@jql2017 In regards to going to a diverse school, are you thinking mainly about the location of UAH being in Alabama. As someone who has spent my entire life in the South (Texas and Louisiana), I can tell you that the South is very diverse. Alabama is no different. There are actually many cities in the South that are liberal and have artsy/tech-savvy vibes. And they are diverse in race as well. And UAH is excellent for engineering majors too.
Really, the only knock against being in Alabama is that it gets really hot in summer time. But winters will be mild.
Just do yourself a favor and don’t saddle yourself with tremendous debt when you have the options of graduating debt free at UH or UAH. Be realistic about this. You’ll REALLY regret taking on huge debt when you graduate and have to start making those loan payments…
Isn’t much of this discussion a moot point – having established that MOST LIKELY the family won’t qualify for enough in loans to send these girls to OOS schools?
If that is the case, OP, you WILL be completely out of options in just a matter of months.
It seems to me – and if I’m wrong, I hope someone can correct me – you will have to make a decision. To rethink Hawaii or Alabama… OR… head to college next fall knowing you only have enough tuition (and loans) to pay for ONE year.
Yes, definitely ask your dad about the GI bill and Yellow Ribbon program and whether those benefits can be transferred to you and sis, his dependents. Evidently, Rochester has an unlimited amount for the Yellow Ribbon program (which is for tuition, I think). Check.
Thank you for the input everyone. I wasn’t expecting this much discussion but it has been helpful to establish what is realistic for me.
Berkeley is out of the question I guess. Unless I want to murder my sister and take her tuition or sell a kidney on the black market. Ah it’s going to be painful to turn down admissions to Cal…I would’ve loved it there…but “to love and be wise exceeds man’s might” amiright… we only part to meet again (hopefully for grad school or in another life lol)
UW is probably out of the question too. Oh wells. They had cherry blossoms and rain, both of which I liked. Maybe for grad school, or not?
Rochester might still? be possible, if I’m really really lucky. I will contact financial aid office to negotiate. It’s a stretch but what hurts in trying
I don’t think I provided or am able to provide enough information to paint the whole picture of my family’s finances. My parents don’t talk about finances much with me WHICH IS WHAT GOT ME IN THIS DHSKDHJAJA SITUATION but if my (step)dad is willing the refinance the house to make payments I think it is possible that it will not lead to financial ruin. He has 62 years, two jobs, and also putting three other kids through college experience under his belt. (My step siblings are much older and one did grad school but he’s not using his degree bc it was on bicycle engineering and another one sorta dropped out of community college bc she got knocked up and got married BUT THATS ANOTHER STORY) so I’d like to think that he is not an idiot when it comes to finances and is not relying on the impossible
ANYWAY LOL I think Rochester might still be possible if negotiating with the office works out, and if those outside merit scholarships I applied to come through. And I will definitely check the yellow ribbon program.
But however I will apply to UH just to be safe.
I will keep updating about this situation here in case someone else is stupid enough to get into the same situation.
How should I go about negotiating with the financial aid office at Rochester? Phone call? Email? Through college counselor? Tips on that would be the most useful at this point please. Since if that doesn’t work out I will just go to UH.
Oh and thanks to those who worried about the weather at Rochester for me. Haha it would definitely be difficult to get used to since as of right now I do not own a winter coat nor have I seen snow. But on the small chance I go to Rochester I will just think of it as punishment on myself for not clarifying what financial range I have when I applied to schools. Mom said apply to whatever good schools I want. “You’re applying to ONLY three ivies?” -mom from two months ago. FUTURE APPLICANTS DONT LISTEN TO YOUR TIGER MOMS PLS
I also want to point out, @jql2017 that four years is a long time and many, many people change their minds about their major, grad school, etc.
So sure, maybe grad school, but for now focus on undergrad. I really wish you and your sister the best of luck whatever you decide. (And I do hope you decide against the crippling debt.)
@jql2017, you’re not stupid! I, for one, am impressed with how quickly you’re processing all the well-intended but sometimes brutally blunt information you’re getting here. Good luck!
Dad is after all my stepdad and while my biological one ditched mom seventeen yrs ago and is not paying any child support, stepdad is planning to help pay student loans and not asking us to repay him. Preparing to put 4th and 5th kid through school. Very very grateful. I will do whatever it takes to not waste it (a reason I really wanted to go to top 50 school and also not take gap year)
Where ever I end up I will work my butt off
All roads lead to Rome I guess. Rome is that great business job on the West Coast and making parents proud not Cal
“stepdad is planning to help pay student loans and not asking us to repay him. Preparing to put 4th and 5th kid through school.”
He is a saint. However, having hosted a couple of exchange students, I can see that after many years a step child could become entirely the same in a dad’s heart as a biological child.
I think that I recall that he is 62. At that age one should be cautious about taking on debt. While a 62 year old might stay healthy and keep working for another 20 years (and on average probably will live another 20 years), you cannot count on it. Nature can occasionally throw an unexpected monkey wrench into plans to work forever.
In terms of “not Cal”, I would say “not Cal now”. When it comes time to look at graduate school will be a time to look again.
So you might start by emailing yours, and let her know that you would like to discuss your aid award and your sister’s. If you can arrange it, perhaps you can call from your home during posted office hours at a time when your dad and your sister are available. They might balk at discussing the aid awarded to another student - but in this case obviously the money all comes from your dad – so if for example Rochester was willing to increase your sister’s merit award to match yours, you would benefit just as much as if the same amount of money was added to your award.
