money4college

I applied for financial aid in april. I called Colby if I can still apply because I thought we could apply for aid after knowing if we got accepeted to Colby or not. Colby told me that I can submit my application and if there is money available after the may 1st deadline they will provide aid. However,I got an email telling me that if I dont apply for financial aid my first year I cant apply for need based aid until my junior. Is this true? Can someone please clarify how Colby handles late financial aid applications?

charlie135

I am not sure how they work post acceptance financial aid applications. I have never heard of that. But. like most colleges, financial aid must be obtained for the freshman year or you can go for a financial reevaluation before your junior year.

momofthreeboys

Why would you not have applied for aid when you sent your application? Colby's directions for applying are very clear and they can be quite generous, but it sounds like you might have shot yourself in the proverbial foot. Most schools have limited funds or at the very least a budget to distribute. You've run a great risk of no $$ by waiting until you got accepted. Hopefully you don't really need any financial aid but were just hoping to get some discount. I don't know of a single college that doesn't say "first come/first served".

mountains

This is true. When S applied to Colby, I told him to check "need fin aid." Subsequently, when I completed FAFSA, I told called Colby to request to remove the need for fin aid because I knew we would not qualify anyway and I didn't want to waste their time. Their finaid office told me to just leave it alone because if S does not apply for fin aid freshman year, then he would have to wait until junior year to be considered. I did as they suggested.

For this year (S will be a soph in the fall), I called Colby and asked them if I need to apply in case our circumstances may change, and they said no. The most important step was to apply in his freshman year.

Plainsman

I think some people assume if they don't apply for financial aid when they apply for admission, they will have a better chance of being admitted. There is some truth to that if the college is not need blind. Don't know about Colby.

bballaz

someone please help

momofthreeboys

Help with what??