<p>Hi everyone!!!
I’m a prospective student applying to University of Chicago for the Jan 1st deadline and
I was wondering if I could ask for help with something.</p>
<p>So for the Chicago common application, where there are options for applying for financial aid and for merit scholarship, is it possible to apply to both of them (as in state that you’re applying for aid and for the merit scholarship?) Or is it more like you apply to one and not the other? To give you more of a background, I’m a domestic international student applying to U Chicago as a questbridge finalist. </p>
<p>I would greatly appreciate any help! Happy holidays to all~</p>
<p>S applied for merit money and financial aid. Note that if you are awarded $10k in merit money and the amount of your financial need is $5,000, all you’ll get is the merit money.</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with Questbridge or int’l FA issues, but for anyone else who is curious, this is how Chicago works the merit $$ for domestic applicants.</p>
<p>Yeah, you can definitely apply for both. They’re not linked at all, and in fact decided by totally separate entities, so don’t worry- your financial aid eligibility will in no way change your eligibility for merit scholarships, and if you get a University-sponsored merit scholarship, it is treated as a “gift” that goes on top of whatever financial aid you receive.</p>
<p>^^Are you sure about that last statement? You can bet that if you qualified for let’s say $39k FA and you get the full tuition scholarship (close to $38k) with a cost of attendance of $54k, the student doesn’t get to pocket the difference. As far as I know, in this example, the least FA would be $1k and the most $16k to cover the difference to $54k (full ride). However, I agree with Countingdown that the merit award reduces your FA.</p>
<p>No, you do not get to pocket the difference, that was a case I forgot to mention, but this would only happen if you are receiving more than the cost of tuition in financial aid and loans AND a full-tuition scholarship. However, you can use merit scholarships to cover any portion of your expected contribution to the College- this could be eliminating your need to take out loans, helping with the student contribution, reducing the parent contribution, or paying for your room and board fees, basically everything except paying for books or Ramen. Just because the full tuition scholarship pays the cost of tuition doesn’t mean you have to apply it to tuition- you could use part of it to cover room and board as well. My main point was that your financial aid consideration does not change if you are also offered a scholarship- in the off chance that your scholarship covers more than 100% of your EFC and loans, you would still initially be offered the same amount of financial aid, and you’d work with the aid office to figure out how to adjust in your best interest. However, you would do this after the fact, and your aid consideration would only be changed after, not before. </p>
<p>And yes, all you have to do is check the box (and frankly, while this isn’t widely publicized if you don’t and are a candidate for merit scholarships, you’d probably be considered anyway). I’d think the two most common reasons for not checking the box are a) negligence and b) altruism, in the sense that some students who feel they might be good candidates for scholarships are in the financial situation to afford the cost of tuition and financial aid comfortably without assistance, and choose not to be considered for scholarships because they know someone else might better use the gift.</p>
<p>Gracello,
We qualified for about $7k in need-based FA and S received a $10k merit scholarship. We got zero FA. I called FA to check on this and was told that’s how they work it. I was also interested in finding out what they considered our EFC to be relative to other schools’ determination, and how this might play out when S2 heads off to college in a year and a half.</p>
<p>Huh, new to me. I haven’t heard reductions in finaid from other students I know with merit scholarships, but I guess it does happen based on your experience.</p>