<p>I was just accepted into my top choice school (Wellesley College) and am super excited about it. The school has also offered me an incredibly generous financial aid offer. However, the offer is anywhere from $1500-$2000 above the FAFSA EFC (which was already out of our reach), including a $3k federal direct subsidised loan and $2100 from federal work-study. (The total aid offer is about $43k). </p>
<p>My parents have already said that they don’t expect to be able to pay more than $10k a year for any school, maybe $12k at most. Wellesley has predicted our EFC at about $18k, which is about three or four thousand dollars out of our reach, factoring in other savings. At the same time, I received $46k in grant aid from Smith College and full tuition from Mount Holyoke. I guess my question is twofold: one, if it would be prudent to try to use the Smith/Mount Holyoke aid as leverage to reduce our EFC; and two, what other options I have if that fails. How should I go about presenting my case and asking for a little more help?</p>
<p>I would only need about $3000 more to make the offer comparable to the others I have received. I know Smith seems like the best option here, but it doesn’t have all the programmes I need, and I didn’t really like Amherst - not nearly as much as I liked Boston. We’re in a weird situation - my parents collectively make $153k a year, but there are six of us; I have an older sister in college in Canada (meaning no tax credit for her tuition); we live in an expensive area; my father travels a lot in the year for work; and the price of our house has been nearly halved since we bought it, so we can’t sell. This year in particular, there have also been or are going to be a lot of little expenses: about a thousand for car repairs, four hundred for psychological testing for my younger sister, another five hundred for various medical tests for my mother, things like that. The lease period on our car is also up this year, so that’s going to have to be dealt with eventually as well.</p>
<p>Are student loans my only chance here? Would part-time work be feasible? Please advise, and thank you.</p>
<p>Those expenses you’ve named are all common for most American families, and probably a little low for a family with $150+ in income. It’s not a concern that your family is not getting a tax credit for your sister’s tuition - the fact that your parents pay her tuition has already been included in the award.</p>
<p>You should ask (nicely) for reconsideration. Yes, the fact that other schools have offered more might help.</p>
<p>Do they offer merit aid?
Its my understanding schools cannot reduce your expense lower than FAFSA EFC unless they award merit.</p>
<p>No Wellesley does not offer merit aid.</p>
<p>You can try. You can give it a go, and I urge you to do so, as maybe something will come up. But, IMO, unlikely. You will probably be told you can take out $2500 in Direct Loans with some of it subsidized as you have the EFC to so qualify even after the aid package.</p>
<p>Most such schools expect a student contribution right off the bat even for zero EFC kids. Even Harvard does. But what’s nice is that these schools don’t package Direct Loans in there so that you can use it towards expected contribution instead of these loans being used as part of financial aid leaving no such leeway.</p>
<p>You can ask for a review. Tell them that your family needs another $3k to make it all work. Tell them that you’re going to work/save over the summer and contribute a couple thousand. </p>
<p>Tell them that W is your top choice and you will enroll if the school becomes affordable.</p>
<p>Schools can offer more than what the FAFSA EFC is calculated to be, as long as they are not awarding any need-based federal aid. They could change all sub to unsub and remove any federal work study in order to award more institutional aid if they want (as long as the total of all aid does not exceed COA). The school is not bound by federal rules when awarding their own grants … but as mentioned, they cannot award federal need-based aid if there is no “need” by federal calculations.</p>
<p>Most people would say the EFC is higher than what they want it to be. You may try to appeal the FA, but it is not very likely to make any significant change. The FA officer from a college came to my D’s school every year to help us to go through the FA process (e.g. filling out FAFSA) and explain the details of a FA package. He said the willingness of the parent to pay a certain amount or not is not a reason for an appeal. So good luck to you.</p>