Number of applications

Deja
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:45:08 +0000

it’s a whole different ballgame when there is a search on for merit aid and grants.

Yes, there is. Many of son’s schools awarded need-based aid, only, so he didn’t apply for a lot of merit aid. We honestly thought our EFC as figured by FAFSA methods would be close to the one expected from private schools. It wasn’t. (Our oldest son went to a state school, so we were only familiar with FAFSA.) I didn’t even know if S would be accepted, much less awarded the full ride at his school, since its acceptance rate is around 16%, but he insisted on applying for the merit aid there. I honestly didn’t think he’d get the full ride, because his stats aren’t totally in line with the published averages for the kids who got the full ride the year before, and he doesn’t have any hook (URM, etc.). And his GPA/class rank isn’t as high as his SATs would suggest. But he surprised us and got it! (He has state-level EC recognition that the school might have found valuable, he’s an excellent writer – which was commented upon in his scholarship interviews – and he interviews very well.)



I think unless a lot were EA, getting results from 10+ colleges would be overwhelming and stressful in the Spring, but I do reallze the more options you have, the better.

There were pluses and minuses to my son’s two wonderful EA acceptances. The plus was that he knew in mid-December that he was accepted to his top-choice school. The minus was that he didn’t know if he could attend until the first week of April, because we didn’t get the finaid award until then. I ended up appealing the award, but it still wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t that overwhelming to have eight acceptances in hand, really. It came down to two schools in the end, one being our (fabulous) state flagship. He had good choices. He followed the money. : - )

One good thing about EA applications is that some of the hard work of applications gets finished early. Those first EA essays were revised a bit and used for the other college applications.

It all worked out the way it was supposed to, and we are thrilled that he is getting a full ride, will finish college with no debt, and we can give him the money we would have contributed towards college to him for law school.