This website has already discussed some of the considerations that should be kept in mind when choosing schools that will lower your student debt burden. Oftentimes, it is advisable to attend lower-ranked schools in order to secure scholarship money, since decreasing the amount of student loans you borrow is important in many situations. However, even after you enroll in an educational program, there is nothing preventing you from asking your school for more scholarship money.
As an undergraduate, I did not receive any merit scholarships from my school when I was first accepted to college. I received need-based financial aid from my college, and I was able to secure a sizable amount of merit scholarships from outside organizations. However, my college did not feel that my credentials were sufficient to earn any kind of merit aid.
During my first year as an undergraduate, I tried to distinguish myself on campus. I worked hard at my classes, and I was able to earn respectable grades. In addition, I was involved around campus, and earned leadership positions in a number of campus clubs. I thought about transferring schools, since it was possible that this background could make me competitive as a transfer student. However, I ultimately decided to try and use these credentials to obtain merit aid from my college.
Asking your school for more scholarship money can be a tricky process, since some colleges do not have a formal procedure to seek additional aid. If this is the case, it might be difficult to ascertain who to speak with about trying to earn additional financial assistance. Fortunately for me, my college had a formal process through which current students could apply for additional merit-based aid.
When I was a student at Brandeis, the college had an accolade they called the Brandeis Achievement Award. Only students in their first and second years of college were eligible to receive this award. When applying for the award, candidates needed to show that they made a substantial contribution to the college community, both academically and through participation in clubs and other organizations. If selected for the Brandeis Achievement Award, you were awarded $10,000 of merit aid for your remaining years of college.
If your college has a formal process like this for receiving merit aid, asking your school for more scholarship money is extremely easy. I applied for this award, and submitted all of the essays, recommendations, and other materials required to compete for this award. I was thrilled when I received a letter in the mail notifying me that I had been selected for this accolade. Brandeis added $10,000 to my financial aid package for the rest of my time at the school, and this essentially meant that I no longer had to pay for educational costs, since I already received financial aid to cover the other expenses.
However, my experiences also demonstrate that asking your school for more scholarship money as a law student can be much more difficult. As mentioned in prior articles, I attended Washington and Lee University School of Law for my first year of law school. The school did not provide me with any merit aid, since I was accepted to the institution off the waitlist. In addition, Washington and Lee Law did not have a need-based financial aid program. This meant that I had to pay full sticker price to attend the school.
After my first semester of law school, I was surprisingly at the top of my class, and I had near-perfect grades. Like in college, I was thinking of transferring law schools, since the prestige of the law school you attend is perhaps more important when securing jobs than where you went to college. However, I enjoyed attending Washington and Lee Law, and I believed that asking your school for more scholarship money was doable as a law student.
I did not know who I should approach when asking for merit-based financial assistance, so I decided to talk with one of the deans. I told the dean that I had been accepted as a transfer student at another school, but that I would rather stay at my current institution. The issue was that the school to which I had been accepted had a need-based financial aid program whereas I was receiving no financial assistance at my current school. I told the dean I might be able to stay at that institution if I received some financial help.
The dean told me flat out that she had no money to offer me to stay at that school. Apparently, that school allocates all of their financial assistance to candidates with the most impressive credentials so that they have the best chance at rising in the law school rankings. Since the statistics of current students do not have an impact on the rankings, there was no money available to convince me to stay at the school. The dean then walked me to the registrar’s office so that I could pick up the form to officially withdraw from that school!
My law school story should not dissuade you, and asking your school for more scholarship money is possible in certain circumstances. This is much more likely as an undergraduate, since many colleges are not as motivated by rankings when making financial determinations. However, it is much more difficult to request additional financial assistance as a graduate student. This is likely due to the fact that graduate schools are more concerned with using their financial resources to improve their school’s rankings.