For schools that offer merit aid, it is possible to have a general idea as to whether or not the student is at all competitive for schools' available scholarships. If their stats are not in the top 25%, they are not going to be in the running for competitive scholarships. If all they have are test scores and no ECs and lacking top rigorous courses, they are not going to be in the running for competitive scholarships. If that type of scholarship is the only thing that will make a school affordable, again, there is not point applying.
This.
We knew without merit aid, school wasn’t happening, so we did the research. We looked at schools where daughters stats would put her in the top 10 to 20 percent of applicants. Then we combined that with schools with reputations for giving merit aid, and schools that stacked scholarships. We also made sure her EC were great to offset her lower stats. Her stats weren’t bad, but far from perfect. She has some major learning difficulties, and her school refuses to offer any accommodations, so she’s far from a straight A student. Because of that, we weren’t trying for ivy leagues or top schools. We knew realistically she wouldn’t get into those and definitely wouldn’t get any money. The goal was to find a good affordable school that would allow her to be successful in the field she wants to go into.
We found quite a few that fit what we were looking for. Schools with programs ranked in the top 25% for her field, but not top 20 schools or anything. She ended up receiving 50 to 75% of tuition in merit aid from every school, with options to go back and compete for more at about half. 4 of the schools wanted her badly enough to offer discretionary funds to bridge the remaining gap. One school even offered to pay to fly us all out to the school. I can guarantee you the top schools wouldn’t have thought twice about us, much less offered to pay for plane tickets.
I feel like people think it’s either an Ivy League education or nothing. Like you have to choose between community college or Harvard. The truth is millions of people go to lesser known schools and still go on to lead successful lives. Every school we’ve looked at has had 100% job placement for her major (with most being offered jobs before graduation) with positions starting around 65,000 to 80,000 a year, and these schools are giving her the merit aid she needs to be able to go.
I did let daughter apply to one reach school for the fun of it, and only because it was a tuition exchange school with an amazing program in a great city. She knew her chances of getting in were basically zero, but she was curious. She ended up waitlisted which surprised me. I thought for sure she’d be outright rejected. They only had a 30% acceptance rate, and her stats were below their average.
However, in general, I agree with others. I see no point in applying to schools where you don’t come close to meeting their criteria or that you can’t afford. One reach is ok if you have the time and resources to spend on it, but you really need to have realistic options first. Do the research. Find schools that will give you the aid you need. If your child just barely scrapes by and gets in as one of the academically lowest students, they aren’t getting merit aid. In addition, how well realistically do yo think they are going to do in that type of environment where everyone else did better? Encourage them to find the right fit, not necessarily the most prestigious one.
How about a university that sends promotional material (on a weekly basis) to a high performing student promising merit aid for a combination of certain test scores and GPA? A targeted campaign! AND then places the applicant on the waitlist. This is, at a minimum, unethical. The cost of applying to several colleges is not insignificant, and schools that employ these strategies to increase application numbers should be fined.
menloparkmomRegistered UserPosts: 12,770Senior Member
"How about a university that sends promotional material (on a weekly basis) to a high performing student promising merit aid for a combination of certain test scores and GPA? .AND then places the applicant on the waitlist. "
@Eyeleen
I know its hard to accept BUT Universities employ Enrollment Management marketing companies to increase the # of applicants. Just as other companies pay advertising companies to try to entice you to consider buying a Mercedes. Enrollment management companies have NO input with admissions committees regarding who is or is not accepted. It sucks but it is what it is.
For instance, Wash U has a NOTORIOUS reputation for WL's THOUSANDS of students who do NOT apply ED.
What parents NEED to do is research stats of ACCEPTED applicants at colleges. That is best done by looking at the Common Data Sets for any colleges you child is considering. Those are public documents can be found here. NOT all colleges participate, but most with competitive admissions do.
twoinanddoneRegistered UserPosts: 20,637Senior Member
How about a university that sends promotional material (on a weekly basis) to a high performing student promising merit aid for a combination of certain test scores and GPA?
And it's not the university....it's a third party, paid to send promotional materials to all students with x GPA/y scores who live in zip code z. The university doesn't know who the materials were sent to.
Nope. The student needs to get accepted first. Those marketing materials do not promise acceptance.
My kid got a TON of promotional materials from Wash U St. Louis... but we knew she was more than a longshot for acceptance. IF she had gotten accepted, she would have gotten decent need based aid because her first year, we had two in college. BUT she didn’t bother applying.
Those mailings are college junk mail plain and simple, and your kid received them because probably they checked a box when taking the SAT or ACT.
Interesting discussion here. I had to argue with my D19 who has a pretty compelling set of stats and activities to not apply to the ivies. They aren’t in our budget and as we all know, they don’t give merit. I asked her why she wanted to apply, and she admitted it was just to brag. So we nixed it. We did apply to 3 “reaches” that offer very limited merit - Vandy, Duke, and Wash U - but if I’d been more thoughtful we would have only done Duke, as she thought Vandy was just ok after a visit and only applied to Wash U to shut me up (I’m an alum) and she doesn’t want to go. I actually had a harder time trying to explain the reality to my parents.
