<p>Why does Alabama release their award and scholarship information so late? How do they expect people to make a decision and finalize plans? Most of the other schools my son has been accepted to have already sent their info or will by mid March. Bama is our first choice but if we keep waiting around we will miss many opportunities at other schools. I called and spoke with financial aid and scholarships and was very disappointed I was even told by one lady that she downloaded over 10,000 FAFSA’s in one day and she didn’t have time to mess with individual situations. As of now we have already paid out $750 to bama between the enrollment deposit, housing, orientation etc. Now his second choice has to have their money by March 1st, how do you all do it?</p>
<p>kdlbrebel,</p>
<p>This has not been my experience. What scholarship information are you talking about? The folks we have worked with at 'Bama have been very timely (often answering emails on weekends) and helpful. </p>
<p>My solution has been to not put down deposits until we are certain where DS really wants to go. We haven’t heard about scholarships from any schools other than the National Merit Scholarships offered. We have heard nothing from UNC, NCSU, or Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>What school is requiring a deposit by March 1st?</p>
<p>well most of their scholarships are guaranteed, so there is not that much that is a mystery.</p>
<p>there are plenty of other schools that haven’t even given admission decisions, much less scholarship info.</p>
<p>hopefully you get the info you need soon.</p>
<p>Many schools haven’t even sent out acceptances yet, much less FA packages.</p>
<p>KDK…I know that this has been frustrating for you, and we all would really like for your son to be able to come to Bama. However, since the OOS cost is $30k+ and his test scores aren’t high enough for good-sized merit, the most I can imagine that his FA package might include is…</p>
<p>a $5500 loan
a $4000 loan for Plus denial
maybe $3000 for dept merit scholarship…this is just a hopeful guess since dept scholarships usually aren’t very big.</p>
<p>That’s about $12k </p>
<p>That still leaves more than half of the costs uncovered. </p>
<p>I think that you said that your EFC was about $8k or so…is that right. Can you pay more than that?</p>