How much should I specify as our family contribution? Will we decrease our chance of receiving a scholarship if we ask for a larger amount of funding?

For families that are considering applying for a scholarship “just to see what kind of award we get” we suggest the following: ask yourself what is your total budget for summer/educational enrichment. If you don’t know this number, you should figure it out before doing anything else. If you don’t currently have a budget for educational expenditures, now is as good a time as any to create one and stick to it! If you can afford to participate at the Tuition Assistance level for your program of interest, don’t apply for a scholarship. If you can’t afford to participate at the tuition assistance level, apply for a scholarship. The parent completing the statement of financial circumstances as part of our scholarship application should be as precise as possible when considering what amount to specify as a family contribution based on your family budget. It is, of course, much more fiscally manageable for us as an organization to make a scholarship award of 40% than of 80%, so if you’re considering “low-balling” your family contribution “just to see” if you can get a more generous scholarship award from our committee, you should know that you are, in effect, decreasing your odds of receiving any scholarship award. Consider this scenario: Three candidates for the same program, equal on merit. Two of the candidates are seeking 40% scholarships. One is seeking 80%. In this hypothetical scenario, we only have a finite amount of funding and can either meet the need of the two candidates seeking 40% or just the one seeking 80%. Again, this is a hypothetical where the candidates are the same based on merit, which obviously isn’t reflective of the real world. But this is somewhat representative of the sorts of decisions our scholarship committee has to make, particularly as we get later in the admissions year. So, be as realistic as possible with your stated family need and budget. This is particularly true if you are only interested in one specific Sustainable Summer program. We understand that this “black and white” approach does not reflect the complexities of household budgets. However, we firmly believe that every family is best served by establishing a fixed budget for a large discretionary expenditure such as a Sustainable Summer program (or any other summer enrichment experience) and sticking with it. We wish it wasn’t necessary to be so paternalistic, but experience has taught us that we must be. While there are many parents that totally “get” it and are realistic about the financial considerations of participation, there are equally as many that don’t. We’ve found that using blunt language like this helps families navigate the financial aid process.