'No loan' as financial aid - what's the catch?

Paying for College
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<p>I believe this is a bit of an exaggeration. The reality is that admissions to schools like Yale, MIT, Harvard, Stanford HAVE become significantly more competitive since 2000. Some of this might relate to their VERY generous and no loan financial aid policies for low income students. BUT admission to these school is never a sure thing (unless your child is the offspring of the President or some other world leader, or has won a Nobel Prize or an olympic gold medal). </p>

<p>HOWEVER there are a LOT of schools between these tippy top schools and the community college. If your daughter is truly competitive as an admit to one of these top schools (you really don’t know that yet…at 14 she is likely completing 9th grade)…then she would be a very competitive admit for a number of excellent schools where she might garner merit aid.</p>

<p>We have a great poster on this forum…Curmudgeon. I hope he won’t mind me posting this. His daugher is currently a medical student at an Ivy League school. She was a top high school student with much to offer. She ultimately matriculated at a college where she received an excellent merit award for all four years of her undergrad study. </p>

<p>There are many fine fine schools out there that are very willing to offer merit awards to top applicants who might be interested in their schools. You need to look. Do a search here for momfromtexas (a thread that is one of my favorites) and her thread about full rides and what she learned. It’s a slightly older thread but the info is good nonetheless.</p>

<p>What folks here are saying to you…YES have your daughter apply to an Ivy League or equivilant school. BUT don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Make sure that when the time comes, you have a balanced list with a variety of schools on it…and some that will be more affordable to you or have the possibility of terrific merit aid.</p>

<p>Personally I think you are giving up a LOT of benefits by having your wife leave her job. Is there any way she could work part time once you have kids…especially since her job pays more?</p>

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<p>Quote like this:</p>

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<p>*I’ve known some friends that have had their kids get accepted to Harvard and Yale respectively, and nothing they did seems out of the ordinary. 34 ACT, 3.9GPA, some extracurriculars. Perhaps its gotten WAAAY tougher since 2000. *</p>

<p>It has. It’s even gotten way tougher since I was applying in 2003.</p>

<p>I’m curious where you got your $750 EFC from $40K from. It didn’t seem right and I played with the Finaid.org calculator institutional methodology. I got $2,224, but then again I only put in your income and estimated oldest parent’s age at 50. Still, I’m not sure how $750 is realistic.</p>

<p>Cashstore, I don’t know where your daughter is. But thumper1’s advice about full rides is spot-on. I was a top HS student and I got a number of full rides (MERIT rides) from schools in which I was the top 5% of applicants, and I attend school with my room, board, tuition, and fees completely paid for. Starting my third year of college I got additional funding that also gave me a $900 stipend per month and study abroad funding. Momfromtexas’s thread is excellent and echoes a lot of what I and a lot of other successful merit aid recipients did. I also encourage your daughter to look at women’s colleges - not just because I am biased as a women’s college graduate :smiley: but because a lot of the very top women’s colleges give great financial aid.</p>

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<p>First of all, it’s perfectly fair for you to question why I have my opinion, that is no problem. You don’t have to believe anything I’m about to tell you, obviously. I’m going to tell you anyway because it is the truth. You’ll hear it from me, you’ve heard it from other posters on this thread, and if you continue to do your homework with other parents in the know you’ll hear it from them to.</p>

<p>My daughter went through the college application process a few years ago. She had it all, the test scores, the grades, the extra-curriculars, the volunteer work, all from her, she is very self-motivated. So I encouraged her to apply to the top colleges, including a couple of Ivys. I thought we had a good list because I believed getting into the top schools was the same as it was 30 years ago. (She kept telling me it was harder now, I should have listened to her).</p>

<p>Well, due to my not realizing how times have changed, our list was top-heavy. I knew she probably wouldn’t get into either of her Ivy choices, which she didn’t, but she was wait-listed at schools I really thought she would get into. My mother was surprised but the results, my sister was surprised by the results. They both knew what kind of student she was but they also didn’t realize that times have changed.</p>

<p>I don’t think I am bitter because the school she ended up going to gave us a much appreciated merit scholarship and the school itself has turned out to be the perfect place for her. I’m so glad she is going there and I’m really glad things turned out the way that they did. Incidentally, her admission results were not unusual. That year not one person from our whole school district got into Harvard, and plenty applied.</p>

