Helpfulness of financial aid office

teameffort
Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:29:13 +0000

This is late in coming but we too had issues with St. Olaf’s financial aid office. We explained that we would have additional need in the coming year as we had unexpected medical expenses, and also my son had been told he would not be eligible for financial aid during his fifth and final year at a different private school, so our college costs for him would be skyrocketing. My daughter got a nice FA package from St. Olaf, along with a request for two years’ medical receipts and a projection for our current year’s medical expenses. We booked a flight to St. Olaf from the west coast and I mailed in the requested documentation. On the morning of our visit, as we were getting in the car to go back to the airport, I received an email stating St. Olaf was granting D $1,500 more but also relabeling $6,300 of the grant already awarded as one-time aid, to expire after one year. This dropped them out of D’s top three offers and made me not feel comfortable that any FA offer we might get from them in the future could be relied upon. My daughter chose a school that awarded her a hefty scholarship, rather than mostly grants. We did make our campus visit near the end of April, and I have wondered since whether St. Olaf was reaching capacity for its admits and felt it could afford to discourage further acceptances by raising the ante for those who hadn’t decided yet. No way to tell, but it did leave a bad impression, and we won’t be considering St. O when my current high school senior sends out her applications.