<p>I think that sometimes we get caught up with how the Ivies/Elite LAC & other deep pocket schools distribute aid we tend to forget that there is a huge drop off in the amount of money that a school has after HYPS. the drop goes from Princeton with $18 billion to MIT with 11 Billion with the majority of colleges have much less than 1 billion in their endowment (some would do good to have half billion).</p>
Does not have need pockets (278 million, Brown, who has the smallest endowment of the ivies has ~10 times a $2.6 billion endowment)
Does not meet 100% demonstrated need.</p>
<p>They are very upfront in stating that if you do not apply for or are late with your financial aid paperwork, and are admitted without need based aid that you are not eligible for institutional aid for 2 years (you will always receive what federal and state aid that you are entitled to receive). If you find that you had a financial set back and need aid, if you did not apply for it, you will not get it until junior year.</p>
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<p>I missed the deadline for applying for financial aid. What should I do? Will I still get aid?</p>
<p>If you enroll without Skidmore grant assistance, you are not eligible to receive financial aid from Skidmore College for your first two years; however, you may be eligible for federal aid.</p>
<p>Yes, I will always agree with this. Here’s the deal: several times, from different posters, I read something here on CC that didn’t sound right. I questioned it. That’s all. Was I wrong to question it? </p>
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<p>One of the drawbacks of having a dialogue on an internet forum is that sometimes it’s very difficult to read emotion or attitude. If you’re being sarcastic, I don’t understand why. I don’t claim to know anymore than anyone else who posts on CC, and certainly not you. I wasn’t trying to “correct” you or anyone else who made the statement that I questioned; I was simply seeking clarification: “Is this really true? How do we know?”</p>
<p>Well, it is true as noted about at least two colleges in above posts…to some extent. And it is very true for many generous schools for international students, as you noted. </p>
<p>The way I read the Skidmore policy, it doesn’t matter if FA forms are submitted or not during the admissions process… even if forms are submitted for freshman year, if no institutional grant aid is awarded, the applicant will not be eligible for institutional grant aid until junior year.</p>
<p>“What happens if I do not initially receive financial aid from Skidmore College but later find out I need to apply?
Those students admitted without Skidmore College grant assistance are normally first eligible to receive such aid, if need is demonstrated, in their junior year.”</p>
<p>Here is just one example of a merit award at the University of North Texas that requires the FAFSA, although the National Merit scholarship is NOT competitive (every NMF can get it). See “how to apply” on the following link:</p>
<p>There are schools out there,most of them are NOT need blind in admissions, that have all sorts of stipulations about financial aid. You miss a deadline of theirs, are late on anything, you lose out. The stats show it very clearly. They may guarantee to meet 100% of need for all eligible students, but when you look at the common data stats, 90% get full need met. That 10% group may have missed a deadline or be doing a sit out for some reason. </p>
<p>I know kids at Skidmore who got aid even though they did not initiallly file for it due to family changes in circumstances. When push came to shove, the school coughed up the money rather than having the kid sit out a year. The FAQ is very poorly written, in that if a kid sits out a year, or has an issue his third year, he still won’t have junior status for whatever reason when he returns to the school, the way school policy works. </p>
<p>The intent of the rules is to make sure that kids don’t try to game the system, by applying as non need getting a better chance of acceptance, because there are schools like Skidmore that are NOT need blind n admissions so, yes, ability to pay, applying for fin aid can and is a factor. You don’t lay it all out, you don’t get to file for aid the next year. There are people that strategize this way, and these rules are to weed them out. </p>
<p>The best thing to do is to ask the school right out what you should do in your particular circumstances. If you know you don’t qualify for need but you may in three years because you may then have two kids in college, ask the school if you have to file that aid app for consideration 3 years down the road. Some schools say you still do because it then makes it easy to check the change in circumstances–EFC of $70K freshman year of kid1, so no need. EFC of $35K in year 3 or 4 because there are now 2 kids in college and if both are going to schools that guarantee to meet full need and cost about $60K apiece, that can mean significant aid for both kids, and Kid1’s school will only cough up their part when they can see that no games were played. here.</p>
<p>@sschickens, it was 6 years ago now. She was required to file in order to get the Paschal Carter scholarship (I never saw it on the web site but we were told to do so before school started). I think it was to make sure that the school was able to get any additional federal grants that might apply. Since they didn’t in our case we didn’t have to apply any other year.</p>
<p>The way I have seen it work is that most every school I have seen offering merit scholarships do so to get the cream of the applicant crop. The money does NOT tend to go to those who need it the most, only if they happen to qualify for it. Though there are merit within need award in fin aid as well, those that are pure merit,and distributed through the Admissions office are awards for recruitment purposes. If a FAFSA or other form is needed when a student is a pick for one of those awards, they tend to let the family know. </p>
<p>Merit within need is a whole other thing, and you gotta have need to even get that, so yes, you have to file FAFSA and apply for fin aid and have it to get it. That goes through fin aid, usually with Admissions often coding accepted students as top picks for those awards as the lists of accepted students are sent to fin aid. </p>
<p>So most of the time if a SAR is needed, you will hear from the organization. It is possible that they are needed because they awards are only given to US citizens or have other screening stipulations that the FAFSA also vets out inexpensively. So filling out FAFSA and not submitting it until requested may be the way to go, if you know you aren’t going to get financial aid but want to be ready for any SAR requests if they should come up. At minimum get the PINs for student and self and put them in a safe place so you can fill out the FAFSA immediately if it comes to that.</p>
<p>USF required the submission of FAFSA (& perhaps other financial docs) for merit awards when we were considering encouraging S to apply in 2006. Not sure whether that has changed since, but it was one of the many reasons S did NOT apply. The other Us he applied to in 2006 and received merit at did NOT REQUIRE financial need to be shown for merit award, including USoCal, Santa Clara U and UAz. Do not believe he would have received any additional MERIT by submitting any financial docs–in any case, we didn’t ever submit ANY to any U for D or D when she transferred in 2009.</p>