However, UAH is somewhat less diverse in a racial/ethnic sense than many colleges, with the largest racial/ethnic group making up 70% of the undergraduate students (for comparison, UH’s largest racial/ethnic group makes up 39%, and 25% of undergraduates indicated two or more).
@calmom really bad timing but my dad just left today for a week long business trip to Alaska. I presume that I want to contact the office ASAP, should I wait until dad gets home on Friday or just email them and also have dad email them? Might be difficult to get dad to do that on his business trip.
I honestly don’t know why my merit aid doesn’t match my sisters. My scholarship was the international baccalaureate (IB) scholarship for “excelling in IB”. My sister is also taking IB, the exact same classes with the exact same grades. Her scholarship was one for recognizing outstanding accomplishments in high school. The only difference is that I’m IB President and she is Vice President (the election was not rigged I swear haha), and that I did a Skype interview while she did not. In any case it is weird she didn’t receive the same scholarship. Is there a chance of getting increased need based aid as well?
I will probably talk about how we would BOTH like to attend Rochester however parents only can afford to send one which would be unfair and negotiate with that point. According to the link, it seems that I have already been in contact with my financial aid counselor- he emailed sister and I a month ago at our personal emails for clarification on contradicting info on our CSS profile (oops) so he is aware of the twin situation.
Yes I already said UAH is not for me. Having grown up in Hawaii where it is 40% Asian (like me), 20% white, 10% Pacific Islander and these are only the single race stats, while most of my friends are 3+ races mixed, I think GreenTeaFanatic and my idea of diversity are very different…
Diversity was a big factor on making my college list (yes, finances should’ve definitely come before diversity), and like I said I’d much rather stay at UH than go to UAH for free
I think you should go ahead and call this week but use your dad’s absence as a reason you can’t commit. That is, you’ll find out whether they are able to negotiate at all, and also whether they are willing to talk to you about both packages-- but again it really doesn’t matter. If they added $10K in aid to your package and nothing at all to your sister’s, that’s still $10K less that your dad has to pay.
I certainly think it’s acceptable for you to ask any questions you feel are appropriate.
You could run into a problem – your sister was offered a lower merit scholarship than you – but was her need based aid the same? It could be that any more money they give you for merit will just come out of need, except perhaps reducing the work-study and loan portions. The problem is that that the out-of-pocket for Rochester is pretty close to your FAFSA EFC-- so that might be the best they will give you no matter how the aid is structured.
But definitely ask about the Yellow Ribbon as well - I know nothing about that, but that is something new that they might not have considered.
"really bad timing but my dad just left today for a week long business trip to Alaska. I presume that I want to contact the office ASAP, should I wait until dad gets home on Friday or just email them and also have dad email them? "
Email has the advantage that you can carefully think through what you want to say and look it over before hitting “send”. For critical emails sometimes I won’t type in the to: address, or leave it as myself only, until I am sure that it is ready (just in case I hit the send button by mistake). Does dad check his email on business trips, so that you can send him a draft, and have him comment before sending to the university? After sending the email you might want to call also just to express interest, and concern about the amount of debt for you, your sister, and your dad (who they might assume will hit retirement age about when you graduate). I think that they will want to hear that you and your sister are both interested in attending. I am not sure about the timing (sooner seems better than later, but first week of April vs second week I don’t know).
Email or call your dad, and/or ask your dad about YellowRibbon benefits he may be able to give you. There may not be much or any but since Rochester is a YR school it could help.
Okay I think I will just email my FA counselor tomorrow. Is this draft of the email okay? Anything else I should mention? Rewording? Please help, thank you!!
Hello -
I was wondering if there was a possible way we could get more financial aid? My twin sister and I were both accepted to Rochester which we are very excited about, and awarded merit scholarships as well as need based grants (very grateful for this). However if we were to both attend Rochester, even with these grants, it is an annual net cost of $47,696 for me and $51,696 for my sister. We are definitely willing to do work study to help pay for this, but even with a $4000 work study it is still a total of $91,392 for the both of us annually. With the estimated costs of attendance for the second, third, and fourth year per faonline.rochester, the costs are expected to increase, meaning that the total cost of attendance for the both of us to attend Rochester for four years, with work study is about $353,000. The expected family contribution for the both of us is $84,256 annually if my sister and I both take out the federal direct subsidized loan. This is an enormous amount of money that our parents would not be able to pay without taking out loans, and go heavily into debt, which is very worrisome. My father is close to retirement age and the cost of living here in Hawaii is very high, making it difficult to meet the expected family contribution. He would be able to send one of us to Rochester if the other attends an instate school, however that would be very unfair to one of us so the most likely scenario is that we would both not be able to attend University of Rochester. I am also aware that Rochester is a Yellow Ribbon school and was wondering if my dad’s retired military status would have any effect on the costs. Is there any way that the net cost of attendance for my sister and I to both attend Rochester could be lowered so we can both have the opportunity to attend such a great school? Thank You!
@ClarinetDad16 EFC on FAFSA is $34,045. That’s what says at the top of the form. I’m pretty sure it’s per child (someone correct me if I’m wrong). Now I have no idea why it was not met.
And to be frank this is more of a nightmare as of right now than a fantasy
