does she also contact the department of financial aid, as her award notices with the academic stuff are coming from there? What about the loans FA is oh-so-happy to say "sure...take this in a loan!"? If she does not accept the loan, does she need to do anything more to make graceful closure with financial aid? How about returning the student's copy of the FA report (on the paper ones) with "cancel"??</p>

<p>Truly hoping her unused awards can go to another student....people who know -- telll how this works!!</p>

2

<p>My daughter turned down merit scholarships as we don’t really need the help, some we did as soon as it was offered to us, some not until she decided on the school. Our experience was that it depended on how quickly we turned the scholarship or school down and on each school’s policy. So, as is the case so often in this business, there is no one answer. </p>

<p>Whether you remind the school about the financial offering is up to you - your daughter has already been admitted, she’s turning them down. Honestly, I don’t think it will make any difference at all as we found that each school had it’s own policy and once you reject them they need to move on to those students who will be entering their school in the fall. Don’t over think this!</p>

3

<p>I don’t think it is something you need to worry about. By turning down the spot at the school, you are automatically turning down the scholarship also. This is something all schools deal with on a regular basis, so they have their procedures already in place and will figure it out.</p>

4

<p>Some schools have time parameters on some scholarship money, most do not. In any case it is not something you have to feel poorly about. As has been stated, many scholarship programs have alternates, and, if not, the money returns to the endowment making it stronger for the following year.</p>

5

<p>I work at a university and support the financial aid area from a technical (IT) standpoint. We have “overawarding” built in to our formulas, because we use statistics to guestimate what percentage of the students we offer scholarships to are actually going to come (or not). We want to give away as much as we can (up to 100%) and do all sorts of analysis to figure out the best way to spend our scholarship dollars - a smaller amount for more people, or a larger amount to fewer people, etc.</p>

<p>At our school money that does not get awarded gets rolled over into the next aid year’s budget.</p>

<p>School is not a musical theater school, by the way. It is a mid-sized public.</p>