Parents of the HS Class of 2017 - 3.0 to 3.4 GPA

Parents Forum
2261

Well, it does make sense as someone posted on this thread that UVM is now giving a grant for filing the FAFSA before Nov 1. He filed, he got it. You didn’t, you didn’t.

My daughter has a merit award and then has two $1000 per year awards, one for visiting the campus before applying and another for ‘knowing’ an alum and putting that on her application. I think of it all as merit money as it is money from the school not based on financial need.

Schools give out awards to get you to do certain things, just like tax credits. File the FAFSA, get $1000. Tour the school, get an application fee waiver. Send in an acceptance (with deposit) early, get first dibs on the dorms.

2262

I wondered about the FAFSA by 11/1 $1000 award…we filed on 10/29 and it was processed on 10/31, but UVM doesn’t show it as “established” until 11/3. Guessing that means we are out of luck on the extra 1k/year?

2263

First of all, we are on vacation in Germany at Christmas time – our dream vacation for about the last eight years! First morning and I couldn’t sleep any longer, so here I am.

Anyway, after we got back to the hotel yesterday, D reminded me that WPI’s decision should be up as well as her CU-Boulder DE grades, so we took a look.

Bad news: Deferred to RD by WPI. This was a tougher one than Case because it wasn’t (or didn’t seem to be) as much of a reach and also we had visited so it was more “real.” At least there’s only one more reach school to go, so hopefully mostly acceptances from here on out.

Good news: A’s in both DE’s: Sustainable Energy and Intro to LGBT Studies. She also has A’s in all her HS classes, AP Calc BC, AP Physics 1, and Engineering teaching aide. See how bragging takes the sting out of Case and WPI rejections for Mom! Anyway, I’m really glad her RD schools will see these grades, especially RIT.

We haven’t heard from Gonzaga, the last EA school. Their decision deadline is Jan 15. But someone on CC said it would be before the end of December, so it must be true, right??

@mackatarinasmom, wow grats on Kalamazoo and big MAC!

@kt1969, congrats on Goucher – that school left me with such a warm, lovely feeling when I visited with oldest D. May be big MAC be in your future! And woot on Wooster with big MAC already. And I know what you mean about those COA numbers. <$30,000 is EXCELLENT. $40,000+ is ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Anything in-between is a crazy yet meticulous comparison on who knows how many metrics… i.e. makes my head hurt.

@93pilots, sorry about the CO College rejection. I agree that it’s very nice to have some EA acceptances in hand to take out the sting.

@cameo43, congrats on WPI and on being done! A glass of Champagne for you! WPI is an amazing school. D had no problem filling our their “Why WPI” essay because the program is so cool and unique.

2264

@eandesmom hope you hear from Goucher before Christmas!
@kt1969 have you gone back on the Lewis and Clark portal just to see? Weirdly my son never did get an email from them saying a decision had been reached on his application, but he did get one a couple days later saying FA info was available. I am thinking maybe they are just kinda inconsistent on the emails…?
@cameo43 congrats on WPI, how nice to have it all settled and everyone happy with the result!
@snoozn I feel your pain re deferral, good luck in the RD round. And in the meantime, good grades and Germany, plenty to celebrate!

2265

Oh, I wouldn’t give up yet. I’d ask about it, say you filed on time. Let them argue you were late (which you weren’t). Schools ‘pull’ the info from FAFSA when they are ready for it. Some do it once a week, others more often.

Rightcoaster’s friend may have received something else to make up the $2000 difference. Watch the awards very carefully. My daughter has 9 or 10 different line items on her bill, and I watch them all post at different times every year. The first year was the worst and I made a bazillion phone calls hunting them down.

2266

Hugs to all tonight.

In celebration for @cameo43 'a D and her top choice school (though we may miss her in Vermont). So thrilled for you both!

In empathy for @RightCoaster’S frustration with possible need aware merit bias.

In support for @snoozn’s D and another deferral. I know without a shadow of a doubt she will end up somewhere amazing but am sorry for the sting and hope news from gonzaga comes soon and provides a balm. Awesome sauce on the grades!!! Enjoy Germany!!!

Specific to the UVM FAFSA early filing scholarship. I cannot see how that would be bundled into a merit award as it was clearly billed as a one time thing. That said, seeing it there, DIS encourage me to file. You really don’t ever know. It is an interesting question to ponder,if merit really is adjusted based on need when it is billed in a stats basis. That said there are others who received the amount my son did that have higher stars and also applied for aid. I was surprised they didn’t get a higher award but also though that this round was purely merit based and any f a would show up later.

2267

I don’t know how UVM counts its ‘extra’ grants, but they are probably not merit or need based, they are just ‘there.’

At my daughter’s school, it is quite possible to get no merit (which is based on rank, gpa, scores), get no need based aid, but still get the ‘bonus’ grants of visiting the school and knowing an alum (or being a legacy, or having a sibling at the school). I’M the one who thinks of it as part of merit, not the school, because it comes from the school and not from an outside source. She also gets a grant from Florida for being a resident and going to a private school. Every resident gets it if the form is filled out, and it’s not based on need or merit. It’s all itemized on her bill. If she lost her merit aid because of a low gpa, she’d still keep the small grants.

