<p>You are right, we do not know all the facts. But you are quick to demand that the applicant accept the ED offer!
Just a thought of my own in return: Youtube said they cannot stretch. I take Youtube at his/her word. After all, the daughter would love nothing more than attend Wellesley. It’s hard to accept that she won’t be able, after all, without trying to make her parents feel guilty for turning down her dream school.</p>
<p>Hat:
</p>
<p>I have not looked at the chart, but it seems to me, based on our own experience, that a family would need to make a heck of a lot more than $60k in order to afford a $51k tuition bill. Although we make way more than this, we still had to borrow in order to pay for our kids’ college education; fortunately, we were still able to invest in our retirement pensions.
The OP mentioned still having family and their country of origin; that is a financial responsibility that I don’t know whether American colleges would take into account or even acknowledge, but that is certainly real for certain cultures.</p>
<p>First of all, that “admissions advantage of ED” is pretty useless if the student ultimately can’t afford to attend.</p>
<p>This student did make a commitment and she kept to it. She committed to attending this school if <em>financially possible</em> with the award she receives. She signed an ED agreement that explicitly stated that should the student “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.” No one is saying that the school or the family is “wrong” in their calculations, they simply have not reached an agreement on the affordability of attendance given this offer of FA.</p>
<p>Regarding your advice to “stretch to the limit” to send the OP to this school:
No, they did NOT commit to “stretch to the limit.” They only agreed that she would attend if financially possible. That’s all the agreement says.</p>
<p>Obviously, the OP should <em>never</em> have applied ED, but it’s too late now. We have no idea if this was the result of poor advice on the part of the GC, or simply a poor choice on the part of the family. Hopefully the GC will learn something from this event and warn future applicants to avoid ED if they need FA.</p>
<p>They presented their case to the school. The school reviewed the family finances again, and determined their award calculation was correct. Some are very quick to assume it’s not. Yes, youtube can withdraw. But she already knew this from reading this entire thread.</p>
<p>I have no idea if the college calculation is “correct” or not. I don’t think there is a generally agreed upon amount that would be “correct” given the surprising variability in FA that families on this thread have reported receiving. The OP states that they had used the online calculators and felt confident that they would receive sufficient aid. Unfortunately, it did not work out.</p>
<p>"Yes, youtube can withdraw."
This is the correct answer to youtube’s question.</p>
<p>Mummom:
I contribute to some members of my extended family. I consider this my responsibility. I doubt very much that colleges would see things the same way I do; American notions of “family” not being the same as in other societies. But this is an area in which colleges and applicants’ families may differ greatly (the family has lived in this country for nine years and still has members abroad) without either being necessarily “wrong.” Which is not to say that colleges are infallible.</p>
<p>Marite - I agree that someone needs to make a whole lot more than $60K to afford a $51K tuition bill, so I assume that the college expects the parents to borrow against assets and use the money to pay the tuition. It is also possible that there are “dependent” relatives which the school is not considering as legal dependents. But I doubt that dependents or retirement are going to decrease FA from $53K to $2K without some significant assets or significant income. Without knowing more about the OP’s personal financial situation (and I’m NOT asking) this strikes me as the type of family which should have applied to FAFSA only schools (unless they were prepared to pay say $30K a year in tuition).</p>
<p>You know what I resent - i resent posters giving unethical advice. Posters looking to game the system and screw others in the process. Posters who throw morals and ethics out the window like the cadre of 6. Thats what I resent</p>
<p>And why is this surprising. Sorry - but not everything in life is free. I know you and others love the free handouts - but colleges are a business. And the college determined the poster did not qualify for much FA. A standard response to a question of - well I am not sure if I can afford that - do you have any other suggestions - would be, we do have parents who take out loans, that is something you may want to look into</p>
<p>Hear hear mummom !!! It boggles the mind that families applying ED have not done their homework. Everyone wants a free handout. Look at the corrupt politicians in DC buying votes to pass some laughable healthcare reform that puts the country even more in debt - a debt all of our children will be burdened with.</p>
