The Office of University Financial Aid encourages students to explore all available sources of financial support. Receiving an outside scholarship may require adjustments to your existing CWRU financial aid offer.
Important considerations for outside scholarships:
- Federal regulations require coordination of all funding you receive. This ensures:
- Need-based aid does not exceed your documented financial need. This may require reducing the CWRU Grant or reallocating federal/state funding if you receive more than $8,500 for first-year students, $9,750 for second-year students, and $11,000 for third and fourth-year students.
- Total aid does not exceed your Cost of Attendance. This may require reducing CWRU merit-based scholarships on a one-time basis.
- Loans and employment are reduced first before other aid is affected. In other words, outside scholarships are first used to replace student loans and work-study in a student’s financial aid offer, before reducing their scholarship or grant amount.
- Funds are split by semester unless your scholarship organization instructs otherwise.
If you want to maintain eligibility for student loans or employment, please notify the Office of University Financial Aid in writing as soon as you learn of any outside funding you will receive.
Mailing Address
CWRU accepts digital scholarship disbursements through Scholarship America, a third-party administrator for scholarship organizations. Check with your scholarship organization first to see if digital distribution is available, as this is our preferred method of disbursement.
If a paper check is required, please have it mailed to the following address and include the student’s full name and 7-digit SIS ID to minimize the risk of funds being applied incorrectly.
Office of University Financial Aid
ATTN: Regina Sharp
Sears Library Building, Suite 240
10900 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106-7049
Scholarship Searches
We encourage students to conduct their own independent research for additional scholarship opportunities, and we believe a multi-pronged approach is best. We recommend looking into three main resources:
- Local Opportunities: Connect with locations and organizations in your area. Common sources of potential support can include your parent’s employer, high school counselor, religious organizations, and local businesses.
- Scholarship Search Engines: Many online tools contain a vast number of potential opportunities. Use their filtering criteria to narrow your search appropriately. If you’re unsure where to start, consider the following:
- Your own personalized search: Many scholarships are offered by individuals and organizations that wish to help students who resemble some aspect of themselves or their loved ones. Try doing your own web searches centered around what makes you, you. Consider your likes, passions, hobbies, defining characteristics, and interests. Whether it’s how tall you are, what you like to eat, or even what hand you write with, there are many scholarships to be found.
Special Scholarship Considerations
Choose Ohio First
The Choose Ohio First (COF) Scholarship Program awards a number of state-funded scholarships to select Ohio residents pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). All scholarship decisions are made by CWRU.
CWRU receives funding to provide COF scholarships in the following programs:
- Data Science
- Computer Science
- Manufacturing
- Neuroscience
- Nursing
- Supporting STEMM Success (SSS)
No separate application is required for Choose Ohio First scholarships. Scholarship recipients are selected based on information provided in their admission application. If you are a COF recipient, your scholarship will be included in your financial aid offer. If you have questions about how your COF scholarship interacts with your other aid, please contact the Office of University Financial Aid.
Tuition Exchange
The Tuition Exchange program provides tuition assistance to dependents of employees who work at participating member institutions. CWRU is a member of this consortium of more than 600 private and public not-for-profit colleges and universities, representing 47 states, the District of Columbia, and several other countries.
Eligibility is first determined by your parent's employing institution, not the school you wish to attend. To find the Tuition Exchange Liaison Officer (TELO) at your parent's school, visit the TE School List. Note that TE scholarships are competitive and are never guaranteed.
There are two types of TE applicants:
- Imports (applying to CWRU): If your parent works at another TE member institution and you are applying to CWRU, you must apply for admission through CWRU's standard admissions process. Your parent should also contact the TELO at their employing institution to initiate the TE application process.
- Exports (CWRU dependents applying elsewhere): If your parent works at CWRU and you are applying to another TE member institution, you should follow that school's requirements for TE. Contact CWRU's TELO for guidance on initiating the process from CWRU's side.
In both cases, students must create an account and complete the TE EZ-Application at https://tuitionexchange.org/how-to-apply/.