Do schools give much "need based grants?" Forum

[notaznguy]

I actually posted this thread in the Financial Aid thread, but unfortunately, there aren't many users there and the only response I've gotten is "HYS will give you money," which is good...but I'm wondering about other schools, particularly California schools like Davis, Hastings, UCLA, USC, etc. The reason I ask this is because when I was searching for threads on the forums, I found a good amount of users who were admitted to UC Davis that said they received need based grants ranging from between 11k-27k with no GPA requirements.

My main question is, how "poor" does one have to be in order to qualify? I ask this because I'm quite poor myself and the idea of getting 27k in grants with no GPA requirement per year in VERY interesting to me.

For instance, by the time I apply to law school, I will be finishing up my senior year in undergrad as a 21 year old. The only money I have in my checking/savings account (under 10k) are all remaining loans that I borrowed in undergrad. I have never had a full time job because I've been a student my whole life so far. The only work experience I have is campus work study jobs and unpaid internships. Probably only 1-2k of it is actually my own money if you take away all the leftover money I have from federal and private loans. My mom (father deceased) makes around ~10-15k a year in income as a minimum wage worker. And my family has no significant assets other than a couple of old cars and our house, which isn't a great house to begin with. Obviously nobody can answer how much "financial aid" I'd qualify for, but for those that got those large 27k grants, was your financial situation similar to mine?

This gives me hope because considering the CoA, UC Davis would cost me 80k less O.O (and as you can tell, I'm really interested in Davis as it's once of my top choices)

[glitched]

UCLA gave me 20k in need based grants on top of my merit based scholarship. HTH.



edit: but the same amt of need based aid is not guaranteed for your 2nd/3rd years bc need based depends on your and your parent's fafsa, which is subject to change.

[r6_philly]

You can get around 60k max for 3 years from Berkeley and Penn. HYS should be higher. But that still leaves at least 120-150k. Many other T14s exclude you from grants if you get a scholarship.

[HyeMart]

if you are not considered for merit aid at GW, you will be considered for need-based