Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
PP again. I ask this because my understanding is that you can’t get merit aid or scholarships if you don’t fill out the FAFSA.

Not true.

Merit aid is not based on financial need.

Yes, I know that, but I’ve read different articles online that insist many schools won’t give merit aid if the FAFSA is not submitted. But sounds like that’s not true.

The university our dd attends does in fact require us to fill out the FASFA every year in order for her to receive her merit aid. Actually, all 3 of her top choices required this. So, maybe not every school, but there are definitely schools that do require it. We fill it out because she earned the merit aid and it would be silly for her not to receive it.

Can you list those 3 schools?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s no way we qualify for financial aid, but I filled out FAFSA because DC’s counselor told him one of the schools he was applying to required it for merit aid. DC got $35k in annual merit aid from several private schools he was accepted to.

FWIW, I was dreading it, but the form was really no big deal. You link to the IRS and your income data is automatically downloaded and you just add the asset numbers.

Is it just me or do others feel uncomfortable sharing IRS info with colleges?

That was my thoughts exactly. Only real need to do it is if you want your kid to take federal loans (we didn't) or one of the rare schools that requires it for merit (none of them did). Otherwise, it's really none of the school's business what my financial situation is

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
PP again. I ask this because my understanding is that you can’t get merit aid or scholarships if you don’t fill out the FAFSA.

Not true.

Merit aid is not based on financial need.

Yes, I know that, but I’ve read different articles online that insist many schools won’t give merit aid if the FAFSA is not submitted. But sounds like that’s not true.

The university our dd attends does in fact require us to fill out the FASFA every year in order for her to receive her merit aid. Actually, all 3 of her top choices required this. So, maybe not every school, but there are definitely schools that do require it. We fill it out because she earned the merit aid and it would be silly for her not to receive it.

Anonymous wrote:There’s no way we qualify for financial aid, but I filled out FAFSA because DC’s counselor told him one of the schools he was applying to required it for merit aid. DC got $35k in annual merit aid from several private schools he was accepted to.

FWIW, I was dreading it, but the form was really no big deal. You link to the IRS and your income data is automatically downloaded and you just add the asset numbers.

Is it just me or do others feel uncomfortable sharing IRS info with colleges?

There’s no way we qualify for financial aid, but I filled out FAFSA because DC’s counselor told him one of the schools he was applying to required it for merit aid. DC got $35k in annual merit aid from several private schools he was accepted to.

FWIW, I was dreading it, but the form was really no big deal. You link to the IRS and your income data is automatically downloaded and you just add the asset numbers.

They should. The low limit federal loans are cheap debt.

DS gets $20k annually in merit aid and we did not fill out FAFSA.

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t fill it out, got over $100k/year in merit aid at some schools.

Most schools did not seem to care but one school has been repeatedly asking us to fill it out, including offering $2k in aid if we fill it out. It has been aggressive enough that I wonder if they monetize the data. But that had happened long after admissions, which were EA.

What is the school?

Anonymous wrote:California now requires high school seniors to fill out FASFA. Does anyone know the reasoning behind this?

I’m in California and this is not true.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
PP again. I ask this because my understanding is that you can’t get merit aid or scholarships if you don’t fill out the FAFSA.

Not true.

Merit aid is not based on financial need.

Yes, I know that, but I’ve read different articles online that insist many schools won’t give merit aid if the FAFSA is not submitted. But sounds like that’s not true.

There are at most a handful of top 200-type schools that require FAFSA for a couple of their merit scholarships. I think Fordham and Villanova are the two I have heard mentioned.

Virginia Tech requires you to fill out FAFSA for merit aid.

I filled it out once. Didn’t qualify for anything other than the 5k loan. Still got merit aid at all schools. HHI 130k

California now requires high school seniors to fill out FASFA. Does anyone know the reasoning behind this?

We did fill it out even though our income was too high to get any financial aid. All of our kids went to out of state schools and we had them take out what used to be called the old Stafford loans every year. They were able to get 5-8k per year. They are not tied to your income and you need to fill out the Fafsa to get them. Between these federal loans and merit aid our kids got, the out of state price came close to in state for us, which was what our deal with our kids was. It ended up being about 30k for 4 years. This gave our kids some responsibility and ownership for paying for the out of state school.

This is OP. Thank you to all the PPs for your responses! I am new to all this college admissions stuff and it seems I have a lot to learn!