Decision Process

Germantown Friends School’s Financial Aid Committee makes the grant award decisions. The goal of this committee is equitable and consistent distribution of the available money to current and newly accepted families who have applied for financial aid, according to their demonstrated need. (There are no merit based scholarships at GFS.) To achieve this, we have enlisted the help of the Financial Aid for School Tuition (FAST) program by Independent School Management (ISM).  FAST does not decide whether financial aid will be given or how much to give. Rather, FAST provides a need based financial aid analysis service. FAST provides the school with a report which includes a recommendation of what a family should reasonably contribute toward tuition based on their tax information. All information from FAST is kept confidential. Applications and the analysis from FAST are then reviewed by the school’s Financial Aid Committee. 

Every year in February, families must re-apply for financial aid.  Each year the number of applications and the requested amounts and various incomes of our families change. The total financial aid budget amount is set more than a year in advance of the distribution calendar and the budget is never sufficient to cover all the amounts of aid requested. As funds are limited, first consideration is given to current families and students in more advanced grades.