<p>Yeah, PROFILE schools consider money you contribute to your 401(k) to be “available” for college expenses. They don’t expect you to withdraw from your retirement plans, but they do expect you’ll stop contributing while your kids are in school.</p>
<p>That’s nuts, if you ask me. (I’m a pension administrator and I have seen how frighteningly little people save for retirement.) We’ll go without a lot of things to pay for college, but we are not going to stop funding retirement.</p>
<p>youtubefan, </p>
<p>How much does the school want you to borrow? For real.</p>
<p>I agree with CountingDown and Marite.</p>
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<p>Frankly, I think it is what is impossible for you. I have a fearsome number of friends who are taking care of their parents right now because the parents ran out of retirement funds - not me, but very good friends are really doing this right now. Even one that went to prep school and an Ivy. They are putting kids through college and supporting their parents simultaneously…not something I want my kids to have to do. Take care of your retirement and then take care of your kids’ college. Your children might be disappointed about the ED school, but they would be far more disappointed to have to prop you up in your elder years.</p>
<p>Thanks for the opinions. </p>
<p>Marite, yes I have read your opinions and am surprised at your reply! Yes, maybe we might try talking to them again (although, sadly, the counselor was pretty adamant and made it quite clear there was nothing they could do for us. Maybe second time’s the charm?). </p>
<p>CountingDown, yes we realized that just recently - we are expected to give up our retirement for tuition. That is frightening, since we immigrated to the country just 9 years ago and the rest of our family is back home. I’m not comfortable with giving up our retirement savings just for 4 years of education. And there’s grad school to think about too. </p>
<p>dstark, the yearly tuition is 51,000 and we got $2,000 in subsidized aid.</p>
<p>“You should apply Ed only if…you KNOW you will attend Wellesley if accepted.”
Did you and your parents miss that on the Wellesley website when you applied?
Perhaps your parents’ finances are more complicated than you think; also, perhaps you don’t fully understand the conversation between the school’s FA officer and your parents. It appears you knew going in that you might not be able to afford the school. You made your bed and now you must lie in it. Lots of people are paying off loans for their kids’ educations.</p>
<p>To momofthreeboys, the sad thing is, my kid is really responsible and accepts that we cannot afford it. She is ready to give up her dream school because she doesn’t want us to suffer and have such a loan on our head.</p>
<p>:(</p>
<p>OK…under instructions…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wellesley.edu/admission/application/pdf/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wellesley.edu/admission/application/pdf/ED_Agreement.pdf</a></p>
<p>“Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and
be released from the Early Decision commitment”</p>
<p>So it’s not really possible, right? You can’t afford it.</p>
<p>I have to go now.</p>
<p>Call the school.</p>
<p>^^^mummom, I’m sorry to be rude, but that is terrible advice, just terrible.</p>
<p>Youtubefan:</p>
<p>I always believed that one can walk away from an ED offer if the financial aid is inadequate. I also happen to think that it is more prudent not to apply Ed if financial issues are a concern, but that’s water under the bridge, and you need to consider your current situation. </p>
<p>I do not expect the school to come up with more money, just to clarify whether it really expects you to dip into your retirement. If so, walk away from that $51k “offer.” Tell yourself that since your child was admissible under ED, she is admissible at some other great schools RD. And compare the finaid offers when they come.</p>
<p>OT: I do not believe in single dream schools. My kids got into great schools, but I firmly believe they could have been happy at several others.</p>
<p>OT2: Mummom, I think it’s terrible advice.</p>
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<p>NO, it doesn’t depend on the wording. No matter how the ED agreement is worded, it is NOT a legally enforceable agreement except as to the deadlines set.</p>
<p>That is, what is enforceable is the requirement that you pay a deposit by the date set, if you want to attend.</p>
<p>But if you do want to accept for any reason, they can NOT legally compel you to accept the offer, pay money or attend.</p>
<p>Legally speaking, you have been given an OFFER of admission. Legally speaking, you have the RIGHT to accept or decline the offer. </p>
<p>It may help to get a “release” from the college if you intend to apply to other, peer colleges. I’d suggest talking to the high school guidance counselor for a sense of whether such a release is important to them. </p>
<p>I would ALSO suggest that you try to determine from the financial aid office that calculated your aid HOW they derived their numbers. The probably won’t tell you what you need to know, but its worth trying to get to the bottom of it, simply to know if you will run into the same problem with financial aid applications to other colleges. You need to know whether they are considering some sort of paper asset or income that you didn’t know you had (like the time I discovered that I had a “business asset” worth $38K because I happened to be self employed doing freelance work)</p>
<p>What’s terrible advice is leading kids to believe they can get the admissions advantage of Ed without any commitment on their part at all.</p>
<p>i wonder if this will affect next year’s kids from this high school…why apply early if you know you can’t afford the school without lots of aid?</p>
<p>You knew by coming here you would get the advice you want to hear, youtube. I’ll leave the field to the usual suspects…</p>
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<p>THEIR definition doesn’t matter. YOU are the one who decides what is “impossible”.</p>
<p>re: post 1672: Because colleges promise to meet 100% of need?</p>
<p>Re: post 1671: Mummom: You need to read carefully and get off your high horse.
