<p>Does anyone know what that means on the financial aid award letter?</p>
<p>[Let</a> me google that for you](<a href=“LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You”>LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You)</p>
<p>Are you a merit scholarship winner? If so that could be it as it would factor into your FA as part of your total cost of attendance. If not, then Duke maintains some alumni/university endowments/fund pools that are awarded based on need. These are generally not publicized but you’ll see them on your FA letter and they will replace some of that unspecified “grant money”. It’s a way for Duke to shift around funds for financial aid to cover everyone.</p>
<p>If part of your financial aid does come from a “named” pool of money then you may be asked to write a thank you letter at some point to the donors during the school year.</p>
<p>Merit award covers full tuition, fees, room & board, and a small stipend for books. It is subject to renewal for the scholar’s four years of undergraduate study. Additionally, Trinity Scholars are offered up to $6,600 for research or other educational enrichment programs.</p>
<p>It just means it’s a grant for students enrolled in Trinity based on financial need. It’s not a merit award. The Trinity Scholars Program is different and doesn’t show up on your financial aid award letter. As SBR said above, sometimes FA says “grant” and sometimes “scholarship” - I guess it just depends on where the funding comes from. But don’t worry about it - it doesn’t need to be paid back.</p>
<p>Trinity scholarship is a merit scholarship, not a grant. It is in the Duke website, under “merit scholarship programs” where I pasted the info from and it is publicized. [Duke</a> University | OUSF Office of Scholars & Fellows: Trinity Scholarships](<a href=“http://ousf.duke.edu/trinity]Duke”>http://ousf.duke.edu/trinity) Anybody who gets it is called a Trinity Scholar. They come from a mix of 12 endowments that rotate every year and each one is for students from a different region at N & S Carolina. Some of the endowments do specify that the recipient must satisfy both the geographical residence and have financial need.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is the Trinity scholarship we are talking about here. Sometimes grants on financial aid that is purely need based will also be called a “scholarship”. My first year, on my financial aid package, the grant portion was listed as “Duke University Scholarship” but it was just a grant and probably came from a general grant funds pools. Later on part of my grant was a named scholarship from the McCutchens and part was Duke University Scholarship. Then senior year some of it also came from the Sherman Family in addition to the McCutchens and also Duke University Scholarship. So the grant money is mixed and all depends on where they pull money from. In this case, it seems like the grant money may have come from a Trinity-specific pool, possibly the Trinity portion of the Duke Annual Fund which funds a lot of the financial aid. </p>
<p>If you are a merit winner then you’ll find out long before your financial aid. If this is the first time you’ve come across it, then it’s safe to say that it’s NOT a merit award.</p>
<p>I can confirm that Duke’s need based grants on financial aid awards to students in Trinity show up on their award letters as “Duke Scholarship Trinity”. This is need-based aid, not merit aid.</p>