Harvard’s Net Price Calculator is accurate to within a few thousand dollars. If your aid is not what you expected, call Harvard’s Financial Aid Office and have a discussion with an officer. Keep in mind though that if your child was admitted SCEA, the aid letter they received was an ESTIMATED award. After you submit the FAFSA and CSS PROFILE, you will receive a final award around April 1st, but it’s probably best to discuss how they calculated your aid now, so you know what to expect in the Spring.
Thank you Gibby. The letter also indicated working 10-12 hours per week during semester. In addition, summer work as well. Is 10-12 hours a week typical for students receiving harvard aid? Does it mean my child can not come home in summer? Thank you.
There are three components of Harvard’s financial aid package:
- Harvard Scholarship
- Parent Contribution
- Student Contribution
Every student on financial aid is expected to contribute to their own education by having a term-time job during the school year of about 10-12 hours, and earning money from summer employment. Unless your child will also be taking summer classes at Harvard, they will need to move back home at the end of Spring term (around mid-May) and find a summer job living at home.
My daughter worked about 10 hours a week in the library during the school year. She sat at the help desk and most of the time did her homework, so it was very do-able for her, in terms of earning money, getting her work done and also having time for extracurricular activities. She waited tables and bartended during the summer months and made about $3,000 to $4,000 per year from her summer job.
Every family makes their own arrangement with their child about the student contribution. For both our daughter and son, the money they earned during the school year and summer employment went towards their day-to-day expenses during the school year, which included books, pizza, beer, toiletries, dates, movies, etc.
When looking at the financial aid letter, it can be a little confusing. It’s important to remember that the student contribution must be earned over the course of the school year – so the university includes that amount on what you owe up front. I think it’s helpful to add the billable items (tuition, room and board, student health fees) and subtract the Harvard Scholarship. The balance is what is owed to the college – half for Fall semester and half for Spring semester.
@DrC88888 Living inexpensively over the summers while working is key to saving $. Thus, coming home can be a big part of your child’s summer earnings. However, if co-ops can be had, they usually come with summer housing stipends or provide their own corporate housing.
Thank you very much gibby and T26E4.
“Unless your child will also be taking summer classes at Harvard, they will need to move back home at the end of Spring term (around mid-May) and find a summer job living at home.”
Beside summer session classes, there are also various internships and research opportunities in Cambridge during the summer. Some are with Harvard, some aren’t. Many of them are paying positions. Some include room and board, others, you have to fend for yourself. My older son had such an internship after his freshman year. It didn’t include room and board, but Harvard did permit him to rent graduate student housing for the summer. Very expensive. Over a third of his summer earnings went just for housing. The following summer, he had a paid internship in another city with a Harvard-affiliated institution. They provided free housing, but not board. This summer, he’ll be on a research trip overseas with his deparment. All room and board and travel covered, but no additional wages. That will be a burden, but it’s a great opportunity. So, there are options other than moving back home and getting a summer job.
Thank you notjoe.
Does anybody’s Boston student work as a musician?
DrC88888, re:Thanksgiving. We live in SD and our son who is a senior came home every Thanksgiving except one, but it was very expensive! He would have skipped Monday and Tuesday classes to have the week, but we discouraged it. In retrospect, that probably would have been ok if there were no exams. This year he is interviewing across the country for MSTP programs and has missed so much school that it puts two days in perspective. I would encourage your daughter to review her exam schedule early and see if she can leave Tuesday and buy tickets before they get crazy expensive. My son had a habit of buying them late - which definitely cost us. My daughter is also EA class of 2019 - maybe she and your daughter will meet at the regional gatherings during Visitas! (iIf she’s going)
As I have said on other threads, I nearly died when I saw our EFC for my D when she got into Yale SCEA. I asked for a review and the yearly contribution was reduced by $13,000. If course I had to plead my case. Now, instead of hot dogs and beans each night, we can also afford the bun. All jokes aside, though our contribution is still more than most of my staff make a year, the savings of $13,000, which is $1,300 per month, is substantial.
Congratulations TPerry1982 on your successful review. My son is a Junior in Harvard and we are paying full tuition. Can you please kindly let us know what material we need to prepare for such a review? Thanks.
