Is merit aid related to IS status?

FCCDAD
Wed, 25 Mar 2015 20:52:09 +0000

D1 got her VT admission offer (non-engineering) in the Feb. 20 round.
Then she got her financial aid letter which gave her status (incorrectly) as OOS, with the corresponding $28k tuition.

We contacted the school and found that, even though we had filled out their questions correctly to show her Virginia residency as my dependent, they had her classified as OOS because they didn’t have proof that I was supporting her. (Their application questions did NOT ask for such proof, we provided everything they requested and they did not indicate anything more was needed until we contacted them about this error.)

So my question is, does residency matter for merit aid? Are they any more likely to offer scholarship money to a resident than to an OOS applicant? And when did, or will, they determine the scholarship offers? I’d hate to think she missed out on money by them not telling us we had to send in additional paperwork first.