While FAFSA provides students with financial aid directly from the federal government, institutional aid is provided by a specific school and can be in the form of merit scholarships or need-based aid.
Merit scholarships are awarded to students based on their academic performance, and often has specific requirements for GPA, test scores, and extracurricular involvement. Often, these scholarships do not have separate applications, and all freshmen applicants to the school are considered. However, they often have priority deadlines, usually November 1 or December 1.
This list provides the schools that offer large merit scholarships based on test scores and GPA. Many schools, including the University of Alabama, are willing to invest heavily in competitive students – even proving them with full-rides – in return for attracting talent.
A Word on National Merit
In your junior year, you will take the PSAT/NMSQT in October. Before you go and Christmas Tree the test, please understand the financial benefits that doing well on this test will bestow you:
If you score between 1340-1520 (with some variance), you are guaranteed to become a National Merit Semifinalist. With this, you unlock full ride scholarships to so many schools. For example, after I received this honor, I received the Benacquisto Scholarship from FSU, which covers the full cost of attendance for 4 years. If you are a sophomore or junior and believe you have a shot at achieving this, I highly recommend putting in some study time since it has a very tangible financial benefit to you!
Need-based aid is very common with higher ranked schools. In this system, the amount of money a student receives is solely dependent on their family’s financial situation, not on merit. This is where we have the amazing schools that meet full demonstrated need, which means that if accepted, every student will receive however much aid they require to attend the university.
Within these amazing schools, a large portion of them is also need-blind, meaning your ability to pay does NOT factor into admissions decisions. These are the schools that you want to research! Remember to get your information directly from the school’s website but use the Internet as your friend.
Net Price Calculators and Early Decision:
There is a way to estimate how much aid a school would give you based on your financial situation! Also known as Net Price Calculators, this tool allow you to estimate your annual aid award through asking a few questions about your family’s income and assets. Enlisting the help of your parents is also a good idea if you don’t know these numbers off the top of your head!
Simply Google “college name” + “net price calculator” and you will get access to these calculators. Now, if you are particularly interested in a school, have run the calculators and are satisfied with the aid amounts, and would attend if accepted, then you can consider Early Decision, or ED.
ED decision plans typically have deadlines of Nov 1, and applicants enjoy double or treble acceptance rates to ivy league tier schools – the University of Chicago is known for accepting over 70% of its incoming class through ED! The reason for this is that the colleges know you will attend if accepted, so they are essentially “yielding” nearly 100% of ED applicants.
Of course, ED is a contract (not legal) and it would be unethical for a student to ED to more than one college. Additionally, if you are accepted but the financial aid given is not enough, you will be let free from the contract. Ultimately, it is a decision unique to each student, and one should not ED simply to ED if they don’t have an attraction to the school.
Leto Guidance Department 