I don't get it, why do you have to fill out FAFSA for merit aid

Colleges & Universities Carnegie Mellon University
1

<p>What does the information on the FAFSA do for CMU, if you’re only applying for merit aid. How do they use that information?
Doesn’t seem right to require it, if you are not applying for financial aid. Seems that it could only be misused.</p>

2

<p>they want to make sure that they can give you financial aid before they dig into their funds for merit aid. I submitted the FAFSA last year (i’m a current CMU freshman) and as I expected I received $0 financial aid from every school throughout the country that i was admitted to. However, CMU recognized this and awarded me a $10k “Presidential Scholarship” which was described as a scholarship for high quality applicants who submitted the FAFSA but received little to no financial aid</p>

3

<p>We just got a reminder to submit the FA forms. I was wondering about this since in the common app and other apps we had put down “will not apply for financial aid” so it seemed wrong to submit it even though we knew we would get $0. But the information is needed by schools to distinguish between FA and merit aid. Obviously, they need to make sure they can meet their commitment to FA needy students before doling out the merit aid.</p>

4

<p>One of the things that students learn in college that isn’t in the official curriculum is how to negotiate one’s way through different bureaucracies.</p>

<p>Seems to me that each school has its idiosyncratic ways of analyzing financial aid. Here is a list of possible answers to your question:

  1. using a standard form provides standard information to the school for analysis
  2. error -trapping between different financial aid application forms<br>
  3. trying to steer need-eligible students who erroneously assume they cannot qualify for aid to federal aid programs
  4. making sure that federal aid sources are used before using scarce college-based funds
  5. legacy requirement initiated years ago by now-departed financial aid middle manager that has not been reviewed in the last 15 years for applicability to the current situation, with the original reason for its promulgation lost to the ages :-)</p>

<p>Kei</p>