Saving for college can also backfire when it comes to time file FAFSA as the amount asset protection afforded even average earning households has dropped significantly meaning your savings could easily disqualify you for federal grants and subsidized loans. A better way is put the savings in grandma or grandpa's name and then use it for the final year of college or to pay off any subsidized loans you may have taken.
Besides your "badge of honor" nonsense, @homeeducator, I find it incredulous that anyone would encourage scamming the federal government. I thought, in my naivete, that you, as a parent, are supposed to try to save money for your child's/children's education.
Relying on others, to pay your bills, just sounds too "entitled" to me. It backfires. Putting down your savings doesn't "disqualify you" for other pay options from the colleges. Also, when you and your child electronically sign the FAFSA app, you are confirming that you have provided truthful information with your signature. Anything else constitutes fraud.
A better way is put the savings in grandma or grandpa's name and then use it for the final year of college or to pay off any subsidized loans you may have taken.
Um...no. If the money is YOURS, it doesn’t matter whose bank account it is in. Are you GIVING this money to grandma or grandpa without restrictions as a gift? In other words...not expecting to get it back and allowing them to use it for whatever? If not...it’s YOUR money and needs to be reported as such on the financial aid application forms. Otherwise, you are applying for need based aid using fraudulent information by not including YOUR money.
Let's say a $60,000 income family managed to save up $40,000 for college.
Let's say asset protection allowance based on age is around $13,000.
So they would have an increase in FAFSA EFC of around $1,000 (compared to not having the savings) and in both cases would most likely have an EFC too high for Pell anyway.
[Besides your "badge of honor" nonsense, @homeeducator, I find it incredulous that anyone would encourage scamming the federal government. I thought, in my naivete, that you, as a parent, are supposed to try to save money for your child's/children's education.
Relying on others, to pay your bills, just sounds too "entitled" to me. It backfires. Putting down your savings doesn't "disqualify you" for other pay options from the colleges. Also, when you and your child electronically sign the FAFSA app, you are confirming that you have provided truthful information with your signature. Anything else constitutes fraud. ]
Wouldn't the appropriate step be to put the money in a Roth IRA in the parents name (since it is the parent's money) and then use it to assist in payment of tuition? You can withdraw the contributions out penalty-free to pay for higher education costs. [There may be an impact to future year's aid offset by the amount withdrawn, so people recommend withdrawing in senior year - if you qualify for substantial need based aid.]
If your income and/or assets are interfering with your ability to get need-based aid, then do what many of us have done in similar situations....and that’s chase merit. Yes, that could mean limiting choices, but even when seeking Need based aid one has to limit choices.
There is an old thread from @momfromtexas who had to find free rides for her kids, who didn’t have top stats. She was able to do so, even if it meant that her kids would be going to lesser known universities. You may not need a free ride, and if that’s the case, finding those merit generous schools may be easier.
Sorry if this was posted previously but I didn’t see this specific question posed yet...understanding that baseline assumption should be that merit aid is not coming, looking for insights here re: how to best navigate in our daughter’s case.
She was accepted EA with no initial merit aid to her school of choice. We’re prepared to pay full OOS tuition but would obviously prefer not to unintentionally harm any remaining chance she may have of receiving any merit aid by putting down the official tuition deposit.
Specifically - does confirming enrollment help or harm either her pending application to the school’s Honor College or potential merit award?
Ie - does the school think “they haven’t committed yet, so maybe offering Honors College and/or merit aid increase the likelihood of this applicant enrolling?” Or does enrolling/committing now show that the student is truly interested and they’re not risking an Honors spot or merit award to some OOS kid who may not really be interested in attending?
Replies to: Getting Accepted does NOT mean that a Merit Scholarship will be forthcoming....
This.
We knew without merit aid, school wasn’t happening, so we did the research. We looked at schools where daughters stats would put her in the top 10 to 20 percent of applicants. Then we combined that with schools with reputations for giving merit aid, and schools that stacked scholarships. We also made sure her EC were great to offset her lower stats. Her stats weren’t bad, but far from perfect. She has some major learning difficulties, and her school refuses to offer any accommodations, so she’s far from a straight A student. Because of that, we weren’t trying for ivy leagues or top schools. We knew realistically she wouldn’t get into those and definitely wouldn’t get any money. The goal was to find a good affordable school that would allow her to be successful in the field she wants to go into.
We found quite a few that fit what we were looking for. Schools with programs ranked in the top 25% for her field, but not top 20 schools or anything. She ended up receiving 50 to 75% of tuition in merit aid from every school, with options to go back and compete for more at about half. 4 of the schools wanted her badly enough to offer discretionary funds to bridge the remaining gap. One school even offered to pay to fly us all out to the school. I can guarantee you the top schools wouldn’t have thought twice about us, much less offered to pay for plane tickets.