Rightcoaster’s friend may have received a higher merit award just because of something on his application and will also get the FAFSA money. I just saw not filing the FAFSA as a reason the friend received more.

I say don’t pass up any free money. If they want a FAFSA, file it.

2268

@93pilots I just checked the Lewis & Clark portal and don’t see anything different. How do you find the financial aid info? [ie where is it located on the portal] I figured it would be in the packet they send out, but we haven’t gotten that yet.

2269

Just so you know I’m not griping about the merit $$, just an interesting tidbit in how schools operate.

I didn’t realize there was a financial incentive to submit the Fafsa at some schools, even if your calculations show that there is no chance of being awarded any need based cash. That’s interesting, @2inanddone, thanks.
I figured why bother filling it out, having some admissions person waste their time looking at it, but maybe I was wrong.

@snoozn have fun on your trip, sorry about WPI, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think the schools in the Boston area are being bombarded by applications this year. Boston is a great college town, lots of internship/research opportunities, relatively safe, and the job market is awesome. I think a lot of kids really want to come here, more so than in any other time. Every school we’ve toured has mentioned the # of apps are up and the quality of applicants has risen. It’s just harder to get into these days. It’s maybe even harder for local kids because the schools are trying to be more geographically diverse. Maybe I should have had son17 look out west, ha.

2270

@2inanddone (or anyone else…)
This is all very interesting about the extra $$ available.
It is too late for my 2021 (2017) kid because we are DONE, but I have another kid coming through.
Do you know about the $ for things such as touring, getting a recommendation from an alum, filling out FAFSA by a certain date etc ahead of time? Are these listed somewhere on the college websites?

2271

@RightCoaster I learned that many schools, to give merit, require you submit FAFSA. It really depends on each school and instead of researching each one, I just submitted it for all schools. Also, if a school required CSS, they also required FAFSA.

2272

@Fishnlines29 after quickly looking at the schools on my son’s list, all of them stated that for “need” based $$ they required fafsa/css form. Almost all of them clearly stated that they would be considered for academic merit even without the forms. So, I just blew it off. I’m not saying that is why we got less $$ than some other family, it just seems suspect. Like I said, I don’t really care that much, a few thousand bucks doesn’t really mean all that much over 4 years, but it did make me notice. At another state school he has yet to receive any merit award as of yet, and he is well above the top end of their criteria. They either don’t think he is serious ( which he is not) or that we don’t care, or they are really slow, ha. Either way, not impressed.
It will be interesting to see how the private schools dole out their $$. Or not :((

2273

@RightCoaster Yea, I’m with you. I think the state schools are really slow. I heard ours doesn’t dole out until at least Feb.

2274

@kt1969 I think it was just on the application status page. In my son’s case an email came in from the financial aid office saying that the page had been updated with new info. So he went and checked and there was a letter. I hope yours comes soon, and hope it is generous!

Following this FAFSA discussion with interest. We didn’t submit it anywhere. Now son is getting emails from schools saying “it’s time to file the FAFSA!” And I am wondering if we have to do it to retain merit aid already offered. I think no, but it’s getting confusing.

2275

I only found out about the ‘bonus grants’ by reading the web pages or during visits. When my kids were in high school, there was a big push on in the state (FL) for everyone to file FAFSA. Michelle Obama came down and pushed the program, there were contests between high school for how many students filled it out, the high school kids could win ipods and other prizes, the colleges offered bonuses (Stetson is one of the schools that gives a $1000 or so for early filing). It was just after Bright Futures (the FL state scholarship program) dropped the requirement to file FAFSA to get BF, so I think they were afraid that everyone would stop filing it and the schools would lose some money if kids didn’t get Pell or SEOG. There was surprisingly little info at the high schools for the Florida resident grant and sometimes it would show up on the NPCs and sometimes not. A friend told me about it and it was the only way I knew it existed when I was looking.

The bonus grants aren’t much, but they do add up. BF is ‘only’ $2500/yr for her, and just a drop in the bucket towards her $39k tuition, but we’ll still take it. The Florida resident grant is $3000/yr. A thousand here, a thousand there and pretty soon we’re talking real money. I also learned that even though merit at D’s school doesn’t require filing the FAFSA, the school waits for it to be filed and doesn’t process any awards, even merit, until filed, so if I’m not going to file, I need to let the school know (the second year I had a problem getting the FSA ID to work and didn’t file until June, so nothing was processed until July (school started in Aug). This was my fault, not the school’s.

My other daughter’s school does require filing FAFSA to get any awards, merit or talent or ‘alum gift’ (which is the only need based aid available). Again, she doesn’t have any big awards, but she does get a couple of $2000 and $3000 awards. This year she’s doing study abroad and our new favorite person, Dick Cheney, is chipping in (his foundation sponsors study abroad). To get that money, you have to file FAFSA.

