<p>I am applying to a number of universities (state schools, ivy leagues, and a few others) and have already been accepted to Yale early action.</p>
<p>I suspect that once my family receives our final financial aid amounts, we will be receiving anywhere from 5,000-10,000 dollars in grant money, and a few thousand in work study from Yale and most other schools. </p>
<p>Does it make sense for me to apply for merit scholarships, especially those that do not provide large amounts (from 500-5,000)? I am not sure because won’t the financial aid office just take that money out of the grant they are giving me? If that is true, then it just seems like a waste to apply for those small merit scholarships and I do not think that I will win a major outside merit scholarship from anywhere, because I have not heard of any for political science/international relations majors.</p>
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<li><p>What!? There are tons of merit scholarships out there, and most of them do not require you to have a specific major!</p></li>
<li><p>Part of Yale’s fin. aid is “self-help”. They might give you low interest loans and expect you to make a few grand working. This component is usually about $4000 total. Outside scholarships erase this “self-help” part first, so about the first $4,000-$5,000 in outside scholarships would be TOTALLY WORTH IT. </p></li>
<li><p>Some scholarships come in bonds or even cash. In which case you do NOT have to report it to the school as a “scholarship” because they won’t know you got it (unlike other scholarships who mail the $ straight to the school).</p></li>
<li><p>Total a bunch of small $500, $1000, and bigger scholarships and you can cover the $5,000-$10,000 in grants pretty fast. After covering that and the “self-help”, everything you got would be worth it.</p></li>
<li><p>YOU DON’T HAVE THE FIN. AID PACKAGE YET!!! What if they give you nothing? Never assume anything. And if your parents start earning more and you lose the grant aid in subsequent years, outside scholarships over 4 years can help a lot! </p></li>
<li><p>The more you get in outside scholarships, the more money Yale has left over to give me! Lol.</p></li>
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