Does it make sense to apply for outside merit scholarships?

Paying for College
1

<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>

2

<p>My son was accepted to Yale SCEA this year and I had the same questions as you. Yale’s site gives additional details, but basically they will allow you to use outside merit scholarships to replace both the “self-help” amount of $4,400 and the summer earnings requirement of $1,800. In effect, receiving up to $6,200 of outside scholarships is very beneficial to you and does not affect your financial aid from Yale.</p>