I don’t know what you would do at this late juncture. We just sent in information that clarified some things, including that the salary bump they were basing the original EFC on was no longer valid. Also, her dad retired and his salary dropped somewhat. Not enough for us to get out of paying a heck of a lot, but again, $13,000 is nothing to sneeze at.
Thank you TPerry1982.
Hello SoDakmom , yes we will be going to visitas and have bought tickets and booked the hotel. Has your D join the harvard 2019 facebook? Maybe our kids have met already. Are you going to visitas too? I will be visiting friends since I heard parents are not really expected to be there.
To all the EA parents, I know we have till May 1 to make our final decision. Have you officially accepted or committed? Just wondering about the pros and cons. My D has decided to go to Harvard but we are curious about other schools too. Any advice? Thank you
Hi again,DrC88888. My daughter did join the FB group, but I think hasn’t participated too much. She’s just been enjoying all the great personalities. I am going to Visitas too and staying at a B&B about a 15 minutes walk from the Square. Since it’s my son’s senior year, I am planning to hang out with him and help him pack up and and go to what events there are for parents at Visitas. I suspect my daughter will check in and I won’t see too much of her after that. PM if you’d like to meet up for coffee or anything. My daughter did officially accept the offer, but I don’t think it means too much, and she hasn’t withdrawn yet from other public universities she applied to, though she is definitely planning to attend Harvard.
Are any of you hearing any interesting “Blocking” stories from your Freshman children? Or do the parents of Upper Classman or Graduates have any interesting Blocking stories to share?
Our daughter is part of a Block of eight students that will be linking with another Block (still with me?) in search of the most favorable Upper Classman housing.
Is it coincidental that we received a donation solicitation on Saturday asking for donations to assist with making improvements to Upper Classman housing? My initial thought was if I don’t contribute is our daughter going to end up Quaded or end up in one of the less desirable Houses?
There has been some drama with her Block, there were a couple of kids who were using their Block as a safety net in case they couldn’t block with the kids they really wanted to and because of that their spots were given to other kids who are not known that well to most of the blocking group. Well the kids who were trying to play it both ways didn’t fare well and wanted to come back to the safety net that was no longer available. A little bit of drama in the lives of 18 and 19 year olds.
That reminds me to ask my younger son about whether or not he’s done anything about blocking. My older son was much more on the ball about this two years ago. But generally, my younger son has done an overall better job of adjusting to college than my older son, so I can’t complain.
We get fundraising letters from Harvard almost weekly. And sometimes phone calls. The last time someone called, I told the young lady, “I’m already giving you folks five figures a year!” She replied, “Really?” and I said, “Yeah, it’s called tuition!”
I know we got a letter last week, but I didn’t specifically read it.
I don’t remember that there was any pressure to make any donations in order to facilitate my older son’s blocking group getting into a desirable house. As I recall, the house into which his group got in was their first or second choice.
@greatkid, I agree with notjoe re: donation solicitations. We’re not donating anything beyond tuition, room and board, but my daughter got quadded along with the children of some very prominent alums and donors, though they weren’t in her blocking group. Some of these kids were less than thrilled about the placement but their parents couldn’t get it changed for them. The girl drama is always fun to hear about as it usually sends our D off on one of her hilarious rants.
I was only kidding about the timing of the solicitation as it related to our daughters prospective housing placement. My wife and I did have the same thought though! Like if we didn’t donate there would be some bad Karma that would adversely effect our daughters housing. 
Our daughter is already in the area of Harvard Yard affectionately known as the projects, we are hoping her Upper Classman House is one of the nicer and more convenient one’s.
Our daughter prefers guy’s as friends, actually in her blocking group there are five guys and three girls. She has recently joined a Sorority though and that had taken me very much by surprise. She was looking for avenues to create friendships with more young women. She was so anti Greek life when considering fit at schools we had visited.
Re: Blocking drama. It’s there and it can be tough. My son stayed with his blocking group for all three years. They are a large group (6) and after a year in swing housing, they have had really nice suites. He seemed to feel there were housing advantages to being in a large group, but never felt that the housing was anything other than randomly assigned. His blocking group is really close and made up mostly of kids from his entryway freshman year.