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<p>Yes, I know this happens, and these examples tend to give parents and students a false sense of the odds. It’s even worse if you make an inquiry in the Harvard forum because you will get so many replies from students saying they aren’t particularly special, but they got into Harvard. Like I said, at this point schools like Harvard don’t pick the best applicants, they build a diverse class.</p>

<p>Don’t take my word or it, ask around, other people will tell you the same thing. When it comes to application time cast a wide net and if your daughter has strong stats look at the schools that offer merit aid. Good luck with that and with living next to your in-laws. :-)</p>

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<p>This is certainly an over-generalization, but maybe sometimes we should think of it this way:</p>

<p>There aren’t enough seats in the schools we like to accommodate all of the kids with applications equal to or stronger than those of our own children.</p>

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<p>Read the thread about Andison (someone should be able to link that here for you). He was a TOP (and I mean TOP) notch applicant and applied very good schools. Unfortunately, he did not get accepted to any of theses schools. It was a shock to all. He did an outstanding gap year and when he reapplied, he had a much broader range of schools on his list. He was accepted to his top choice of those applications.</p>

<p>But my point is this…even very STRONG applicants need a variety of schools on their list. We know a family who really had limited finances. Their kid was class val, had an EC with extensive commitment, was involved in community service and had almost perfect SAT scores (and near or at 800 SAT II scores). He was NOT admitted to the three Ivies to which he applied and did matriculate at his fourth school, an OOS public that really stretched their finances. It all turned out well…he did receive some aid, graduated in three years, got his masters on a full fellowship. BUT his senior year in high school was NOT fun…not with the three schools not accepting him. Sadly he had NO schools on his application list where he could have garnered very significant merit aid.</p>

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<p>My comments come as a grad of an HYP school who currently interviews for my Alma mater. It is much, much harder to get into these schools than in 2000. It’s much harder than in 2009 and will continue to get harder.</p>

<p>Every year I am stunned by who does not get in. 3.9/34s don’t make me blink, almost none of those get in. It’s the vals with 2400 who’ve taken 5 math classes past AP calc BC, who have gone to TASP, started a non profit that has really made a difference and been published in top science journal and placed nationally in multiple competitions that leave me slack jawed. Every one of those would have gotten in 10 years ago.</p>

<p>Racist? No. The facts are the facts. Many blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans will get in with a 3.9/34. Most whites and Asians will not.</p>

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<p>Well, cashstore, do not plan on everything working out! If your child gets a bad grade in the 9th grade, will you go off the deep end? Some parents would if they have this grand scheme worked out in their head that their child will end up at a Top 20 school. </p>

<p>Sometimes things do not work out as planned, and you will not have any idea of what type of schools your child can get into until Spring of her Junior Year. Even then you won’t know until you have some valid SAT or ACT scores and a class rank. </p>

<p>Meantime buy “Paying for College Without Going Broke” by Kalman Chany, Princeton Review & crunch some numbers. Become an educated consumer! :)</p>

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<p>Finally! I’ve been searching for those numbers forever, and I’ve never been able to find acceptance stats broken down by race/ethnicity. Please give the source or better yet, post the link!</p>

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<p>Here’s one article, and there are many, that give some relevant stats, not that I agree with the tone of the title:</p>

<p>[Statistics</a> on Reverse Discrimination](<a href=“http://www.asianam.org/statistics%20reverse.htm]Statistics”>http://www.asianam.org/statistics%20reverse.htm)</p>

<p>The book The Price Of Admission also has much info for those interested. </p>

<p>And of course there’s just the anecdotal and not disvlosable info people like myself who have spent decades both working wirh minority applicants to top schools, and interviewing for one, have amassed.</p>

<p>Yet another way to gain insight is to look up the SAT scores broken down by race and work backwards. There is no way these groups can have similar scores, as a group, to their white and Asian peers at top colleges.</p>

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<p>For those interested, would it be okay to continue #30 in a new thread in [Specialty</a> College Admissions Topics - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/specialty-college-admissions-topics]Specialty”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/specialty-college-admissions-topics) ? There are two “race” sub-forums there.</p>

