This is Part 2 of our Scholarships 101 series. In Part 1, we covered our thoughts on private scholarships. In Part 3, we’ll cover how to research the financial generosity of colleges.
College is expensive. Like really expensive. And while there are headlines in the news all the time about tuition costs rising or the student debt crisis, many families don’t think too closely about the cost of college until far too late in the college planning process.
Anyone in this industry will tell you that the hardest conversations about financial fit are with families whose students have been admitted to their dream school only to realize that they cannot afford it. We all wish for a time machine at that moment so we can go back and make financial fit a larger part of that student’s college search.
We begin the conversation around financial fit early because we want families to be prepared and to be preparing! Part of the conversation revolves around need-based financial aid, which is a separate process determined by a family’s income. But part of the conversation is about merit-based aid.
Merit-based aid is not tied to a family’s income but is instead awarded based on something that the student is bringing to the college, such as high performance in academics, athletics, the arts, or other extracurricular involvement. For the sake of this blog post, I’m going to be talking about merit aid determined by academic achievement. Sometimes referred to as “scholarships,” these are the types of scholarships we encourage our students to pursue as opposed to the private scholarships covered in Part 1 of this series. Here are a few reasons why:
Institutional Scholarships are often renewable for up to 4 years—As long as the recipient maintains certain requirements like a minimum GPA
Institutional Scholarships can be for much larger amounts—Up to full tuition, though larger awards will be more competitive
Institutional Scholarships are usually worth the time investment to apply—And many have no application at all because students are automatically considered when they apply to the college
We’re often asked how students can maximize their opportunities for institutional merit aid. Simply put: How can students get more scholarship money from colleges? Here are 4 tips to help students in their scholarship search:
RESEARCH COLLEGE FINANCIAL AID POLICIES
When researching college websites, students and families generally visit the Admissions page, the departmental pages for any majors they’re interested in, the Residence Life page, and so on… but don’t forget the Financial Aid page!
Colleges provide a lot of information about their school’s financial aid policies—including how they award merit aid and scholarships—on this section of the website, and families can learn a lot!
For example, some colleges are very clear that they do not award merit scholarships (like Georgetown with a total cost of attendance of $82,080 for 2021-2022) or only award merit aid to a very small amount of students (like Vanderbilt—2021-2022 cost of attendance of $79,538—whose merit scholarship recipients “represent the top 1% of all freshman applicants”). They focus funds on need-based aid instead.
Other colleges are more transparent about the way they award their merit scholarships. The University of Alabama (2021-2022 cost of attendance for an out-of-state student: $51,398) has a chart showing the automatic award out-of-state applicants can expect to receive based on their test scores and GPA, as do a number of other colleges.
If a college’s policies are not clear from their financial aid webpage, reach out to their financial aid office by phone or email. These knowledgeable staff members can be a huge help to families throughout the application process and during a student’s time at the college.
APPLY TO MORE “LIKELY” COLLEGES
We recommend students apply to a balanced list of colleges. That means there is a balance of likely schools, target schools, and reach schools in terms of college selectivity and the student’s academic profile.
A well-balanced list is important all the time, but few lists are perfectly balanced. More often, students will add more reach schools onto their lists, and as long as they are applying to enough likely and target schools that are a good fit for them, that’s usually okay! But if the question is “how can I get more merit aid from colleges?”, the college list needs to shift in the other direction.
Merit aid is hard to come by at colleges that are reach or even target schools for a student because the student is generally not in the top of that college’s applicant pool. If financial fit is a driving factor in your student’s college search process, encourage them to consider adding more likely colleges to their list. They have a better chance of being a more competitive applicant for institutional merit aid.
EARN STRONG GRADES AND TEST SCORES
For merit aid awarded based on academic achievement, colleges are looking at academic factors like GPA and standardized test scores. Students hoping to earn merit aid should work hard in the classroom throughout high school, and test prep for the SAT and ACT certainly won’t hurt their chances.
With the rise of test-optional policies, some colleges are not using standardized scores as a factor in merit aid, but other colleges either consider test scores or give students the option to have their scores considered for an opportunity to potentially earn more scholarship money. For example, at the University of Tennessee, an out-of-state student without test scores can earn an award starting at $4,000 per year, but a student with test scores can earn a minimum of $6,000 per year.
Colleges that are more transparent with their merit aid policies (like Alabama mentioned above, Tennessee, and the University of South Carolina) show that hard work can pay! Slight increases in GPA or standardized test scores can earn students several thousand more dollars per year to help pay for college.
FILL OUT SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS
For some colleges, students are automatically considered for merit scholarships just by submitting an application for admission, or the scholarship application may be included in the general application. But other colleges have an additional scholarship application that is only accessible once a student has submitted an application or maybe even once they’ve been admitted.
Many students never bother to fill out a college’s scholarship application. It’s easy to skip this extra step because it comes along once a student is out of “application mode.” Students may not want to put in more time and effort if they haven't been admitted to a college yet. Even if they have been admitted, they may not be certain that’s where they want to attend. But this can be a missed opportunity!
Students should also review their college’s scholarship portal each year because their college might offer departmental scholarships to returning students. Students may be able to find additional funding after their freshman year!
DETERMINE GENEROSITY
The last tip is to look into which colleges are generous with their institutional dollars… and which colleges aren’t. Some colleges, like the ones I’ve mentioned above, put handy charts on their websites, but that’s not exactly the norm. Stay tuned for Part 3 of our Scholarships 101 series as we dive into how to determine the financial generosity of a college!