<p>My parents make about $ 150 K per year. That may explain why I have got zero grants from NYU, Boston U, Brandeis, American and a bunch of other bigger schools. </p>
<p>Fact is, even with a $ 150 K gross income (closer to $ 100 K net after all deductions) they cant afford to spend about $ 53 K per year for one of the big schools. </p>
<p>I hear (from a NYT article dated April 20, 2008, referred to in this site) that several Ivy schools and many non Ivy schools are now giving grant money even to students whose parents earn over $ 100 K. Does anyone have any more details on what these universities offer by way of grants for higher income students?</p>
<p>I have a 3.8 GPA (4.9 weighted), 8 AP courses, 2180 on SAT (1380 on old scale), and strong reco letters. </p>
<p>Can I hope to transfer into one of the top schools which give grant money for higher income students after one year in a no name school, and how realistic is it for me to expect to get at least half tuition at one of them?</p>
<p>That is why a lot of middle income families send their kids to third and fourth tier universities with very good merit aid. At the end of the day, it is you that counts. A hard working student can and will get a very good education no matter where he/she goes. In undergraduate, the name of the school is not as important compare to graduate schools.</p>
<p>I don’t know how you could get need-based aid with that income, but BU and American offered D merit scholarships with similar stats to yours. Did you have no luck with merit aid?</p>
<p>Every year wonderful students with statistics better than yours, who face financial binds equivalent to yours, decide to go to their home state public university, or to a no-name liberal arts college that has thrown a lot of money at them. Some end up transferring to another college/university that seems to be a better fit, but lots of them end up being very, very, very happy at what they thought was a “safety” school. Give it a shot - you might be surprised and find out that the school you can afford really is right for you.</p>
<p>If you know now, for certain, that you hate all of your affordable options, go to the closest community college, work really hard, get really good grades, get really good recommendations from your teachers, haunt the office of the transfer counselors, and try again for transfer admission with merit money in two years.</p>
<p>Like Christian2 said, it looks that your chance would be in 50-100 schools. It does not sound good for a 100k net income to pay for 53K tuition/RB. Your parents still need a life.</p>
<p>The really best schools in the midwest and south don’t cost $53,000 per year including U of M OSS… expand your horizions - what are you studying or what are you going to study perhaps we can give guidance.</p>
<p>My parents don’t even make half of what your parents make and NYU gave me around…8k in grants and scholarships. Then some loans and then they expect me to take out 14k a semester in loans. I don’t think it really matters with NYU because they just give bad aid.</p>
<p>This is the middle class crunch that so many feel is unfair. Make too much for aid, too little to comfortably pay for college. The choices come down to uncomfortably paying for it, (more like painfully), look for schools that have merit awards for students like you, look for low sticker prices. We hit all of these option when looking at our kids’ colleges.</p>
<p>How much do are parents planning or willing to pay each year? That is a starting point. Are they willing to borrow and stretch each years payment out for ten years? That can increase what they can contribute. How much are you able to pay? How much can you make each year? In our case we had about $10K a year put away for our son, $10K we could pay out right, $10K we were willing to borrow. He was willing to work for $5K a year, which means some heavy duty summer double dipping work, and a job during the school year for about 10 hours a week. He also decided to take out a Stafford Loan which would be about $3500. Now we are cooking with $38500 which is within striking range of the privates. Merit awards ranged from$2500 a year to $15000 for him. His first choice, of course, offered the least. He did have some colleges with sticker prices within range and even way below, including a full ride. Presented with this info, his first choice came up and upped the grant so that he can go there within budget!!</p>
<p>Your post implies that these are “no name” schools. They are not. Acceptance for transfers to the highly competitive schools that give some need based aid to those with incomes in the $150K range are…well…very competitive. The first hurdle would be getting accepted.</p>
<p>The schools you would like to transfer to with strong need based aid are harder to get into than the schools you listed, and even harder still to be admitted as a transfer student.</p>
<p>Nichel - I see many kids make statements like yours or misunderstand statements like “no loans for families under $60,000”. Remember it’s not just the “income” it’s the assets. Your parents may have $150,000 and fewer assets than the OP which might account for the difference in finaid.</p>
<p>Grants are a form of FA, you can’t hope to get any at that income level. Merit awards/scholarships are the only thing you have a shot at. I don’t think that merit aid is correlated to income. I know of a family with substantially higher income than $150k, whose child got a very substantial merit award at BU, and sizable awards elsewhere. It is all a matter of how desirable you are to the school. Your stats certainly put you in a range where you would would have been in the running for merit aid at BU (but not at Brandeis, and very probably only minimal consideration at NYU). There may have been geographic preferences and/or demonstrated interest — this seems to make A LOT of difference at BU.</p>
<p>Merit aid is tricky. Some is purely merit, some is merit within need where need is taken into account and balanced with the merit. BU used to have some matrix that showed how that worked for them. </p>
<p>The best way to get merit money is to apply to schools where you are highly desired. You should be in the top 10% of the applicants in test scores, for instance, if you want to qualify academically with grades to match. If you are close to the median, it isn’t likely to cut it. You can also go out of the way geographically. I know Boston U and Boston C are far more generous to kids who live outside of their feeder zone. The same with NYU.</p>
<p>Try to get into Harvard, you might just have to pay 10% of COA. One mom posted that her son has to pay 10% of COA at Harvard. I believe she stated her family income is $125K with typical assets. Not sure what is defined as typical assets. I do know of a friend of my daughter whose parent is in those professions that are supposed to be making a lot of money. But her parent is self-employed and somehow did not get paid as much last year. Plus she has huge home equity(near+$1 million) but she received nearly 95% of grant from one private school in LA. So it’s possible that the house is own by her grandparents but some schools do give money. From what I read here I would not believe it’s possible.</p>
<p>At this point, OP has applied and been accepted at a number of schools – so suggesting applying to other schools (whether it is Harvard, who does give need-based aid to those families making over 100K or schools that have good merit scholarships) doesn’t make sense. the dates have also passed to compete/apply for merit scholarships at the schools he was accepted into.</p>
<p>The OP needs to make a decision based on his current situation – not a bunch of “what ifs”. He can attend a college he was admitted to (with parents paying full freight), he can take a gap year and try to reapply to a different group of schools that might yield better aid, or he can apply to a local state/community college that is affordable and still accepting applications.</p>
<p>As far as “planning” on attending a school with the intent to transfer to another one (particularly if it is solely for the purpose of increasing financial aid) seems to be a silly way to plan ahead. College is 4 years long – select a good school that seems to be a good fit for you (including financially) and plan to attend it all four years. Yes – if it ends up that your choice was poor, you might think of transferring – but that doesn’t always end up well.</p>
<p>Keep in mind a few things about transfer students – first, Harvard is not taking any transfer students for the next few years and Princeton doesn’t take transfers (so you can cross off those options). Large merit scholarships are usually reserved for freshman applicants – and with that income, need-based aid won’t be in the picture at all but a few schools. The difficulty in getting in to those few schools that offer need-based aid to those making 150K is astronomical – and I would say that if you weren’t offered serious merit money at BU, American, NYU – then you probably aren’t competitive for those top 10 schools.</p>
<p>You need to look at what your options are right now – not what they could have been “if only” and make a decision that works for you.</p>