2276

^^^

Son has had 2 schools where he is applying RD email to confirm that he is not planning on filing Fafsa, and gave a multiple choice answer for the reason… 1) We totally forgot, doh! 2) Parents earn too much, waste of time 3) I need to talk to my parents still and figure this stuff out.

He responded, so hopefully they’ll be able to process his app and get things figured out for us earlier than later.

2277

Thanks for the info!
Yes, for my daughter we also had to notify two EA schools that she wasn’t filing a FAFSA. Both were listing it as an open item.
The “little bits” are only little when compared to college tuition. If someone would pay me $1000 to tour a campus, I would absolutely go!
I am making my daughter write an essay for a $1000 scholarship contest from a VERY local organization that someone in-the-know told me only received five submissions last year! That is a 20% chance of “earning” $1000 for maybe an hour of work! Pretty good rate of pay!
Our state (NJ) offers a $1500 scholarship for using their 529 plan and then going to an in-state school (public or private.) While its surely not enough to sway her on which school to go to, if she is staying in state anyway…

2278

Nothing in today’s mail. Sigh. :-<

2279

fx for tomorrow, @klinska ! :-S

I am waiting on the Goucher and Lewis & Clark packets to see merit aid and while she got a bunch of college stuff today, neither of those was among them. She got an email saying her FA update was ready to view at McDaniel, and it was about a 7 step process to get to see it, to find out that she didn’t get anything aside from the previously announced merit and the option to take a non-sub loan. Thanks for wasting 15 mins of my time, people. You’d think the email could have just said “sorry, didn’t get anything”.

2280

@RightCoaster

It is hard to say what may or may not have been factored in. In UVM’s case, need is allegedly looked at separately and is much much later, with financial packages being sent out in march. In the case of the filing fafsa bonus, I am confident that if it is given or offered, it would show up as it’s own thing (essentially a grant) as part of that march package. Need would be addressed with grants, loans and work study. Need based scholarships in general are called out as such and the UVM Presidential and Trustee awards are clearly called out as merit based, with no mention of need. The NPC shows scholarships on one line and “gift aid” as a potential other (which was blank in our case lol). Personally, I want to believe that when schools say merit awards are given equal consideration to all applicants regardless of need (or that need isn’t a factor) that they mean it. UVM rates rigor as “very” important. That likely helped my 3.45 UW kid who has less than impressive test scores. Essay and state are important. Also probably helped him and I’d bet the state hurt you. Who knows though!

We did file. We are full pay. I want the options for loans and so filing is a requirement on our end. I also didn’t want to take the chance of missing a penny that might be out there. If you look at the numbers, you can get an idea of how this school shakes out (and any school lol, I look at these sheets a lot!). I wish that they showed an average $ amount on the merit based gift that goes to the aid recipients. It is not the majority of kids getting aid but I’ve always wanted to know what that average $ amount is, as I think that would help to see the full picture. I know you aren’t griping about the 2k but I do like seeing these numbers for my own education.

Financial Aid Applicants 1,777 (77.80%)
Found to Have Financial Need 1,347 (75.80%)
Received Financial Aid (of those with need) 1,347 (100.00%)
Need Fully Met (of those with need) 228 16.90%
Average Percent of Need Met 70%
Average Award $23,683

Need-Based Gift (%of aid recipients) 1,337 99.3% avg $16,660
Need-Based Self-Help (%of aid recipients) 931 69.1% avg $2,635
Merit-Based Gift (%of aid recipients) 160 11.90%
Merit-Based Gift (%of freshman with no need receiving merit) 765 33.5% avg $11,096
TOTAL Merit gifts 925
Percentage of Freshman Class Receiving ANY Merit 34%

It will be very interesting to see if we receive the early FAFSA bonus. In theory we met all the requirements of it but I am quite sure they don’t show us as having need, or if they do, as need being fully met with the scholarship. But I freely admit that when I saw that on their site I made sure to get it in before the deadline. The reality is, you can still file the FAFSA if you want but I completely get why you didn’t and if it’s a CSS PROFILE school, that form is a totally different kind of nightmare to be sure.

@carpoolingma I haven’t seen that many of them but the ones I have seen (UVM) and one in state school are very public about it, either in mail or on their website. Digging around at each school for anything they may offer that your child might qualify for never hurts!

@klinska boo for no mail. I am really hoping for mail today but really doubt there will be any. I can hope though.

@kt1969 ugh on the 15 minutes and 7 steps. We got an IDOC request yesterday from Ursinus that really annoys me. First the merit is less than the NPC (Which may have bunded in “need” as with 2 kids there is a teeny tiny bit of need according to our EFC) and then the acceptance letter states FA letter should be received “soon”. But the IDOC due date isn’t until 5/1??? That makes no sense. Plus we did the IRS retrieval tool so why in the world do they need the actual w2’s???