Can a school require a FAFSA even if you are not applying for financial aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, real merit scholarships wouldn't have anything to do with need or FAFSA.

They actually do, since the scholarships are usually not stackable. So, it's in the school's interests to keep up the optics and designate as much aid as possible as need based. Meaning that if they want to offer you $20K based on your test scores, they want to be absolutely sure you have zero need. Otherwise, if there is a chance fir them to call part of that $20K need based, they don't want to miss that.

Only a handful or fewer of of the top 200 schools in the US require FAFSA for SOME of their merit aid scholarships. I am aware of Fordham and Villanova. There may be a couple of others.

The point is that there are some that require it to be considered for merit aid. Even if the FAFSA is not required to *apply,* the schools want to make sure that they are not allocating merit aid for a student that qualifies for financial aid. My DC’s counselor suggested that we complete the FAFSA, even though our expected contribution was very high — I can’t remember which college she thought would require it, though.

[Anonymous]

People suggest filing fafsa because less than 20% families are full pay. Majority of families get some aid and have to fill out fafsa to receive aid and merit and to avoid stacking. There is no stacking for people getting no aid.

[Anonymous]

Never needed for admission --- so Op, what you heard/read is wrong.

[Anonymous]

You'll often hear need based aid referred as merit scholarship, it can be confusing.

One example is annual news story about a student gaining admission to 70 colleges and $2 million in "scholarships".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'll often hear need based aid referred as merit scholarship, it can be confusing.

One example is annual news story about a student gaining admission to 70 colleges and $2 million in "scholarships".

Yes, in my limited experience at a private college, some parents will call it whatever suits them.

I worked for a DIII college years ago. Students absolutely did not get athletic scholarships. Of course there was "that" parent, and their student had FAFSA-defined need (no parent ever wants to brag about un-ment need or their true finances) and was given a F/A package--small subsidized direct student loan and a [college name] grant. This family told other families that their son had received a baseball scholarship to [name of college]. I found this out when I met with another family, from the same small town, who was wondering why their bright biology major did not get as much $$ as the kid they knew with the baseball scholarship??

[Anonymous]

OP, FAFSA is never needed for admission.

As some PPs noted, a handful require FAFSA for some non-need-based scholarships, but that is uncommon.

If you're not sure whether you might be in the ballpark for some need-based aid, use the college's Net Price Calculator. If your expected contribution is within a small amount of the full cost of attendance, maybe it's worth filling out, in case the actual numbers swing in your favor. But otherwise, generally, no.

--have three kids in college, two w/merit "discounts" >20k/yr each, (third kid at school that does not give merit discounts); we have never filled out FAFSA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You'll often hear need based aid referred as merit scholarship, it can be confusing.

One example is annual news story about a student gaining admission to 70 colleges and $2 million in "scholarships".

Yes, in my limited experience at a private college, some parents will call it whatever suits them.

I worked for a DIII college years ago. Students absolutely did not get athletic scholarships. Of course there was "that" parent, and their student had FAFSA-defined need (no parent ever wants to brag about un-ment need or their true finances) and was given a F/A package--small subsidized direct student loan and a [college name] grant. This family told other families that their son had received a baseball scholarship to [name of college]. I found this out when I met with another family, from the same small town, who was wondering why their bright biology major did not get as much $$ as the kid they knew with the baseball scholarship??

So true! It was explained to me by a DIII admin - "a talented athlete may receive a merit award just like a talented English student, but it's merit, not an athletic scholarship."

[Anonymous]

Any updates on this? We are in the upper bracket, DS is not a top student. Should I bother?

Will it affect DS to get a student loan should he need one for UG / Graduate school? Do we need to do a CSS form on top of it. It’s all so invasive.