Stanford | Financial Aid Office | Current Undergraduates

Applying for Outside Scholarships
Receiving Outside Scholarships
Outside Scholarships and Financial Aid

Why apply for Outside Scholarships?

As a financial aid applicant at Stanford, you are expected to apply for scholarships and grants from outside agencies. Outside scholarships provide an important benefit to students receiving need-based financial aid from Stanford. If you obtain outside scholarships or grants, we will reduce your $2,500 academic-year earnings expectation dollar-for-dollar. If your outside scholarships exceed the academic-year expectation, we will reduce your expected contribution from summer earnings dollar-for-dollar. Only if your total outside scholarships exceed the sum of your academic-year and summer income contributions will we reduce your need-based University scholarship.

Our Outside Scholarship Listings are just a few examples of the resources available to students in searching for outside scholarships.

Information for students with Outside Scholarships

Please note that you are required to notify the Financial Aid Office of all outside scholarships, even if the scholarship checks are made payable directly to you. Failure to do so may result in the forfeiture of future eligibility for financial aid from Stanford. Please complete the Notification of Outside Scholarships form and submit it to the Financial Aid Office.

Donor agencies of outside scholarships should send their scholarship checks directly to the Financial Aid Office. When the donor makes the check payable to Stanford University (the preferred option), the funds are applied directly to your university bill. Checks payable only to you, or co-payable to you and Stanford, are disbursed by the Student Financial Services Office. In either case, outside awards of $500 or more are evenly divided across the three quarters of the academic year, unless the donor agency specifies otherwise.

return to top

How outside scholarships affect your financial aid package

The examples below show how an individual student's financial aid package may be affected by different levels of outside scholarships.

Outside Scholarships	0	2,500	4,500	6,500
Academic Year Earnings	2,500	0	0	0
Summer Earnings	2,000	2,000	0	0
Stanford Scholarship	30,000	30,000	30,000	28,000
Federal/State Grants	6,000	6,000	6,000	6,000

return to top