What we ask, and why
The application asks about your household and the circumstances you are in. This page lists those questions, says why each one is there, and says who reads your answer.
You can answer every question on this page from memory. None of it needs a document, a signature, or a parent in the room with you.
Income can be approximate. Give your best estimate, in whatever currency your household uses, and we convert it ourselves. A figure you are unsure of is more use to us than a blank one.
If a question does not fit your situation
Leave it blank and say why in the 150-word context box at the end of the page. We would rather read one plain sentence from you than see a number you had to invent.
Your household
These questions are on both application forms. They ask what your household has to cover and who is covering it.
| What we ask | Why we ask it |
|---|---|
| How many people are in your household | It tells us how many people the money in your household has to cover. |
| Who supports you | Whether one adult, two adults, or you yourself carry the household. |
| Approximate household income, and the currency it is in | Set against what your year costs, this is the clearest single measure of the gap you are facing. |
| Public assistance your household receives | Programs with their own income tests tell us something an estimate on its own cannot. |
| How far your parents went in school | An applicant whose parents did not attend university usually gets less help with the application itself. We read yours knowing that. |
| Whether your housing has been stable in the past year | Moving, doubling up, or losing housing changes what a school year costs and what it takes to finish one. |
| Whether anyone depends on you | A dependent is both a cost and a claim on your time. |
Your circumstances
These are on both forms as well. They ask what your time goes to, and what else is going on around your education.
| What we ask | Why we ask it |
|---|---|
| Hours a week you work for pay | Paid work counts the same as a club. It tells us where your time already goes. |
| Hours a week you spend on family responsibilities | Caring for a parent, a grandparent, or a younger sibling is work, and we count it as work. |
| A checklist of circumstances | A short list of situations that change what school costs or what it takes to attend. You tick what applies. None of it is required. |
| Up to 150 words of context, optional | For anything the questions above got wrong about your situation. |
If you apply on the high school form
The high school form adds three questions about your school rather than about you. You are not being asked to rate your school, and nothing you say here reaches it.
| What we ask | Why we ask it |
|---|---|
| What kind of school you attend | So we read your transcript against the school it came from, not against some other school. |
| How many students your counselor is responsible for | A counselor with four hundred students cannot give you what a counselor with eighty can. We would rather know than guess. |
| Which advanced courses your school offers | We read what you took against what was available. A course your school does not teach cannot count against you. |
If you are applying to or in a graduate program
Graduate applicants complete the undergraduate and graduate form, which adds three things:
- Your current status: whether you have started the program, or have been admitted and not yet started.
- Admission or enrollment confirmation, uploaded, if you have not started yet.
- Your total education debt so far, which you enter on the plan and costs page.
Who reads your answers
The selection committee reads your application, these answers included. They are read beside everything else you sent, not scored on their own and not turned into a ranking.
Your answers stay with the foundation and with the staff who run the application portal. We do not send them to your school, to your recommender, or to anyone else.
If something in them worries you, write to scholarship@lu-memorial.org before you submit.
How long we keep your answers
We keep your application for this selection cycle, and after that under our records policy. The privacy policy sets out what is kept, who may see it, and how to ask us about your own file. We do not use what you tell us here for anything other than reading applications.
What we ask you to show
We do not ask anyone for a document while we read applications. If you become a finalist, we ask for one document that supports what you told us about your costs. Any one of these works: an aid award letter, a funding or assistantship offer letter, a FAFSA Submission Summary, a bursar or financial aid office letter, a meal-eligibility letter, a counselor letter, or a signed statement from a school official or employer.
One staff member at the Goal Get It! Lu Office of Financial Aid reads that document. The selection committee does not see it.
We never ask you for tax returns, bank statements, Social Security numbers, passport numbers, or other government identification numbers.
The award is $5,000. What a year of your education costs, and what you already have toward it, is asked separately: see your plan and costs.