<p>“You are assuming that students qualify for finaid. Realize that there is a clear relationship between academic success and family income. Many top students don’t get finaid from the schools because they come from upper middle class families.”</p>
<p>-I am not sure if you realized that we are discussing Merit awards and assuming that most (all?) who would be accepted to Ivy’s would qualify for Merits at many State Publics and possibly even at some top / Elite colleges. This has absolutely nothing to do with need based finaid, my family is very far from qualifying for need based, not just because of income but also ecause of no debt and no other dependents. </p>
<p>“Just because your family can afford to pay full sticker based on arbitrary finaid cut offs doesn’t mean that you want them to.” - Agree completely, some would decide on free option simply because of “why not” or parents’ promise to foot their Med. School bill if they go to UG for free.</p>
<p>True, I received several “very affordable” FA offers from top 20 universities. But my state flagship is paying me to attend(full ride + NMS, and I’m certainly not the only one) and offers the kind of academic freedom that top 20’s seldom do.(e.g. I was able to major in music performance and chemistry, several top 20’s flat told me that would not be possible at their schools) My choice was a no brainer.</p>
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<p>I must maintain a 3.2. Certainly not ridiculously high. We are the same age and to me, being “ahead” has meant that I can take classes that otherwise would not have fit into a four year plan. Starting this fall I will be taking some graduate classes for UG credit. You only get this chance once, why “take a slow semester”?</p>
<p>Just keep in mind that 3.2 is simply not enough anyway for Med. School. FA or not, you need 3.6+ at the time of application. So, FA requirement is not higher at all than Med. School requirment, take any FA that comes your way into consideration.<br>
Plumazul,
Music performance is awesome. My D. ruled this one out because of time, instead she graduated with Music Composition Minor. It was easy and not her biggest time commitment by any measure. It almost feel that Sorority was much more, but she wanted to be in one. She had ti give up something, and it was her sport. Could not participate even at Club, tried for first year, then dropped it, but continue using it for workouts in addition to gym. She also had to have ALL of her EC’s done during school year at college, there were NO summer opportunities whatsoever and she ended up not taking summer classes either, as her Merit awards did not cover summer, we did not want to have additional unjustifiable cost. Her Senior year was more relaxed which is norm as everybody is taking less hours because of Med. Schools interviews.</p>
<p>Miami, I’m sure this is beating a dead horse, but while doing nothing during the summer worked for YOUR daughter, it probably won’t for most. There ARE summer opportunities in every city, even Toledo. I just used google and I could get volunteer positions today where you are. Here is the first one. [Become</a> a Mentor in Toledo: StudentMentor.org Opportunity - VolunteerMatch](<a href=“VolunteerMatch - Page not found”>Become a Mentor in Toledo - Toledo, OH | VolunteerMatch) Took me 30 seconds to find it. IMO you are doing a disservice to students by continually stating to do nothing and have fun with friends all summer.</p>
<p>^Google might not be correct at all. You have to actually contact them to know if there are opportunities or there are wating lists for them that run way over summer. My D. did some in a summer, but she was ready to do much more and she could not find any. She was contacting many and she also had very wide range of personal friends with MD parents who knew her personally very well and had very positive impression of her. Some of the places that she actually went were overcrowded with volunteers also and many very annoyed with that. BTW, the link above was completely useless, it may have changed though.
D. was not desparte though, she had so much, her committe commented that they did not know how she was able to accomplish as much as she did and maintain very high GPA. Summer search was primarily to kill time, not to fill ECs, she had enough.</p>
<p>I wasn’t talking to you Miami, I was referring to an earlier post talking about need based aid more than merit. I am agreeing with you, a top student from a family not likely to get heaps of need based finaid is much more likely to come out with low debt at a public school with merit aid than a top school with little/no merit aid.</p>
<p>That’s true, but what exactly would be considered “middle income”? Even though I pay very little for college, I am by no means poor. Last year my mom took a year off from work and my dad alone made around $130,000 as an attorney. My mom is a flight nurse (worked for the Air Force for several years) and this year made around $80,000 with my dad keeping around the same income. So even with $200,000+, I am getting a very good financial aid offer, not to mention my mom has a very large amount of veteran education benefits that she could pass on to me. So much that I can attend any medical school in my state and graduate with no debt.</p>
<p>Even wealthy students get some financial aid. One of my really close friends from high school attends the same school, and her father is the chief of neurosurgery at one of the leading pediatric hospitals in the nation (great future recommendation) and her mom owns four BMW dealerships…if that helps give you a picture. My friend has four different cars (to match her outfit for the day). She received about $5,000 in grants and federal work-study.</p>
<p>My friends with family incomes of less than $75-100,000 (generally single-parents), actually get $2,000+ refunds when their financial aid disburses.</p>
<p>whs, your examples are quite far-fetched for most families in those income brackets. Your BMW friend received no need-based aid. It simply didn’t happen. Guaranteed. </p>
<p>Congratulations on your aid package at the $160K income level, but it is not typical at any school, even with zero assets.</p>
<p>whs,
You did not mention if your post was about Merit fa or need based fa. No probelm with very wealthy receiving Merit fa, they are as qualified as anybody else.<br>
Another point is that income is only one side to be considered by fa office. It is combo of income, debt (mortgage…etc.) and number of dependents and their cost of education. Some with lower income than your family might be less qualified for need based becuase of zero debt and no other dependents.<br>
However, if your family does not have debt and you are the only kid in a family with $200+K income, and you are getting NEED base FA, I would say that this is extremely unusual and you should teach us all how to do it.</p>
<p>Work study is a complicated thing. I technically receive “work study” finaid whenever I do odd jobs for the school. It is just their way of paying me and has nothing to do with my need.</p>
<p>There is work study and there is FWS (Federal Work Study). The latter is subtracted from income for FAFSA purposes and only available to students within a certain income level.</p>
<p>My school has programs guaranteeing protection to students with incomes less than $100,000 (which really isn’t that poor). If you make over that, you will still be pretty well protected if you request financial aid. It might have helped that my brother is also attending college, but him and my parents don’t really talk and he pretty much pays for it himself (through loans). </p>
<p>I’m not sure if my friend received merit aid or financial aid, but I do know she paid $5,000 less than full price in addition to receiving work study (she must have had federal because she worked 10 hours a week, the other program would only allow a maximum of 7).</p>
What?! They do not talk about financial aids only, or they do not talk to each other?</p>
<p>I happen to know a family whose kid chose to not let his parents know anything about his financial aids results. The parents do not know much about financial aids process either so the information flow is likely from parents to the kid (usually the kid may need to dig it out by himself) and then to the FAFSA/CSS Profile/school, and the information is never fed back to the parents. – We are talking about the parents who are literally not capable of learning this kind of stuff (e.g., even have a trouble opening up email and reading it) even if they are willing to. I do not think OP’s parents are like this.</p>
Federal work study is based on a dollar amount, not a minimum or maximum hours worked. If someone was awarded $2000, then when that amount was reached regardless of how many hours it took, any income earned after that would be considered regular income.</p>