My D has been accepted at several out of state directional colleges. We completed the FAFSA on Jan 5th and listed all of these colleges.
Will the schools automatically send her an overall FA offer? Do we need to pester them? Are FA award dates tied to the institutional scholarship deadlines? If our EFC is too high, will they even send a FA package?
Need to choose a school where College Savings divided by annual COA = 4 years! Just don’t want to wait months to decide and secure on-campus housing. Thanks for any help.
Have you tried each school’s net price calculator to at least get estimates?
We have calculated each school down to the penny - even tax on the meal plans and parking fees. Only applied to schools that had her major and scholarships to get in the range of “potentially affordable for 4 years.”
Have you received any merit offers so far? Perhaps with some rolling admissions acceptences?
You shouldn’t have to pester, even if your EFC is too high. If you’ve indicated that your child will accept loan, then at least you’d get that.
As for the down selection process…If the net costs are close, then I would suggest being very careful when selecting an OOS directional. Try to pick on where everyone doesn’t leave on weekends…which can happen and can make an OOS student feel quite lonely. You don’t want your child to soon hate her school and want to go elsewhere because those merit opps won’t happen with a transfer student.
The reason we looked OOS is because those schools offered her modest merit $$ and in-state tuition waivers. We just really want to see the the whole package of aid & scholarships.
I agree about the suitcase schools, but that is her predicament. The college app process has been much different with a “B” student.
Do you think they will send out FA info by the end of March?
No way to tell. Schools have different schedules,and rules and procedures as to how they do their fin aid. You can ask your DD to write some very nice letters, explaining her intense interest and how important this is to her. At some places, for some people, it might keep her more front and forward to get done.
You should receive all of your financial aid packages in time to make the May 1 matriculation decision.
Make sure that your taxes are complete and that your submitted FAFSA forms reflect that. link to the IRS data retrieval tool. Do all of this ASAP.
I’m still trying to figure things out would you mind explaining what you mean by the down selection process? Do you just mean when making our college school selections? What is an OOS directional? Is that a commuter school or something else? Also I’ve gone thru all the scholarship lists and I have a general question but I have no idea where I should post it. Any help would be appreciated.
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