<p>... in order to want financial aid/money for college? I'm a CA resident, if that makes a difference.</p>
<p>I've been hearing from a bunch of resourses... sometimes even contradictory.</p>
<p>There's contests to save money, fastweb.com, etc...
...yet there's this thing called fafsa, and Cal Grants...
And I also think that you apply for financial aid after you're accepted into a college.</p>
<p>What steps should I take? What's Fafsa? </p>
<p>Thanks in advance~</p>
<p>FAFSA = Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
You'll have to fill it out to apply for FA at any school, and it also determines your eligibility for Pell Grants.
Cal Grants are a type of grant for students attending college in CA. You'll get a GPA verification form or something at school, and you should have your counselor send it in.
fastweb.com is a site with a lot of scholarship opportunities...nothing's guaranteed, of course, but it's a useful resource.</p>
<p>Steps:
File FAFSA after January 1st, 2007, and have the colleges you're applying to receive the information.
Fill out CSS/PROFILE (on collegeboard.com) for the colleges that require it. UCs don't, so if you're only applying to UCs, you don't have to worry about this.
Apply for Cal Grant. I don't remember exactly how this goes, but I remember getting a green slip of paper where I wrote my GPA.
Apply for scholarships!
I haven't actually had to do this myself, since my school has a no-loan financial aid policy, but get your loan situation worked out.</p>
<p>I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things here, but I hope that was somewhat helpful. Best of luck to you next year.</p>
<p>musing</p>
<p>What colleges are you applying to?</p>
<p>There is need based and merit based financial aid. </p>
<p>For need based aid, you will need to fill out a FAFSA and some schools also require the CSS/PROFILE. CSU and UCs only need the FAFSA. Schools like Stanford, Occidental, Pomona also want the PROFILE.</p>
<p>If I recall correctly, my son applied for aid by 1/31 last year (apply before you are accepted into college). If you are applying for the Cal Grant....they need a GPA verification form filled out and submitted (I think that was in March).</p>
<p>Merit Aid: my son didn't use Fastweb to apply for outside scholarships. It just seemed like too much work. However, many colleges will let you know of in-house scholarship opportunities once they receive your application. For some of these in-house scholarships, you need to send in additional information (i.e. another application and/or essay).</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>But I'm a bit confused... so FAFSA and college financial aid is the same? So all I will need to so is to fill out the FASFA?</p>
<p>BTW, I'm applying to mostly UCs, maybe some CSUs.</p>
<p>There are four types of Financial Aid:</p>
<p>1.) Federal Grant
2.) State Grant
3.) University Grant
4.) Private Grant</p>
<p>Federal Grant is obviously a Financial Aid by Federal Governement. FAFSA is one example of Federal Grant. They give you financial aid REGARDLESS of where you attend the college as long as it's in the U.S.A. This is a need-based grant.</p>
<p>State-level Grant is a Financial Aid by State. Cal Grant is one example of this. However, unlike FAFSA, only the students who's a resident of the state (For Cal Grant, you need to be a California Resident attending Californian college) is eligible to apply. This is also a need-based grant.</p>
<p>University Grant is a Financial Aid given by the specific university you are currently attend or you will attend in the future. Many of University-level Grants are in forms of Scholarships, meaning it's merit-based, so you'll need to write some sort of personal statement and send GPA verification to get it.</p>
<p>Private Grants are the Scholarships given by private firms. These are the ones you will find at websites like Fastweb.com. You'll have to write an essay for this, and topics can be various and be totally unrelated to your academic goas such as: What is your dream city. Like University Grants, this is merit-based.</p>
<p>Apply to all of this, in order of:</p>
<p>Federal
State
University
Private</p>
<p>And if you still lack money, that's when you apply for loans.
Hope this helped.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.finaid.org/%5B/url%5D">www.finaid.org/</a> </p>
<p>That is a nice, honest site.</p>
<p>Thank you so much, dhl3 - that really clarified all my questions. (:</p>
<p>oh for the info, when you apply for FAFSA (Federal-level grant application), you are basically applying for what's known as the "Pell Grant". The other financial aid availabe through FAFSA application are just loans that you have to pay back in the future.</p>
<p>anyway, Pell Grant is the only Federal Grant that you DO NOT have to pay back. The maximum they gave out for last couple of years was $4000 per individual.</p>
<p>For Cal Grant, they give you up to $8000.</p>