This feature is only available to Overgrad Pro customers. Please connect with an Overgrad rep if you are interested in learning more.
- If you are a senior, in the header you should see APPLICATIONS, click the dropdown and select Financial Aid
- You may only enter award letters for colleges you have been accepted to. The status of your application must be marked as accepted or you cannot enter the aid letter information. Click here for instructions on how to change the status of your application.
- On this page, you will see a few things (assuming you have colleges you have marked as Accepted). The first is the Financial Aid Settings. The different fields are explained below:
- Student Aid Index (SAI): You can find this number on your FAFSA Submission Summary. If you did not complete the FAFSA, you can leave this blank.
- Maximum Family Contribution (MAX): This is a number that you can use if you believe the FAFSA calculation produced a number that your family would not actually be able to afford. This is an optional field and only needs to be used if you believe your SAI is unrealistic.
- Use SAI or MAX for Family Contribution?: If you have entered values in your SAI and MAX fields, you can toggle this switch to indicate what value you want to use in the table and graphs below.
- Include indirect costs (books/transportation)?: The data reported by universities is just an estimate. If you toggle this to Yes, these estimates will be included. Toggling it to No will remove this data from all your aid letters so that they can be more directly compared.
- Include Parent Plus loan?: Some colleges will give you aid letters that include Parent Plus loans. These are loans in your parents' name that they will have to pay back. Colleges sometimes use these loans to make colleges look cheaper than they actually are. You can toggle including or removing Parent Plus loans in your aid calculations.
- Include Work-Study?: Some universities will offer students a Work-Study offer. This is non-guaranteed money because you still need to find a job on campus. Toggle this to No if you do not want to include Work-Study dollars offered in your financial aid calculations.
- The next section on this page is a table of your aid letters. Remember, the only universities that will show up in this table are ones that you have indicated you were accepted to. Click here for instructions on how to change the status of your application. To enter the aid letter information, click on the name of the college in the table.
- Overgrad will automatically populate some of the cost numbers, although you should confirm current amounts on the university website as Overgrad uses data from the previous academic year. To enter your aid letter information, click on the name of the college you want to enter aid letter data for.
Here you will see a form where you can enter all the various components of your aid letter. The fields should match the components on the aid letter the university sent you. These components include:
Tuition and fees: The total billed tuition and fees to attend the university.
Housing and meals: The university's estimated expenses for housing and meals.
Books and supplies : The university's estimated expenses for books and supplies.
Transportation: This cost will vary depending on if the university is close to home or far from home.
Other education costs: Other expenses that don't fall into one of these categories, such as personal and recreational expenses while you are in school.
Grants and scholarships from school: Your aid letter will indicate how much grant and scholarship dollars the university is offering you, if any.
Federal Pell Grant: A Pell Grant is a subsidy the U.S. federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree, or who are enrolled in certain post-baccalaureate programs, through participating institutions.
Federal SEOG: The Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, more commonly known by its acronym SEOG, is a federal assistance grant reserved for college students with the greatest need for financial aid to attend school.
Grants from state: Enter the dollar amount here if you received any particular state grants.
Other scholarship: This would be any outside scholarships you receive. Universities ask that you report all of these as it may impact the aid they will offer you.
Work study: Enter the dollar amount the university offers you if you were to get a work study job on campus. Leave blank if not offered.
Federal Perkins Loan: Loans made through the Federal Perkins Loan Program, often called Perkins Loans, are low- interest federal student loans for undergraduate and graduate students with exceptional financial need. Your school is the lender ; you will make your payments to the school that made your loan or your school's loan servicer. (These loans are not currently offered)
Federal direct subsidized loan: The Federal Government pays the interest for Direct Subsidized Loans while the student is in college or while the loan is in deferment.
Federal direct unsubsidized loan: Interest begins accruing for Direct Unsubsidized Loans as soon as the loan is taken out and the student will be responsible for paying the interest once the student is no longer enrolled.
Parent Plus loan: Parents of dependent undergraduate students may borrow the Parent PLUS Loan up the total cost of attendance in order to help their children pay for college or career school. This is a loan in your parent(s)' name that they are responsible for.
Military benefits: The most common contribution is the GI Bill.
Private loan: Any loans you are receiving from private lenders, such as banks, to pay for the cost of college.
After you have entered the values in the form, select save at the bottom.
Repeat the process for the remaining schools you were accepted to. The table will now populate with your aid letter data and you can compare things like:
Net Cost: The total cost of attendance (tutuion and fees, housing and meals, books and supplies, transportation, and other education costs) minus grants and scholarship (grants and scholarships from school, Federal Pell Grant, Federal SEOG, Grants from state, other scholarships). The net cost is what you will be responsible to pay for each year via work, loans, and family contributions.
Unmet Need: Sometimes referred to as a need gap, this is the remaining amount of money that you will have to cover after subtracting out all the loans and work student options that were offered to you. This is an important number, as if this is any number greater than $0, you will have to figure out some way to cover that gap or you can be kicked out of the school for failure to pay.