We wanted to share a quick update with our families on our $1,000 No Essay Scholarship contest that closed at the beginning of April.  

Thank you to everyone who took the time to upload financial aid award letters.  We sincerely hope that our award analyzer provided either confirmation that you received the best deal, or added insight into possible appeal opportunities.

How Did You Qualify for the No Essay Scholarship?

Just as a reminder, to be entered into the $1,000 No Essay Scholarship you were required to upload a financial aid award letter from one of the colleges or universities you were accepted to for the 2023-2024 school year.  You could upload as many award letters as you wanted. Each uploaded award letter was a separate entry. The more award letters you uploaded to your MyCAP account, the more chances your name was entered into the contest.

Data on Appeal Uploads

Our Evaluate & Appeal capability was added to the MyCAP platform at the beginning of March.  During our No Essay Scholarship contest we had over 1000 award letters uploaded! We’ve had 441 families upload award letters since we introduced this tool. Almost 1300 total awards were uploaded to our platform for the 2023 admissions cycle, and 81% of those came in during our contest period. WOW! We’re excited to see this revolutionary feature help so many families during the appeals process.

Purpose of Award Analyzer

One of the main reasons we created the award analyzer and Evaluate & Appeal capability was to empower and educate our families. The financial aid process is nuanced, confusing, and ever changing.  We feel that if we can teach and show you how to understand and interpret your financial aid awards, you can make confident decisions. 

How Does It Really Help?

To understand how the award analyzer really helps, let’s start at the beginning.

  • On the MyCAP platform we require your profile to be filled out 100%. This means you’ve entered your financial information, family information, and your student’s grades and test scores (if applicable.) This allows our software to calculate your EFC (Expected Family Contribution.) 
  • Your EFC is used to evaluate any need-based aid you may be eligible for at each school you are considering (or uploading financial aid letters from.)
  • Our software calculates your potential need-based aid by subtracting your EFC from the Sticker Price or Cost of Attendance advertised on each school tile that is on your dashboard.
  • Then looks at the percentage of need met by the school AND how much of that need is met through grants versus loans to give you a potential need-based grant amount.
  • Our software also shares a potential merit award amount that you may receive based on your GPA and/or test scores and what each school offers in automatic scholarships.
  • Once you are armed with this information you can compare it to your award letters to see if the schools are offering you the same amount that we expected them to.
  • When you upload your letter to our platform we can further analyze it for you.
  • We look at how each specific schools typically approaches financial aid, for example:
  • Our award analyzer will then show the difference between our expected first year net cost and the school’s award letter first year net cost
  • We’ll share possible factors that may contribute to a successful appeal based on your specific family situation and how the school typically handles financial aid.
  • And finally, we share what we think your odds are for a possible appeal ranging from low to very strong (Please remember, we can NEVER guarantee a successful appeal.  That is ultimately up to the college or university.)

At this point, you’ve got the tools and knowledge to know that you’ve gotten the best possible deal from the school, or you have a possibility for an appeal. 

If you used our software and appealed to a college or university successfully, we’d love to hear your story!  Your success means the world to us. You can share your story here on our review page, or send us an email at [email protected].

Now About the $1,000 No Essay Scholarship Winner??

Right! We haven’t forgotten – I promise!  We actually haven’t selected our winner yet.  We want to share the great news LIVE so we will be spinning our Wheel of Names at our upcoming webinar  Paying the Bill & Borrowing For College specifically for all of our Class of 2023 families!  Register here and join us on June 1, 2023 at 7PM ET. You do not have to attend the webinar live to win the scholarship.

All of our names are already entered in our wheel, but we’d love for you to join us! It’s a win-win situation. Make sure you know the ins and outs of how to pay your upcoming fall college bill AND be there live for the scholarship award announcement!

Remember, we’re here to help YOU. We want to see your family get the absolute best deal for college! The awards analyzer and Evaluate & Appeal section of our MyCAP software is one way we can help. Our end goal is to make sure you are comfortable, confident, and excited about your child’s next steps for college. And for us, that means you’ve made fiscally responsible decisions so that paying for college isn’t a burden.