<p>is it more beneficial to apply for financial aid or merit scholorships? I am pretty sure I would qualify for both, but I don’t want one to cancel the other out.</p>
<p>You don’t know what you will be getting in monies from your schools when you start this process, so it is wise to apply for both. You may be automatically considered for merit awards at some schools, but some of the best scholarships at the most selective schools do require quite an extensive process of their own. My son applied for the GATech Presidential award which meant getting that app in early, doing a separate app for the scholarship, and had he made it to the next round, interviews and visits would have been on the schedule. For him, that was going to be the only way he would get money from GA Tech since he did not qualify for fin aid. Even if he did, as an OOS student applying to a state school that does not meet need, the pickings would have likely been slim. That was the best bet for him.</p>
<p>If he had qualified for financial aid, some of the smaller schools like Bowdoin, Skidmore, etc that meet full need would have been his list. But a friend of his that went that route was not accepted to most of these highly selective schools and found that the ones that accepted him had a lot of loans and work study in their package. Many of those schools do not give merit money, need only, so his great stats did not help much in this area. </p>
<p>Where both boys did well were at schools that did aggressively seek high stat students. My son got some nice merit scholarships and the young man got a nice merit/need package at some of these schools. That with some Stafford still there for him to use to meet his family contribution made it doable for him. </p>
<p>You should be so lucky that they cancel each other out. That is a problem that most kids would envy, because that means you are getting the best of both. Most colleges decrease the self help part of the package first with merit money, so you end up with fewer loans and work study. BUt heck, you can still borrow through Stafford, and find a job on or off campus. When you get financial aid, it locks your work time to work study if you take it and it uses up your loan allocation towards need so you can’t use it to pay what your family is expected to cough up but may have problems doing so.</p>