I feel like people think it’s either an Ivy League education or nothing. Like you have to choose between community college or Harvard. The truth is millions of people go to lesser known schools and still go on to lead successful lives. Every school we’ve looked at has had 100% job placement for her major (with most being offered jobs before graduation) with positions starting around 65,000 to 80,000 a year, and these schools are giving her the merit aid she needs to be able to go.
I did let daughter apply to one reach school for the fun of it, and only because it was a tuition exchange school with an amazing program in a great city. She knew her chances of getting in were basically zero, but she was curious. She ended up waitlisted which surprised me. I thought for sure she’d be outright rejected. They only had a 30% acceptance rate, and her stats were below their average.
However, in general, I agree with others. I see no point in applying to schools where you don’t come close to meeting their criteria or that you can’t afford. One reach is ok if you have the time and resources to spend on it, but you really need to have realistic options first. Do the research. Find schools that will give you the aid you need. If your child just barely scrapes by and gets in as one of the academically lowest students, they aren’t getting merit aid. In addition, how well realistically do yo think they are going to do in that type of environment where everyone else did better? Encourage them to find the right fit, not necessarily the most prestigious one.
@Eyeleen
I know its hard to accept BUT Universities employ Enrollment Management marketing companies to increase the # of applicants. Just as other companies pay advertising companies to try to entice you to consider buying a Mercedes. Enrollment management companies have NO input with admissions committees regarding who is or is not accepted. It sucks but it is what it is.
For instance, Wash U has a NOTORIOUS reputation for WL's THOUSANDS of students who do NOT apply ED.
What parents NEED to do is research stats of ACCEPTED applicants at colleges. That is best done by looking at the Common Data Sets for any colleges you child is considering. Those are public documents can be found here. NOT all colleges participate, but most with competitive admissions do.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
It's marketing
Nope. The student needs to get accepted first. Those marketing materials do not promise acceptance.
My kid got a TON of promotional materials from Wash U St. Louis... but we knew she was more than a longshot for acceptance. IF she had gotten accepted, she would have gotten decent need based aid because her first year, we had two in college. BUT she didn’t bother applying.
Those mailings are college junk mail plain and simple, and your kid received them because probably they checked a box when taking the SAT or ACT.
Besides your "badge of honor" nonsense, @homeeducator, I find it incredulous that anyone would encourage scamming the federal government. I thought, in my naivete, that you, as a parent, are supposed to try to save money for your child's/children's education.
Relying on others, to pay your bills, just sounds too "entitled" to me. It backfires. Putting down your savings doesn't "disqualify you" for other pay options from the colleges. Also, when you and your child electronically sign the FAFSA app, you are confirming that you have provided truthful information with your signature. Anything else constitutes fraud.
Um...no. If the money is YOURS, it doesn’t matter whose bank account it is in. Are you GIVING this money to grandma or grandpa without restrictions as a gift? In other words...not expecting to get it back and allowing them to use it for whatever? If not...it’s YOUR money and needs to be reported as such on the financial aid application forms. Otherwise, you are applying for need based aid using fraudulent information by not including YOUR money.
@BelknapPoint anything to add?
And for income under $50,000 if they qualify for simplified needs test, assets aren't considered.
Let's say asset protection allowance based on age is around $13,000.
So they would have an increase in FAFSA EFC of around $1,000 (compared to not having the savings) and in both cases would most likely have an EFC too high for Pell anyway.
Nope. Well said.
Relying on others, to pay your bills, just sounds too "entitled" to me. It backfires. Putting down your savings doesn't "disqualify you" for other pay options from the colleges. Also, when you and your child electronically sign the FAFSA app, you are confirming that you have provided truthful information with your signature. Anything else constitutes fraud. ]
Wouldn't the appropriate step be to put the money in a Roth IRA in the parents name (since it is the parent's money) and then use it to assist in payment of tuition? You can withdraw the contributions out penalty-free to pay for higher education costs. [There may be an impact to future year's aid offset by the amount withdrawn, so people recommend withdrawing in senior year - if you qualify for substantial need based aid.]
@homeeducator
If your income and/or assets are interfering with your ability to get need-based aid, then do what many of us have done in similar situations....and that’s chase merit. Yes, that could mean limiting choices, but even when seeking Need based aid one has to limit choices.
There is an old thread from @momfromtexas who had to find free rides for her kids, who didn’t have top stats. She was able to do so, even if it meant that her kids would be going to lesser known universities. You may not need a free ride, and if that’s the case, finding those merit generous schools may be easier.
She was accepted EA with no initial merit aid to her school of choice. We’re prepared to pay full OOS tuition but would obviously prefer not to unintentionally harm any remaining chance she may have of receiving any merit aid by putting down the official tuition deposit.
Specifically - does confirming enrollment help or harm either her pending application to the school’s Honor College or potential merit award?
Ie - does the school think “they haven’t committed yet, so maybe offering Honors College and/or merit aid increase the likelihood of this applicant enrolling?” Or does enrolling/committing now show that the student is truly interested and they’re not risking an Honors spot or merit award to some OOS kid who may not really be interested in attending?
Thanks in advance for any insights!