The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

I already have a half-tuition scholarship from my undergraduate university. I've seen a few posts saying that they've talked with their school's cashier office to receive grant money separately while having SMART pay for full tuition.

Does anyone know if this is possible for scholarships rather than grants? In particular, does anyone have any experience with University of Southern California Presidential Scholarships in conjunction with SMART? Thanks in advance!

I can't speak on any specifics to UofSC nor even how to talk with your school's cashiers office as my experience was just using my schools default process but SMART automatically sends the full payment of the tuition to your schools account regardless of the current balance (such as if some of the balance is already covered by a scholarship/grant). It is then up to your school's finance office on what they do with the overflow, in my case they would send me a check for the extra balance and I could use it for "school" expenses. I believe this is since SMART has already agreed to pay your full tuition so they send the full amount regardless of other contributions.

NOTE: Make sure you dont accept any financial aid from federal, and potentially other- I dont remember, sources while youre on the SMART program as dictated by the SMART Handbook.

I see; thank you for your input! It was helpful
Perhaps I could talk with my counselor to figure it out.

Hi! Scholar here about to enter Phase 2!

I had a full-tuition scholarship via my university (not federal funding, very important). Talk to your registrar's office or office of financial aid. What they did for mine, was they applied SMART first and then the 2nd scholarship was processed and returned back to me as a refund check (keep in mind you WILL pay taxes on money returned to you this way) to use for things like housing. SMART must be automatically applied first since they're a 3rd party scholarship and their instructions specifically state they must be used for your tuition and fees. In your contract, you must let them cover all of your tuition because otherwise they are noncompliant on their end.