caliboi1313

UMich & UCLA sucked in FA

sybbie719

You are out of state for both schools, so what really did you expect? Remember state universities obligations are to first and foremost provide an affordable education for their state resindents whose tare their taxpayer base and monies subsidize the university.

UMich uses both the CSS profile to distribute institutional funds in additon to getting merit money. IF received no or little aid from Mich, then the following happened; the school believed that you had no financial need (your family could afford to pay) and they did not may not have considered you eligible for merit $. In all of this, your financial safety is your own state U system.

Muffy333

It would be helpful, as other posters have pointed out, when commenting on school's FA package, to say, for example, "My EFC is $5,000 but College X costing 50,000 only gave me $10,000 in grants and the rest in loans."

This is a really useful thread for applicants. FA expectations should be addressed before the application fee is paid!

giajale

I read this thread, NYU is supposed to be stingy.

They offered me 25k in loans
and 26k in scholarships and grants.

And my dad is paying 25k.

Makes the decision SO much easier...

Grinnell is also good
my dad stated he's going to pay 25k or so
and they offered me 18k in scholarship and grants
and 4k in self-help.

I am waiting for other decisions, but these were so great...!!!

sybbie719

The cost of attendance at NYU is high, but it is not 75k oer year.

testing for understanding...

You state NYU gave you 26k in grants/scholarship
25K in loans

If your dad is going to pay the 25K, isn't this a wash?

It sounds like your dad will pay the same 25k no matter which school you attend.

treeman

My D

Kenyon -- great merit aid ($16 K science scholarship -- supposedly their most prestigious award) ridiculous need aid ($1.5 K). The amount that Kenyon expects us to pay is roughly equal to other colleges my D has gotten into, which says to me that Kenyon used the scholarship to replace the need award at a 100 percent tax rate. I was very offended.

Wesleyan U -- aid package was roughly $7-9 K worse than other schools where my D has been accepted so far.

St. Olaf -- D received an $8.5 K merit scholarship (the highest they award to a regular admission applicant), but no word on need based aid. I expect Olaf to be very competetive financially once we get the rest of the aid package. As a family, we specifically targeted a few schools that were in the Midwest and might have a stronger interest in a female student from central NY, and schools that had a strong academic reputation but a little bit higher admit rate.

Carleton -- Solid offer of need based aid. D received prestigious scholarship (I think -- hard to find out how many others were awarded) that carries no funding. I find this much more honest than Kenyon. All grants, no loans.

U of Chicago -- D accepted quite some time ago, but no word on financial aid. We have very high hopes that the award will be generous. Chicago has that reputation, and they seemed to like my D.

In sum .... Wesleyan was disappointing and will get rejected. Kenyon's total award was OK, but the merit aid effectively reducing need based aid dollar for dollar angered us, so they will get rejected. Carleton's offer was solid. Still waiting on aid packages from Olaf and Chicago, but they are still very much on our radar. My D has not heard a peep from Reed, Grinnell (another great school with a reputation for generous aid), Princeton or Amherst.

2blue

treeman, if you expect your financial situation to improve over the next four years, you might want to keep Kenyon in the running, since need-based aid would decrease in that case, whereas merit aid will remain steady. Just a thought in case it applies to you.

treeman

2blue -- You may be right, but at this point in the process its hard to keep emotions out of the final decisions. Good counsel, though. Thanks.

tokenadult

Hi, treeman, thanks for the information. I'm not understanding the part of your earlier post about the tax rate--are you saying some awards are taxable, and some are not, or are you saying something else?

barkowitz

As Director of Financial Aid at MIT, let me say that the only two reasons a student may have a Student Contribution higher than our standard (which for Freshmen this year is $1900). Since I don't know who the individual is who posted, I cannot comment on which of these caused her/his Student Contribution to exceed our $1900 standard:

1) The student has earnings which are extremely high on his/her own. While typical student earnings (in the range of up to $5000 or so) will not cause an EFC, if a student earns greater than $9000 or $10,000 in the year prior to their arrival, we may expect a higher contribution. To get to the $10,000 level, the earnings from the past year would have to be at least $25,000 (which seems unlikely).

2) The student has (in his or her own name) a trust fund. In most cases, we treat student assets as family assets and include them in our EFC at a rate of somewhere usually between 3 and 5%. If the student has a trust fund, however, we do treat these assets as specifically student assets and assess a much higher annual rate on these assets.

So you are aware, we do hear appeals on this issue, so red remote, please be in touch with us.

dragonreborn

My friend got 6000 from Wesleyan, mostly loans. She was really fustrated because her EFC was 17,000.

FresnoMom

barkowitz

That was kind of you to post. I hope red remote contacts your office.

aerableparable

Rice, Caltech, WashU, UChicago. I wasn't expecting much from Uchicago to begin with... but this is ridiculous.

wd90

Claremont McKenna College.

I got an achievement scholarship for $10,000 a year, which I was pretty amped about. But then, they only gave me $9,000 a year in grants. The cost of attending is $51K/year, and my family makes <$120,000 a year. How do they expect us to want to pay 1/4 of our income per year, even with a merit scholarship?! It makes no sense.

RhapsodyinPink

I got AWFUL fa from Grinnell.