The applicant thought that Wellesley was/is her dream school. Her family believed they would be eligible for far more significant aid than the piddling $2,000 loan they’ve been offered out of a $51k per year tuition. </p>
<p>Having a dream school is not unethical. Believing the college hype is not unethical. Beggaring oneself and one’s children is.</p>
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<p>Because the college promised that it would meet full need, and does in fact give “lots of aid” to many of its admitted students. If in fact the school is Wellesley, I have been exchanging PM’s within another ED applicant to that college who needed aid – and that student was very happy with the award she received. But that happy student also had no way of knowing what the award would be until after she was admitted and received the package from the college.</p>
<p>Youtubefan: There has been a lot of debate here, but I don’t think there’s any difference of opinion with regard to your situation. You had a reasonable expectation of a certain level of financial aid, the college didn’t provide it, after thoughtful consideration you are not prepared to take on debt and stop funding your retirement to cover the difference. Your daughter can withdraw from the ED commitment without adverse consequences (other than saying goodbye to her first choice school, that had accepted her, which is plenty bad). No one at the college should raise any kind of stink about that at all. That isn’t what we have been debating. And the differences in wording among ED policies don’t affect that.</p>
<p>Your ED agreement says “Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment”</p>
<p>The school has not offered you enough financial aid to make attendance possible, so you have sufficient reason to now decline and be released. The meaning of “impossible” is irrelevant. Your family has reached the conclusion that you cannot afford it… end of story.</p>
<p>If you wish to discuss this further with the school, go right ahead, but in my opinion it’s no longer necessary. Just inform them you won’t be attending per the ED agreement that you signed.</p>
<p>Next, you need to immediately contact your guidance counselor and tell her what happened. You’ll have to find out what your options are for additional applications – in particular, if you will be permitted to apply to peer schools. Good luck.</p>
<p>Having briefly reviewed Wellesley’s website on FA, it appears that either the OP’s parents make a lot more than $60K a year or they have lots of assets. Wellesley says that it will meet 100% of “demonstrated need”, but its charts of need-based aid make it clear that not everyone will get close to full tuition and once the parents are determined to make over $60K, some get <em>nothing</em>. I agree that OP can decline the ED offer, but she may burn some of her peer college applications (Amhearst) and/or the HS and the GC. This appears to be an application that was not thoughtfully made and I don’t think that Wellesley is responsible for the OP’s disappointment.</p>
<p>marite: Perhaps you need to get off your high horse. We do not know all of the facts, despite what the applicant has told us. We were not in the room when the conversation took place between youtube’s parents and the school. Perhaps the school is correct, and the family CAN afford the COA. If anyone is on their high horses, it is the people who always assume the school is wrong in their FA calculations–no one here is an FA expert as far as I know. </p>
<p>My S’s school has included many things in our Profile amount that we don’t like either. However, we are stretching to the limit to send him there. Perhaps youtube’s family could do the same. Just a thought. They did commit to it, afterall.</p>