Scholarships and Financial Aid

Financial need plays a big role on college admission decisions, but equally important is: How much of that need will you get? Remember only the richest schools can afford to give the full need of admitted applicants.

Filling the Financial Gap

Many colleges, unfortunately, often offer aid packages that leave a gap between the aid award and the amount a student needs to enroll. Demonstrated need is the amount the colleges determine; not necessarily what you need to enroll.

Theoretically, the demonstrated need is the difference between the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and the cost of attending that college. But now, since the US government introduced the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), EFC includes household income and assets. After factoring in a hefty allowance for your parents’ retirement nest egg and performing other sundry calculations, they calculate your EFC.

Demonstrating Financial Need

The College Board also supplies a new financial aid for called the CSS/PROFILE. The purpose of the PROFILE is to delve deeper into your family’s financial situation. It asks for details like home equity, student’s summer earnings, assets in foreign countries and some other funny details. The result is an application that sometimes require filling out three forms for a single college.

College can use either the federal methodology (FM) or its own institutional methodology (IM). An FM college will only require you to file the FAFSA, but the downside is that these aid packages always come with a gap. The IM, on the other hand, will require you to obtain many more details about your family. These are all used to calculate your aid package, which unfortunately, are sometimes not enough. There are several different types of scholarships that can be awarded:

• Scholarships Based on Merit:  Based on a student's academic, artistic, athletic or abilities. Also factored into these scholarships are student's extracurricular activities and community service. There applicant College Entrance Exam(SAT or ACT) is considered.
  
  
• Demographics: These are scholarships where applicants must initially qualify by gender, race, religion, family and medical history, or many other student-specific factors. Minority scholarships are the most common awards in this category.
  
  
• Career-specific: These are scholarships awarded by a college or university to students planning to pursue a specific field of study. Often the most generous awards are given to students pursuing careers in high-need areas such as education or nursing. Nursing students are in high demand, and many schools will give future nurses full scholarships to enter the field, especially if the student intends to work in a high-need community.
  
  
• Field of Study: scholarships awarded to students pursuing a specific field of study in high demand areas such as education or nursing. Many schools give nurses full scholarships to enter the field, especially if the student intends to work in a high-need community.

• Uniform Service Scholarship: Theses scholarships have a bond requirement. Usually the applicant is usually required to serve for a specified period of time such as 4 years active duty and 4 years in-active reserves. For example the United States Army scholarships include; West Point, Army ROTC, Army National Guard (some States offer full 4 year scholarships to join the National Guard), GI Bill and Post 9/11 GI Bill, Green to Gold (for active duty service members), etc...
  
  
• PSAT/NMSQT: In the United States, students are offered the opportunity this test, usually in their junior year of high school. National Merit Scholarship programs are initially determined by the scores received on the PSAT/NMSQT test. Some private scholarship programs require applicants to take the PSAT.

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