Daniel Barkowitz | October 07, 2005
"Myth #5: "The more I get in scholarships from other places, the less my parents have to pay to MIT.""
Outside scholarships are great. They save students money and help reduce the amount students will owe after graduation. But the one thing they don't do is reduce your contribution to your MIT education.
Why is this? What is the advantage to outside scholarships, then? And how do you find out for which scholarships you might qualify?
Read on, McDuff...
First let's tackle the question of how scholarships are counted. Since MIT meets the full-need of every applicant (with a combination of grants, work and loans), when you receive an outside scholarship there is no place to put the money in your financial aid award.
Pretend that your financial aid award is kind of like a barrel of coins:
When we award you financial aid, our job is to fill up your barrel. The first money we put in the barrel is your contribution; if what you can afford fills up the barrel, then you do not qualify for aid.
Take the above image as an example. If the cost of MIT is $45,000 for a year and we determine that you can afford $45,000 then there is no room in your barrel for any assistance. In the example above, the family has an $8,000 contribution, so that is the first thing to go in the barrel.
The next item we add to the barrel is your self-help. This is the amount that you will earn or borrow to support yourself during the year. For 2005-06, the per student self-help requirement is $5,500 (we'll set next year's number shortly before we mail awards). There will be much more information coming on this later, so no need to worry about it now.
Then, we add need-based scholarship money from MIT to fill the rest of your barrel. In the example we are using above, this family needed $31,500 to fill their barrel, and MIT provides it.
Because we are a full-barrel school (or, rather, a full-need school), what happens if you receive an outside scholarship? Well, we simply can't add the money to the barrel as the barrel would overflow. So we take some money out to make room for your scholarship.
At MIT, we start by removing your self-help first; in other words, we reduce your loan and/or work by the amount of your outside scholarship (you'll tell us which you want us to reduce first). Once this money is completely removed, we next have to reduce your MIT scholarship. The last item we will touch is your contribution.
By the way, this is not just us being stingy; the Federal government has a policy which requires us to consider these funds as resources to you, and therefore they have to reduce your need for funding. Other institutions' policies may or may not be as generous. Make sure to find out if these schools will reduce loans to a point only and then grant and loans by 1/2 each, or whether outside scholarships will go to replace need the college couldn't meet (as they are not a full need school).
So how do you maximize your benefit here? First of all, make sure to apply to outside scholarship providers (I'll point you to some links for scholarship searches in a moment). Now is the time to do this: many scholarship providers have their deadlines in the fall! If you are lucky enough to receive more than $5,500 see if some of the granters will defer payment on the funds until your later years (many programs are Freshmen year only). If you explain that the money will not be used to reduce your loan obligation if it is more than $5,500, most providers will work with you.
So when do you need to start the application process? NOW!!! I would advise that anyone who is interested in looking to other sources for scholarship or grant should be looking on-line now to see if there are any programs with which you match. You can do this for free by creating an account at FastWeb, as well as some other scholarship sites. By entering some basic biographical information, these search engines will try to match you with scholarship programs you may be able to apply for, and provide deadlines and application processes for them. NOW is absolutely the right time to do this. Many of these programs have November or December deadlines, so time is of the essence.
So while scholarship money from other sources may not pay your bill for you, or reduce what your contribution will be, they may help significantly reduce your post-college loan obligation.
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The author has filed this entry in the "Financial Aid" section; check it out for further reading on this topic. |
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I have to put in a strong word of warning to make a separate account for both those financial aid websites, as they bomb you with scholarship information which can quickly become a hassle to wade through.
I learned the hard way...
Posted by: Timur Sahin on October 8, 2005 03:55 PM
hello I am an international student from Venezuela, and today I was checking the cal-tech page and they said that they consider financial aid need when admitting international students and that sort of worried me because I want to attend MIT, but I am pretty sure I'll need quite a big amount of Financial aid, so my question is: are you also need-blind when it comes to international students?? please say yes!!! thanks!
Posted by: Carla on October 8, 2005 08:26 PM
That's easy!
Yes!
We are need-blind for all of our applicants and meet the full need of every admitted student (you may want to take a look at some of the earlier "Myth/Realities" posts for some more information and definitions).
Posted by: Daniel Barkowitz on October 8, 2005 10:49 PM
That really just has to be the best part of MIT, the fact that they can meet the full need of every single enrolled student.
I guess that one of the perks of being a next-door neighbor of the US is that some schools will give preferential treatment. I know this coz I read that citizens of Canada and Mexico have a slightly different policy applied to them when it comes to financial aid.
Thanks for posting these myth-busters, Daniel! When will no. 6 come out? (It's almost like waiting for Harry Potter books... =)...)
Posted by: Eric Asava-Aree on October 9, 2005 06:47 AM
Hi everyone,
I am sorry for this off topic post but I think its more important to get the message across,
On Saturday, October 9, a massive earthquake hit the northern and central areas of pakistan, the worst in the country's history and the 4th most devastating in the year 2005, killing above 25,000 (twenty five thousand thats expected to rise even more) and affecting more than 43,000 people overall. The country is in a state of terrible disaster and trauma and we need a lot of help from the whole world,
The Pakistani Students association at MIT, PAKSMIT, is collecting donations and manage any sort of ways to help and trying to organize relief dinners etc,
I wish we can all unite at this time of worry, when we have been struck by Tsunamis, Katrina, and now this earthquake!