<p>Yet - they are enabled by those who believe they are entitled or are unethical and do not believe they need to live by an agreement as evidenced by some comments on this thread</p>
<p>Yes - it will . All the more reason why people shopping for a bunch of FA should not be going the ED route and usurping the process as some easy throw away decision. You hurt more than yourself in the process</p>
<p>I concur. Wellesley is not at all responsible for the poster’s disappointment. This IMO is not as unethical as the original poster but it still does have a sleazy feeling to it. For someone to apply to a school like Wellsely ED to gain that admissions advantage without doing their homework on costs and aid is wrong. In the end, especially if this person attend U Mass as noted on another thread, the ones who will really be hurt will be the HS, GC and future student applicants from that school</p>
<p>This is a very good post and you raise some salient posts. I mentioned before I am fortunate to serve on the FA committee at the private school I work at. I can tell you from my experience, some parents have completely unrealistic expectations. Others want schools to fund their lifestyle choices for them (ie expensive houses, cars, big charitable gifts, lots of investments). OTOH, many parents understand that you have to pay for what you receive and are appreciative of the aid we can offer. They work hard to make ends meet but they also realize the importance of education.</p>
<p>In this case, it sounds like youtube had very unrealistic expectations and did no homework. That is my biggest problem with them and it really does make a mockery of the ED process</p>
<p>Perhaps youtube’s posts should be more carefully read.</p>
<p>I think youtube’s initial post is another good example of the discussion of the past 20 pages or so; it’s very difficult for a family to estimate institutional financial aid, no matter how well that family does its homework. The variances in the calculation of “need”, while understandable, mean that there will be times when the college’s EFC will be very different from the family’s calculated EFC. If the youtube family calculates their EFC using the various online calculators, comes up with a worst case number that they’re feel they can meet, allows youtubeD to apply to Dream U based on this number, and then finds that Dream U has calculated EFC + $8K, the response to just stretch may or may not be workable for the youtube family. According to Mr. or Mrs. youtube, it’s not workable. </p>
<p>As far as I can tell, colleges anticipate that there will be some (small) percentage of applicants for which the gap between college-computed need and family need will be more than the family can surmount, therefore allowing for a release from the ED agreement. This seems to be the case with the youtube family. Mr. or Mrs. youtube simply asked how to notify the school of this.</p>
<p>berryberry: “Yet - they are enabled by those who believe they are entitled or are unethical and do not believe they need to live by an agreement as evidenced by some comments on this thread”</p>
<p>Youtube’s family <em>did</em> live by the agreement. They absolutely would have sent their daughter to Wellesley if they could have afforded it. Unfortunately, they found the FA was not enough, and they are regretfully declining as explicitly permitted by the agreement which Wellesley wrote and the family signed. They are simply choosing the option which Wellesley specifically allows – that is, they are declining for financial reasons. How is that unethical??</p>
<p>Youtube, I agree that you can withdraw from ED if you can’t afford it. I cannot know your specific finances and pressure points. </p>
<p>However, in the scheme of things, if I read you correctly, you expected 10K/yr and got 2K/yr. So we’re talking about something like having to borrow $32K above what you thought over the 4 years. Wellesley will cost $49,000 instead of $41,000, roughly a 20% increase. </p>
<p>It’s a lot but it’s probably not an irresponsible amount extra to have to borrow and I think you are certainly free to conclude that it’s too much. You have a reason to be angry, but from a cold rational point of view, Wellesley really is that awesome. I would seriously consider trying to find a way. Between student taking a summer job (or two), parents taking a second job, and tightening the belt a little, etc. </p>
<p>I don’t know how mature the relationship is between parents and child, but maybe the student can agree to pay back the parents $32K with 4% interest over 10 years on top of her other student loans. That’s an extra $324/month. It doesn’t doesn’t seem like that amount has to be a deal breaker. Also, if your retirement has matching, I think you can continue to contribute up to the match but take a 401K loan on the amount already in there. There is no guarantee that the money you would have contributed to you retirement would have earned 4% anyway. </p>
<p>I know the Common App ED agreement has the financial aid out-clause. However, my son applied to a college that accepts the Common App but has its own ED form that doesn’t have the financial aid language. He really wants to apply ED but the financial aid package could be a deal-breaker for us parents. Any thoughts?</p>