Could I get into an Ivy League?

srparent15
Wed, 14 Jul 2021 22:27:01 +0000

Having a current kid at an Ivy, I can tell you that this is the case. Many parents don’t realize that and when they run the NPC they think they will get a certain amount of aid, but it is rarely what they think they will get. They also rarely get rull aid as the Ivies don’t get merit scholarships.

I cannot comment on Vandy other than they do give a fair amount of merit scholarships and I don’t know how they are as far as need based aid. Rice I pointed to the example of the student from this past year that was admitted during ED and then couldn’t afford to attend. The thread is here on CC so all anyone has to do is go to that. They gave them $ but not at all what the parent expected.

The best thing the OP can do for herself is to really go through the specific schools she is interested in and look at the threads and see what has happened with students who have requested financial aid and what has happened with them. The NPCs are not all that accurate. For one school I was told my student would qualify for more than 30k in financial aid, yet the only thing they ultimately received in their financial aid award was the offer of a loan. That’s another thing that people are often confused about, financial aid, does not always mean grants/free money. Often times it’s made up of how much a parent/student can take loans out for and then the rest they have to get loans elsewhere. There are some good examples of the definition of this online. If you’re going through this for the first time since you mentioned a student graduating in 2022, just be aware and don’t count on the NPCs or go in with blinders. The last thing you want is to disappoint your child if they can’t go to the school they really want to go to. It happens more often than you think and for some parents it’s a killer trying to tell your kid you can’t afford to send them where they really want to go. Or to advise them against taking loans because no school is worth graduating with 80-100k in loans for undergrad.