Daughter got accepted, not sure I can afford it

calmom
Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:28:49 +0000

my perennial question–if choice #2 gave you a slightly better FA package than choice #1, which school would you pick? If the answer isn’t always choice #1, then you shouldn’t apply ED in the first place.



Human psychology doesn’t work that way. People change their minds depending on how something is presented to them. There are all sorts of psychology experiments that demonstrate this- in fact, people can easily be led in an experimental setting not only to change their minds, but to deny (forget) that they ever held a different opinion in the first place.



I’m 90% sure that Bryn Mawr doesn’t offer merit aid above 20k. Even awarded to a high-need student with preferential packaging, that’s only about a 5k difference in summer and term-time workstudy (since Swarthmore is no-loans to begin with).



5K is a lot of money to a lot of people (including me) – and schools that offer merit aid often combine that with need aid. Also, a school’s “no-loan” policy does NOT mean that the student doesn’t have loans. It often means that the student is simply able to use their loans to meet their EFC – this would definitely be the case if the CSS Profile calculation of “need” exceeded FAFSA EFC, because the student would be eligible for subsidized loans to fill the gap between the FAFSA EFC and the college’s opinion on “need”.



No decision will be perfect, so make one and stick to it; you’ll have to do the same thing in April, regardless. But I was mostly the same person in December as in April;

The students in April have more information, and more accurate information, in hand on which to base their decision. It goes beyond finances – students invariably learn more about schools as time goes on, especially after being admitted, through info sessions, mailings, contacts from faculty & students, etc. It is very typical for admitted students to receive mailings advising them of specific college programs or features that they didn’t know existed, because the post-admission mailings tend to be more targeted to the indiviual student’s interests. (As far as I can tell, the admissions office routinely pass along names of admitted students to relevant college departments, often even before the students receive notice of admission – they probably simply flag the files in some way at the time of admission.)

That’s one thing you missed out on as an ED applicant - you didn’t see the mail that typically arrives in March and April from various schools. It’s not the same marketing material that comes earlier – it can be far more specific and substantive.



Almost every school on the list met full need, because that was a priority for me and my family

My experience has been that schools that do not meet full need for their students often offer better aid than schools that do – I think because they leverage their aid, they often have more flexibility with their budgets. They engage in preferential packaging and that can often result in significantly better offers.



If merit would make a significant difference in whether a school remains #1 preference, then ED is also the wrong choice.



Many schools with ED programs offer merit aid, and often they go to great lengths to reassure ED applicants that they will be fully considered for such aid.



if there are two schools that say they meet full need and one is also need-blind in admissions, I’d expect that the need-blind school would make more FA applicants “happy” by both admitting them and giving them good packages.



Not necessarily. The need-aware school has greater control over their financial aid budget, so they can also afford to be more generous for those who they do admit. They are less likely to admit a borderline applicant who has signficant financial need, but they can also afford to set a generous standard for financial aid overall, since it is targeting its aid to students it sees as more desireable.