Residual cost of attendance is what they are expecting YOU to pay. You an take out a $5500 Direct Loan, work, or,your parents can pay this amount.
Oh ok so this is how much I am expect to pay after the scholarship is factored in. Oh ok I see now Thanks
Each school makes an estimate of all expenses a student may have to pay during attendance and provides it as the “Cost of Attendance” (COA). It can include all kinds of things that are not paid to the school, like travel expenses, personal expenses (soap, laundry, toothpaste, etc.), and so forth. The actual amount spent will vary significantly from student to student.
The residual COA subtracts the value of the scholarship from the school’s estimated COA. Whether this figure will be accurate for you or any student is unclear.
@dennis101, good on you for getting a jump on fall applications. Planning now, and strategically applying, will pay off. Get your scores up a bit and pay close attention to each school’s application deadlines for merit aid. Some colleges have an earlier deadline than their normal application deadlines if you want to be considered for merit scholarships.
Thank you all for the replies. I learned a lot today
Dennis101, don’t forget that the threads you may have been looking at for merit scholarships may be outdated. Scholarships change every school year (as does cost of attendance), so make sure you check the school’s websites to see what the costs and scholarships offered are today. Good luck.
OP, once you see what ACT or SAT score you need for various merit - be sure to get those school applications and meet their scholarship requirements.
It may be that you need to take more than Sept test. Keep enough of your school schedule light at least first semester to obtain the test result for merit. One of my kids got the score after two tests senior year; the other on the Dec test. My kids did better on ACT, but if you do better on SAT, get that dialed in. Practice tests, test tutoring. It all helped and made a big difference on merit.
You have had some good advice given on this thread. If your cost of attendance anywhere is still too high, after all is said and done, do not discount going to CC for some terms to get the basics in and making money on whatever jobs you can get while continuing to live at home.
A freshman year $5500 loan and $2000 from parents will not usually cover room and board - so you have got to come up with ways to earn enough for the remaining costs after housing (books, meal plan, etc) even if you can get full tuition scholarship. Perhaps you can receive Pell Grant if parent income is low.
In addition to your preparation, good luck with the testing and the process for you to get to college.
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At the moment I am expect $2,000 a max a year. I have a question about retaking the ACT. I would have to retake the ACT in September. Thats not too late to have everything submitted for colleges by December? I only say December because I want to have everything in before January. And thanks for the link
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You need to get your priorities right.
You have an unaffordable EFC. Your parents wil only pay $2k.
It is FAR MORE important for you to retest as much as you can during ALL the FALL tests, then to have everything submitted by Dec. That said, submitting by Dec is a good idea for best merit consideration, but doing so does NOT mean that you should take all the FALL SAT and ACT exams.
Is GA your home state? If so, do you qualify for HOPE? If you do, have you run the various GA public univs’ NPCs?
Are you a URM?
The OP should retake the standardized tests early enough to have his application for merit awards submitted before December 1.
He needs to do both…retest to improve scores AND get those applications submitted.
If his SAT or ACT score is higher, but he misses the DEADLINES for the scholarships…he will not be considered for them.
Some colleges have preferential scholarship deadlines before December. Need to check the deadlines for each.
Just one example: Indiana Iniversity’s deadline for maximum scholarship consideration is November 1. Do not count on having until 12/1 to submit your applications if you are looking to maximize scholarships.
Right.
There are several things to look at:
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deadlines for scholarship apps.
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last SAT or ACT that will be accepted for scholarship consideration. (some schools may have a Dec 1 or Dec 15 deadline for scholarship consideration, BUT will use the Dec test scores that are received AFTER the deadline.
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there are a handful of schools that will not increase merit even if a higher score is rec’d after submission. I don’t know which ones those are, but someone had that problem last year. They applied in Sept, retested in Oct and got a higher score, but the school would not increase merit even tho the scholarship deadline had not yet passed. There aren’t many schools that do this, but it’s a bite in the butt, so those schools need to have their apps sent in after testing, but before merit deadlines.
As other posters said, many schools have early deadline for merit aids. Some schools like Purdue that only EA applicants are eligible to merit scholarships. While fro UMich, not only you need to apply early, you also need to be accepted by early February to be eligible for major scholarships.