Received a Condition Offer!
Since I was so focused on gaining admission, I never bothered to check out the Colleges.
In my application I didn't choose any colleges.
I'm wondering if I can phone up and still give a preference?
Also... can I apply for funding to every college or am I restricted to the college that I become a member of?
At least formally you can't ask for a preference now. You've already got an offer, so a random college has now been sent your application for first review based on their algorithm. You can always try asking them, but PAO isn't the most customer-friendly at this time of the year.
You can apply for funding at any college which has funds that state that they are open for anyone to apply. It will take you a while to check them out, but most funds will in one way or another state who can and cannot apply. Not too many of the funds require a 1st pref as a condition to apply anymore, but quite a few of them will give *preference* to those who put the college as a first pref (they will specifically state this in the funding information). The odds of getting those funds are very low, since there will usually be someone else who picked that college as a first pref who at the very least ranks the same as you, effectively giving them the award (especially for the funding open to all disciplines). If you get any of these awards, you will be asked to move to the college which grants this award.
Other colleges will have a different funding application process altogether, i.e. you can only apply after you get admission. Then they will send you the information.
A lot of college funds are already past their application deadline, but if you check through all of them, you will probably be able to find a few that can be applied to and which don't require having already been admitted to the college.
[Edited by Gobbledygook on Mar 16, 2021]
I almost thought I'd be the only one..
