No. Kid got merit aid offers from Pitt and Rutgers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar income, surprised that we needed to submit for possible merit. We filled out the CSS and submitted to several schools that asked for it. The FAFSA was only required at one school - Fordham - for NMSF scholarship.

nope. mine got 28k per year merit-named-scholarship at Fordham, no FAFSA or CSS. Complete surprise merit award came a couple weeks after EA.

Interesting, when we were at the Fordham open house this fall, they were very clear that students hoping for merit aid needed to submit the CSS and FAFSA.

I have submitted the CSS and intend to do the FAFSA this week. My income is not as high as the OPs but likely well above the threshold for financial aid -- but my income fluctuates as an independent consultant and if I were to lose (and be unable to replace) a key contract, we would probably be in FA territory. One of the schools DC applied to was very clear that if you anticipate needing financial aid at any point, you need to submit the CSS and FAFSA when DC applies for freshman admission. So between that and Fordham, I need to get it done!

No, not worth the time and hassle

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No you will no qualify.

They are discussing merit aid not financial aid. Income has nothing to do with merit aid.

100%. True merit does not need a fafsa/css

No, some schools require the fafsa/css in order to award a kid merit. Strange, don't see why it's needed, but a small amount do require it

Anonymous wrote:What’s the harm in submitting the forms? If a HHI family isn’t sure whether the school requires the forms for merit, shouldn’t they just submit anyway? The worst that happens is they don’t get any aid, which they already knew was likely. Is there a drawback to submitting?

Because I don't care to take the time to fill them out. Don't need the school and/or government having ALL of our financial data stored in one place, one place that can be compromised. Sure the govt knows a lot of it from my taxes, but they'd have to work to put it all together. And no university needs those details, unless they are giving my kid merit awards (still not sure why it's needed for Merit anywhere)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, both of my kids are getting a small amount of merit aid and both schools require it for their scholarships.

Thanks - did the schools let you know it was needed? Or was it obvious on their websites? Again, I called and whoever was answering the phones (probably a work study student) didn't seem to know.

So ask to speak to someone else, someone who should know the answer

Anonymous wrote:We filled out the FAFSA and CSS on the advice of the college counselor- for possible merit

Why? My check with each school. My kids applied to 25 schools between them. None of them required FAFSA or CSS in order to be eligible for merit awards. Why provide a school and the government with all that information neatly compiled in one spot? So that it can be compromised?

In reality, the only reason to fill either out is if the school says they need it for merit if one parent lost their job, would it put you in the range for FA (you would have to have low assets to begin with). Since that is not the case (we would literally never qualify for any FA), we never filled it out

No

Anonymous wrote:Apologies if this has been covered before. We do not qualify for need based aid (I realize this is a nice problem to have). But DS has applied for a few merit scholarships. I called the schools in question and they seemed to have no idea. Like couldn't answer my questions. Anyone else have a HHI income $400k+ - what did you do?

I called all of the schools all my kids applied to. None required FAFSA or a CSS to get merit. So we did not ever fill it out.
I would question a school FA dept that cannot answer that question for you. I got quick answers at all the schools. And my kid's got merit at most schools (except T30 schools)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No you will no qualify.

They are discussing merit aid not financial aid. Income has nothing to do with merit aid.

100%. True merit does not need a fafsa/css

Anonymous wrote:Similar income, surprised that we needed to submit for possible merit. We filled out the CSS and submitted to several schools that asked for it. The FAFSA was only required at one school - Fordham - for NMSF scholarship.

nope. mine got 28k per year merit-named-scholarship at Fordham, no FAFSA or CSS. Complete surprise merit award came a couple weeks after EA.

Yes, the info should be available on the website somewhere. Yes, some schools require you to fill out the FAFSA even for merit aid. It’s the easy way for them to make sure that they they are using all available buckets of money- in case you mistakenly think you are ineligible. It’s not many schools that do this.

What’s the harm in submitting the forms? If a HHI family isn’t sure whether the school requires the forms for merit, shouldn’t they just submit anyway? The worst that happens is they don’t get any aid, which they already knew was likely. Is there a drawback to submitting?

No. Did not fill out either form and still got merit aid.

Anonymous wrote:No you will no qualify.

They are discussing merit aid not financial aid. Income has nothing to do with merit aid.