Posted by: Saad Zaheer on October 9, 2005 06:49 AM
Posted by: Saad Zaheer on October 9, 2005 06:59 AM
Thanks!!! I feel really, but I mean REALLY, relieved, thanks so much for answering all our questions!!
Posted by: Carla on October 9, 2005 03:32 PM
While MIT's application process is completely need-blind, keep in mind there are consequences of that that really affect you as an international student. While I feel that MIT's system is better designed and implemented than any other institution's, it has its downside (as all systems do).
MIT limits its incoming international class to 6-8% of its accepted class. If you'd like the reason for this, I suggest looking here: http://nance.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/08/should_i_includ.html#comments and scrolling towards the bottom (in my reply to Minjae).
I think it important that MIT make known their reasoning for their limit on international students, as otherwise it seems rather contradictory with their open-minded policy.
- Timur
Posted by: Timur Sahin on October 10, 2005 08:22 PM
Pleaase can someone tell me when and how I can start my application for Financial aid at MIT.
Posted by: Amandy on October 13, 2005 11:51 AM
Just found you through the B4B contest...could've used your knowledge recently trying to get some financial aid myself! :)
H
Posted by: Hannah on October 13, 2005 03:43 PM
Im an Indian, my family cannot fully afford to pay for the education at MIT ($45,000) will Financial Aid pay for more than $40,000 for my education here? Another question is how does MIT judge if the student is eligible for Financial Aid or not? What is the percentage of Indians studying at MIT under the Undergraduate Programme? Thank you,
VdX
Posted by: VdX on October 21, 2005 04:01 AM
Here's a hypothetical situation. Let's say the person represented by the barrel above somehow found $45,000 in outside scholarships for freshmen year. That would knock out the $5,500 Self-Help portion and the $31,500 in MIT Need-Based Scholarships for one year. The remaining $8,000 in outsides scholarships could knock out the $8,000 EFC for that year, but could it be possible to make arrangements to have MIT give a $2,000 reduction in the EFC for each of the four years instead of knocking out the entire $8,000 EFC for only one year?
Posted by: Mike W on October 22, 2005 01:10 PM
What is the minimum score that a foreign student needs in tests like TOEFL,SAT etc?
Posted by: Punit Lohani on October 25, 2005 10:16 AM
Punit, there's no minimum score. There's only a range of competitive scores. You can read Matt's blog at http://matt.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/09/meeting_faq.html to get a better idea of what the scores are all about.
Posted by: Eric Asava-Aree on October 26, 2005 06:26 AM
I'm terribly sorry for doing this, but I would like to change the subject for something. I was wondering if there was any way to get in contact with someone who would know about the types of things MIT looks for in an application. I am a sophmore in North Carolina and have a great desire to attend MIT. I am currently in the Boy Scouts of America program which I have been told would help but I want to know if there is anything I could be doing to better my chances of being considered for this school. I apologize for the subject change. Thank you.
Posted by: Christopher Chaney on October 26, 2005 06:51 PM
Christopher, you might want to browse around the MyMIT website to get the information that you wanted. The website's usefuly for answering most of your questions, likely.
After that, keep posted to these blogs, coz they provide lots and lots and lots of information about MIT, the admissions process, and financial aid (that's this blog).
Posted by: Eric Asava-Aree on October 28, 2005 07:24 AM
I understand that MIT has to follow federal guidelines and all, but why doesn't Washington U in St. Louis? They take outside scholarships and add it directly onto your financial aid package.
Also, I read that it is a good idea to transfer money from a student's bank account to the parent's. Is this true?
Posted by: mike on October 28, 2005 04:01 PM
To answer your question, Mike, you need to understand the difference between need-based and merit-based scholarships. Washington U. does not reduce their merit-based scholarships, but based on their web page, they do adjust their need-based awards...
From Wash U.'s web page (http://aisweb.wustl.edu/sfs/newsfshome.nsf/pages/o_schol)
In rare cases, the University is compelled to reduce the student's Washington University scholarship. These infrequent situations include:
* When the total amount of all scholarships and grants exceeds the student's annual cost of attendance at Washington University
* When the student has been awarded a federal or state grant as part of the financial assistance package and the total of these grants -- along with a Washington University scholarship and outside scholarships -- would exceed that student's federal need.
Pay particular attention to the last clause. While I applaud Washington U. for their position here, they are essentially doing this as merit-based awards. At MIT, we have no merit-based awards. Our awards are based on need only, so their approach wouldn't work for us.
Posted by: Daniel Barkowitz on October 28, 2005 06:24 PM
I have read all the comments but couldn't find an example of what would happen if a person could contribute less than $1,000 , can the rest be covered? Or will i have to get a full time job to save up the money first?
Posted by: Steven Segerlund on November 27, 2005 04:55 AM
Hi! I'm a Malaysian student excited about applying to MIT. In my ISFAA form, I'm asked to respond on the amount of annual support I'm expecting from government/agencies and foundations toward my educational costs, as well to list the organizations I am applying to for financial aid. In Malaysia we do things differently. You can't apply for aid BEFORE you get the offer from the university. I plan to do the fund raising round from the big organizations once I get my offer letter from MIT. No self respecting board in Malaysia would meet to approve of financial aid to an over eager teen before the offer is given. Unfortunately, we don't have an abundance of scholarships or grants for students for free choice of universities like America. Please advise me - what should I fill in under the mentioned headers?
Posted by: Calvin Teng on December 13, 2005 08:11 AM
