My family doesn’t qualify for need based aid as per the NPCs on the college sites (200K income and assets).
Does sending FAFSA and CSS profile hurt my merit scholarship chances ? Or is it better to send it either way. Is the merit scholarship evaluation done separately irrespective of CSS and FAFSA profile information.
Asking here if any of the experienced parents would have the information,
Merit should be just that- merit aid, often also sometimes seen as tuition discounting, especially if a school wants to “lure” a particular student. It is usually advised to complete the FAFSA and/or CSS because, you never know if some calamity could befall a family who initially did not qualify for need based aid, even during their college years.
Merit awards should be done independently but some (definitely not all) colleges do require FAFSA/css to be completed before they will pay out merit awards. You would need to look at each college’s financial aid page to see what their policy about this is.
And some schools have required SAT/ACT scores for merit consideration, even if the school is test optional for admission.
And some may not require it but will give you extra merit for a good score…while others explicitly say they don’t take scores into account for merit. And some are more clear than others about what they use for merit. So bottom line if you are hunting for merit, ideally have good test scores to submit as well.
Clear as mud, eh? 
Yep. Gotta love the schools that have online merit calculators - I could see for example that ASU gave my kid an extra $4k a year when I inputted their SAT score - but they seem few and far between. Some schools award merit on a rolling basis (like Pitt) while others only award after offers have gone out to the top x% of a class - then it’s really hard to know what you’ll get.
If a school did look at your FAFSA/CSS, having a higher income could work in your favor. If they want you, and know that you aren’t going to receive financial aid, they need to find other ways to lure you in.
For a true merit scholarship (i.e. one that has no need component), it shouldn’t matter. That said, it’s your choice whether you submit or not. If you think your financial situation could potentially change for the worse in the next few years, making you eligible for need based aid l, then I believe the recommendation is to submit these docs now.
Yes, if it’s a true merit scholarship (except at 2-3 schools that require you to submit these forms even for merit aid).
When my daughter applied several years ago, we didn’t submit either form and still received merit scholarships from all three schools that offered them.
Isn’t that the same as not applying for financial aid?
Merit, at most every school, doesn’t require any financial aid submissions.
But to answer your question, being wealthy and showing so through submitting a CSS, shouldn’t impact any merit you’d receive.
Of course, most schools are opaque other than to say they have merit. Some public schools have merit tables so you know what you are getting.
If you have the time and ability to submit FAFSA and CSS, I would and did.
And I can’t imagine merit was impacted. After all, it’s merit and not need aid.
And the schools themselves will tell you it isn’t. It won’t even be the same group of people evaluating one vs. the other.
Good luck.
There are situations where FAFSA (and perhaps CSS Profile) may matter:
These aren’t pure merit awards then, which is what I was referring to.
International students need an I-20 form from the school (and a student visa). So it’s clear whether a student is domestic or not.
Wouldn’t Pell eligible students apply for need based financial aid?
It’s already clear from the application- they all ask whether or not a student is domestic or international.
Just clarifying re my FAFSA comment earlier - there are some schools (maybe a handful it seems) who don’t require a FAFSA or CSS to be awarded merit but need them submitted before they’ll pay out. For example, Fordham
Please note, Fordham requires the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to disburse all types of aid, including merit-based scholarships.
Actually, they can be. Some donors want their scholarship funds used for merit awards … but they also want the awards to go to students with financial need, if possible. So schools have a pool of merit funds, but they need to allocate certain merit funds with need as a consideration. The school will usually discourage donors from putting these restrictions on their donations, but they aren’t going to turn down the money if the donor insists on the restrictions. There are always some students who qualify for merit who also have need, so the school will match those funds with those students. But the students are in the pool without regard to financial need in the first place. (And I would be shocked to find a pool of merit applicants that doesn’t organically include some students with need.)
Perhaps we’re using the term differently. Given your experience as a FA officer, I defer to you regarding the official terminology. However, the way I and the people in my circle use the phrase, we say “pure merit” to mean scholarships that have no need-based consideration of any kind. So if need is considered as you mentioned above, then I would not call it a pure merit award, but rather a merit+need award.
Regardless of the terminology, those are the scholarships I was referring to when I said you don’t need to submit the FAFSA or CSS (with the exception of a handful of schools). I’ve confirmed this directly with several schools via email back when my daughter applied.
The OP needs to check with each college. There are some colleges that require the financial aid forms even for pure merit. My kids graduated from BU in 2007, and SCU in 2010.
DS received a music performance award from BU…totally merit based, and based in his audition. We didn’t qualify for need based aid. At the time, BU required that the financial aid forms be completed for freshman year.
DD got a small merit award from SCU. We had two kids in college so maybe she qualified for a small amount of need based aid. We completed the forms for her also…required.
We did the FFSA for both kids so they could access the federally funded Direct Loans for all four years of undergrad.
Thank you everyone for the inputs, useful for us.
Need to check each university explicitly
Submitting CSS/FAFSA will not hurt chances
In some cases, CSS/FAFSA might help since the scholarships could be merit and then need based.
@kelsmom , is there any way of finding this out from public domain ?
The best way would be to look at the school’s scholarship information. If they have a policy requiring FAFSA or CSS Profile in order to be considered for merit, they will say it right on the website. If they don’t have that policy, it won’t hurt merit chances to skip the FAFSA/Profile.