If I hear, "I got merit aid from [need only school]!" one more time...

FallGirl
Fri, 21 May 2010 08:20:40 +0000

Quote:
I do know that the statement contributes to that great college myth of all of those scholarships out there for good students, so don’t worry about cost.
That’s the thing. Nothing to lose sleep over, or even get upset about. But I hate to hear about students pinning their hopes on schools their parents can’t afford. I live in the land of “too much income for need based aid and too little to pay $200,000 out of pocket for each kid to go to college.” Most of the folks in my kids’ HS are in the same boat. So many parents hear the statements about “don’t let cost be an issue” and think that scholarships will materialize for their kids at the very top schools.



And I recently heard a very unfortunate story of a child who was a top HS student who was accepted at several top (private) schools but did not receive the expected scholarships. Didn’t get into financial safety (state flagship, very competitive). I don’t know the family well enough to know why student expected merit aid. Perhaps his parents heard statements such as above and based expectations on that.

On the other hand, the college counselor at D’s HS was very blunt with me. She stated flat out that if we were a family with $ X income and living in a house worth $ Y, we should expect no need based FA. Kind of harsh as well as scary (the numbers she quoted were right on the mark!). But I am very grateful as we did not have any false expectations.