<p>I have seen this asked in other threads but have not seen a detailed answer. If a student is in the running for institutional merit scholarships, does the scholarship committee use the personal financial info from FAFSA/CSS to decide who gets a scholarship?<br>
It makes sense to me that schools could use some of the sophisticated analyses we hear about for yield management, etc. to decide how best to disburse their merit money.
For example, CSS may show that a student has a chunk of money in his name sitting in a UGMA. Would a school look at it and say “OK, we can get this kid to enroll if we give him a half-tuition scholarship. We’ll give a full-tuition scholarship to someone else who doesn’t have the UGMA.”
Or do the folks making the merit scholarship decisions not even have access to the financial info?
Anyone know?</p>
<p>I think it depends upon the school. Some schools give $ based on need as well as academics, although they might call it “need-based aid.” Other schools award $ on academic merit alone (i.e., gpa/strength of coursework/scores) without regard to family finances, the “institutional merit scholarship.” In my opinion, one needs to find out each school’s financial aid policy and how that policy is implemented. There’s no definitive answer on this… It takes time and research. You might also wish to look at the common data set for schools in which you are interested. This usually gives some financial info. The CDS can usually be found somewhere on a school’s website, “institutional research.” Also, if you look through old CC posts, someone had put togther a list of CDS websites which is very helpful. (Unfortunately, I cannot recall where on CC I had first seen it.)</p>
<p>I think it depends on the school, and many schools give merit aid that takes need into account. A true merit award, though, shouldn’t look at the FAFSA or other similar forms. I have a merit scholarship to the school I now attend and never filed any financial aid forms.</p>
<p>At Carnegie Mellon, to be elligible for one merit based award, you need to fill out a FAFSA and prove that you are too rich for need based aid.</p>
<p>Some schools require that you fill out financial aid forms for merit awards, or for particular merit awards. They may use the info to “manage” their awards. But for those schools/awards that do not require these forms, they give the money to the person that best fits the criteria for the award, sometimes weighing the college’s needs as well. Sometimes not. THere are merit awards that are straightforward, based on SAT or GPA cut off. Or musical talent, community service , etc which have more play. But if they do require the aid forms to qualify, need will not play a role. I have seen kids who came from well to do families that did not need money get merit awards. Awards that come through admissions most often are not need based, and those that are awarded by outside committee are not if they do not ask for financial info. If they come from financial aid, they may be merit within aid packages, and, yes, often your need will be taken into account.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed that many outside scholarships have the criteria of “financial need.” I’ve always made a distinction between merit-based scholarships and grants, but I now realize that I am wrong.</p>
<p>If they don’t ask for your financial aid forms or financial info, it is unlikely they are considering it, because they don’t have it. If they do, it is likely a factor even iif they say you don’t need to qualify for aid to get it. It can be a small factor that may not effect your getting aid, but may effect the level of awards, or it could make a tremendous difference. </p>
<p>Boston U has a way of giving financial aid/merit money that they describe in detail. Though need is in the formula, so is merit. The more merit you have (in terms of stats), the less need you have to have in order to get a scholarship. The more need you have, the lower stats you need in order to get a scholarship. Other places that award scholarships/grants may use variations to this method. Or need could be a tipping point when they are right down to the line, but a clearly more outstanding candidate that the school really wants would trump need. You don’t usually get these particulars on how awards are given.</p>
<p>Most schools use merit scholarships to recruit kids with stats higher than their average stats, or to recruit kids who offer some other asset they want. These scholarships are not based on need and have no relation to family finances. Filing the FASFA form will not help a student get these type of merit based scholarships. My D has a merit scholarship and we did not file the FASFA forms. Some schools such as Boston University require filing the FASFA form to be eligible for some of their merit based scholarships. Every school is different and you can find out their policy by going to their website or calling them. I have a number of friends whose kids have merit scholarships at various schools and none of them filled out the FASFA forms, so my impression is that the majority of merit scholarships are independent of financial need. The best way to get a merit scholarship is to apply to a school that awards them and that you/your child is overqualified for.</p>
<p>So no one thinks that FAFSA info might be used by scholarship committees, unless there’s a need component in the scholarship?
I don’t know; it makes sense to me that when merit money is used to recruit a desirable candidate, the school might try to offer just enough to get the student to say yes. There is certainly no shortage of statistical data a school could use to attempt these kinds of predictions.
Maybe it’s simpler than I think it is.</p>
<p>My D’s school requires a FAFSA and CSS/Profile to be filed in order to be considered for merit aid. A datum.</p>
<p>I have heard instances at my S’s college where some students accepted in the Honors Program have actually received lower merit awards than other students, if need were not a consideration at all, you would expect those students to always have the top awards. I believe there is a definite need element to many “merit” scholarships - as well as consideration of other enrollment management factors in order to attract different kinds of students.</p>