FAFSA and Auburn University Merit Scholarships - Anyone get award notifications yet?

my son got accepted to auburn too! we got our SAI score last week (thx fafsa for taking forever lol) and auburn sent the scholarship offer two days after. he had 3.9 GPA and 1280 SAT and got $11,500 per year in academic scholarship. they only used fafsa, no CSS needed for merit scholarships. congrats on your daughters acceptance! war eagle!

My daughter is a sophomore at Auburn now. When she applied (for Fall 2023), they were SUPER late with scholarship announcements - like March/April when most other schools had already sent packages in January!!! It was SO stressful and we almost committed elsewhere before their offer finally came. They only required FAFSA for merit scholarships but needed the CSS Profile for need-based aid. The financial aid office there is TERRIBLE to deal with - always busy signals or voicemails that never get returned!!!

You won't hear anything from Auburn until they receive both your FAFSA data AND your daughter completes the scholarship application on their portal. Many parents miss this step. Your daughter needs to log into her Auburn admitted student portal and check for the scholarship application. It's easy to miss - it's under the "Financial Aid" tab and then "Scholarship Opportunities." You must complete this even for automatic merit scholarships based on GPA/test scores. For reference on merit awards, Auburn has these tiers for out-of-state students (in-state is different): - 3.5 GPA + 1250 SAT: $8,000/year - 3.8 GPA + 1300 SAT: $10,000/year - 4.0 GPA + 1400 SAT: $14,000/year They do have some wiggle room - your daughter should be in the middle tier with her stats.

As someone who works in college financial aid (not at Auburn specifically), I wanted to mention that many universities are waiting longer to release scholarship notifications this year due to the FAFSA delays. The Department of Education had significant issues with the new FAFSA rollout, and many schools are receiving student data much later than normal. For Auburn specifically, they typically announce their Presidential Scholarship (their main academic merit scholarship) by late February, but this year it could be March or even April. Make sure your FAFSA is fully processed with a valid SAI score before expecting notifications. One other tip - if you're having trouble reaching their financial aid office by phone, I've had many students have success using a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get through to financial aid offices during peak season. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ that shows how it works. Might be worth trying if you need to reach Auburn's aid office directly.

My son also applied to Auburn but we didn't complete the FAFSA yet...are we already too late for merit scholarships?? I thought those were separate from need-based aid?? Now I'm panicking!!!

my daughters at auburn now as a junior.... dont get ur hopes up too high for scholarships unless ur kid is like valedictorian or something.... they give way less than they advertise on there website.... we were so dissapointed with what they offered even tho her grades and sat were really good..... ended up having to take out way more parent plus loans than we planned... 🤬

Update: Thanks for all the advice, everyone! My daughter checked her Auburn portal and found the separate scholarship application (we had totally missed this!). She completed it yesterday. We also got our SAI score this morning - finally! I'm going to give Auburn's financial aid office a few weeks to process everything before trying to contact them again. Fingers crossed we hear something soon about merit scholarships!

Great thread! I'm in a similar situation with my son who was accepted to Auburn for Fall 2025. We submitted our FAFSA in early February and just got our SAI last week. His stats are close to your daughter's (3.9 GPA, 1310 SAT) so I'm hoping for something in that $10-11K range based on what others have shared here. One thing I wanted to add - make sure to check if Auburn has any special scholarships for your daughter's intended major. Some departments have additional merit awards that aren't widely advertised. Also, if you're out-of-state, there are sometimes regional scholarships available depending on where you're from. The waiting is definitely stressful when you're trying to compare financial packages from multiple schools! Auburn seems to be one of the slower ones this year, but at least now we know it's partly due to the FAFSA delays affecting everyone.

Just wanted to chime in as another parent going through this process! My daughter was also accepted to Auburn for Fall 2025 with a 3.8 GPA and 1350 SAT. We submitted our FAFSA in January and got our SAI about 10 days ago. She completed the scholarship application in her portal right after reading this thread (thank you Paolo for that crucial info!). I called Auburn's financial aid office yesterday using that Claimyr service someone mentioned and actually got through in about 20 minutes - way better than the 2+ hour holds I've experienced before! The rep told me they're processing scholarship notifications in batches and expect most to go out by mid-to-late March, which is definitely later than usual due to the FAFSA delays. One thing she mentioned that might be helpful - they're prioritizing notifications for students who have both submitted their FAFSA AND completed the scholarship application. So if anyone reading this hasn't done the scholarship app yet, definitely get on that ASAP! Hoping we all hear some good news soon. War Eagle! 🦅