Financial Aid

[MsPurtell]

Hi fellow applicants for the Class of 2002. Does anyone know when we should start looking into financial aid sources? Is it too early? When I was interviewing at Temple they mentioned that they have a limited amount of university based funding such as scholarships for disadvantaged students and students with high GPAs. Does anyone know if we have to specifically apply for these or does the adcom just award them? The pamphlet the school gave us specifically stated that you do not have to yet be a student to begin applying for aid. Are they referring to the FAFSA (non-university based funding) or university based funding such as school scholarships?
Thanks for help, Margaret

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[waiting]

hey margaret,

All of the merit scholarships that I've heard of you automatically qualify for and are screened for eligibility....i.e., there's no separate application and you find out about it when you get your acceptance letter. This was what Tufts told us they do and I know a couple other schools that run the same way. As far as applying for federal aid, FAFSA needs to be filled out sometime in March/April since you'll need your tax info from this year (2001) to fill it out. As for non-federal, non-school based aid, I'm sure there are random scholarships out there with specific application procedures but those are going to vary in amount and type from state to state. Personally, I'm not in a position to do anything right now about aid until I hear back from the schools in December...

BTW: At Tufts they mentioned that the national reply date this year may be pushed to Jan. 15th due to the NYC tragedy.....they said they'll let us know if schools decided to agree to this new date. Has anyone else heard about this???

 

[MsPurtell]

Thanks for your help waiting. I was really confused. The way you describe getting aid makes sense.

Gosh, I really hope they aren't going to push the acceptance letter date to Jan 15!!! Goodness, that's six weeks off from the original planned date. Has the attack really impacted the schools that much? They all seem to be interviewing on time (more or less). Plus, I'm just dying to announce to my family that I've been accepted! I hope you heard wrong.