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<p>When you said “facts are facts”, I thought you actually had admissions statistics by race/ethnicity, not news articles cited on an Asian-American website; and the book is pretty old news.</p>

<p>You made the statement:</p>

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<p>With such specific numbers, that really needs to be supported by data that shows gpa and test scores for accepted students at these schools and racial/ethnic identity.</p>

<p>x-posted w/vossron; sorry, you’re right, back to the topic at hand.</p>

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<p>Agree with what entomom said, but yes, getting off the original topic.</p>

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<p>Cashstore, I agree with all the others that you need to have a comprehensive strategy, even for a tip-top student, for finding a way to make college affordable. That includes highly selective schools with excellent need-based aid for which you might qualify, but those shouldn’t be the only schools. For a student with the stats to be competitive at an Ivy school, there will be other excellent colleges willing to grant generous merit aid to that student.</p>

<p>However, getting back to your original question – I don’t think there is a “catch” with regard to those meet-100%-of-need-without-loans policies. My son is at a school with that sort of financial aid policy. This college (which also uses the CSS Profile) happens to calculate our parent contribution to be just about exactly what our FAFSA EFC is.</p>

<p>So for us the costs look like this (I’m just approximating these):</p>

<p>Comprehensive fee (this includes tuition, fees, R&B) - $55,000
Books: $1000
Travel: $1500
Personal Expenses: $1800
TOTAL COA: $59300</p>

<p>Our financial aid looks like this:</p>

<p>Parent contribution: $4000
Student contribution from summer earnings: $2000
Student contribution from work-study: $1800
Pell Grant (federal): $1800
College need-based scholarship: $49700
TOTAL: $59300</p>

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<p>Also, I should add, that the most generous schools with need-based-only aid, use the CSS Profile in addition to the FAFSA. They will use the Profile information to calculate the parents’ and student’s contribution according to their own aid policies.</p>

<p>Things like home equity and other assets can end up being used very differently, so you could end up with wildly different aid awards at similarly ranked, similarly well-endowed, and similarly generous schools. They all have their own formula.</p>

<p>One reason our institutional contribution figure looks so similar to our FAFSA figure is that we have no assets except our tiny, very old home, and we have no investments, no non-custodial parent in the picture, etc. In your first post you referred to your 14 year daughter, but then also to you and your wife planning to have children. I’m not sure if I’m to assume your wife is your 14 year old daughter’s mother or not. If there is a bio-mom out there (not your current wife), that bio-mom’s financial info will also be part of the aid calculation at most (or all?) of the Ivy and Ivy-peer schools you’re talking about.</p>

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<p>The only notable exception is Princeton. They dont’ use the Profile but they DO use their own form which (from what I’m told) has many or most of the same questions the Profile has.</p>

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<p>I think it’s great for one parent to stay at home. But as someone in a family with an income of approximately $40K, in which only one parent works, I have to say that you’re taking risks to give up the higher income and associated benefits. What if something happens to the working parent? Will the other be able to go back into the workforce immediately? What if someone gets sick? I spent lots of time with my kids when they were growing up and it was wonderful. But it also would be great to have financial security now, which we don’t, despite being savers. On one income and after spending down savings, life seems precarious.</p>

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<p>So, I don’t want to be judgemental for you wanting to have more children, stay at home mom. But, if you are looking for aid, what you are expecting is that the families with two incomes and several kids support you by paying full sticker price. Is that fair? So, there are many terrific public colleges out there. You should possibly put your research into pursuing them. Also, don’t burden your children with huge loans. Its your responsibility. Also, if the children are female, why push their loan burden onto their future husband?</p>

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<p>ahem…it goes both ways…if your children are MALE why push their loan burden on their future husband?</p>

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<p>You can get a scholarship or grant from another institution. One got a state scholarship and one got one from a foundation, a huge one.</p>

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<p>Agreed. It’s not any more racist to point this out than to have the policy, which is based on the presumption of institutional racism. I believe it exists, though it is not any stronger than institutional classism.</p>

<p>Minorities fought for affirmative action on that specific point, so it’s not racist to say that is what it does.</p>