<p>I have been admitted to LSA for fall of 2014. I live out of state, and my family isn’t the richest. Because I live out of state, I’m not sure how much aid I will receive, and I’m sure it won’t be much. However, my father is a professor at Emory University and I can go there for free…in fact, I am being pressured to do so. But after having done extensive research, I know Michigan is the place for me, but the cost of $52,000 is dauntingly high. I was wondering how I would be able to contact the admissions people or the financial aid people about my situation; my parents are pressuring me to Emory because of the free price tag and dissuading me from Michigan because of its high one but I really, really, really want to go to Michigan… any help?
Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>The financial aid office is there to help you!!! Give them a call! Explain to them your whole situation & ask of what qualifications are needed in your case to be guaranteed for financial aid! Also, scholarships can help a lot too! Not only the Mich’s ones, but also ones from Fastweb.com! They are there to help you! If you were admitted, they don’t want to lose you! </p>
<p>In the unfortunate and highly unlikely case that you are not able to make your ends meet, know that Emory is a great school!! </p>
<p>Good luck! Go Blue!!! :)</p>
<p>It is not “highly unlikely” that the OP won’t be able to afford Michigan. FA for out of state students is not good, it is a state school so this is understandable. You can call them, but it isn’t worth a ton of debt to go there (and I graduated from Michigan, so feel like I can tell you that). You are very likely going to end up at Emory or someplace more affordable.</p>
<p>You father is pressuring you because he is concerned about spending $200,000 when you can get a degree from an outstanding university for free. It is hard for an 18 year old to grasp the reality of how much money this really is. To many, it’s no different than Monopoly money.</p>
<p>Assuming you will be paying for it and taking out loans, you are going to be heavily burdened by debt for a long time. Your dad probably views this as a big mistake. He also probably doesn’t want to be on the hook paying for you to get a degree that will ultimately be no better than the free degree at Emory that he is providing.</p>
<p>Dad’s tenured at Emory and you want to call financial aid? You’re “rich” by every fin aid metric there is. No chance your Dad signs off on your loans to go to Michigan.</p>
<p>Just go to Emory! It’s a great school, just as good as umich, and it’s free! Not a lot of people have that opportunity!</p>
<p>I would just go to Emory. Emory is a great school just like Michigan. You’re not going to get much aid if you’re Dad is a professor making 100k+. Many in-state kids with that income level get barely anything in FA. I would try to bargain with your father for a “bonus” if you go to Emory over Michigan. Since he won’t have to pay anything, I would ask for a new car or another incentive. In my opinion, paying 200k for an education that you can get for free from an amazing institution is just not worth it. Congrats on being accepted though!</p>
<p>I made an unwise financial choice in selecting my first college (“dream school”) when I could have gone to Michigan for half the sticker price. As a transfer, I’m paying full fare, and the debt will be difficult to overcome. My advice, then, is to go to Emory for free. Look for features about it that you can appreciate, whether they are academic or extracurricular. Throw yourself into meeting new friends. You’re going to come out with a comparable degree, and you may find that many aspects of Emory are better than those of Michigan. If you’ve given acclimation your best shot and still feel out of place after at least a full year there, maybe you can discuss with your parents the possibility of doing the last two years at Michigan. But for now, go to Emory and do everything you can to enjoy it. </p>
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<p>Don’t do this. Asking your parents to bribe you won’t say much for your maturity.</p>
<p>Many students applied to dream schools with ED and ended up declining the admission due to financial reason. Many students would go to a more affordable college and then go to their dream school for graduate study.
UMich does offer $20k+ scholarships to limited number of oos students. You may need to talk to your father to see what is the maximum support you may get from him. Then you need to figure out if UMich is really affordable to you with all the aids. UMich does not meet 100% need for oos students. So it is really not affordable to many. Even if you can get sufficient loan to cover the cost, think about your career goal and see whether it makes sense to have $100k-$200k in debt with the potential income you may get after graduation.
To be honest, figuring out the cost of attendance should be done at the time compiling the list of schools for application. Unless you have a good chance in getting major merit scholarships, some schools may be eliminated from the list early on.</p>
<p>In a way I can understand the OP’s desire to attend a university away from his local university although Emory is a very highly regarded university. Many kids would die to be able to attend I remember when I was looking at schools to go to (very long ago) my dad said I could attend any college I desired. Unfortunately, my family was unable to provide any financial support and I was responsible for all costs. Luckily I qualified for an Education Opportunity Grant (now known as a Pell grant) that allowed me to go to a mid-level undergraduate college. I subsequently went on and received my Ph.D. from one of the top graduate schools in my area (Medicinal Chemistry) and a respectable career in research.</p>
<p>Go to Emory, live on campus, and enjoy your time there. The only down side is the hot humid weather in the summer</p>
<p>I would respectfully ask your parents if you were to attend Emory for undergrad, would they be willing to assist you for grad school at UMich. That way you’d have the best of both, and still have been a good steward of your family’s money ;)</p>
<p>Thank you for all the input… but I was asking this question for a reason. I know its better to go to college for free, and I would love to go to Emory. The thing is, for religious reasons, my parents would have me live at home. I am a social guy, and I have friends at Emory now who tell me that if you don’t live on campus or right off campus, your social life is close to nil. I wouldn’t be able to bear that for four years, even if free. So that is why I am trying to get more of a deal for Michigan, and not many of the replies have told me how to go about telling Michigan admissions my situation, but rather giving me their opinion on what I should do college wise. I would really appreciate it if I got more info on how to approach Michigan rather than info on what steps I should take in life.</p>
<p>The only thing you can do is talk to financial aid. It’s likely to be an uphill battle, though. How do you intend to convince them to give you thousands of dollars? It’s not like you can show them you have x-amount of merit aid and ask them to match it. Do you know if the college in Michigan offers free tuition to their employees’ kids? Not all of our local schools do, so that’s not a given. An employee in a college who doesn’t have that option is not likely to have much sympathy for your situation.</p>
<p>What are your plans if they won’t give you aid? If you wouldn’t mind Emory if you didn’t have to live with your parents, maybe you could try to reach an agreement with your them about how long they expect you to live at home. Some colleges require freshmen to live on campus, but allow them to move elsewhere their sophomore year. Could you reach an agreement like that with your parents? Would you be able to afford to live on your own if you attended Emory (I’m assuming Emory is just free tuition, not room and board)? If your main goal is not to have to live at home, you might want to brainstorm several options and pick the one that will leave you with the least debt. High debt may force you to move back home later on, which would defeat your initial purpose.</p>
<p>Have you looked into some kind of tuition exchange? (i.e., you go to Michigan for free and a Michigan’s professors’ son goes to Emory for free)</p>
<p>“Don’t do this. Asking your parents to bribe you won’t say much for your maturity.”</p>
<p>Not really. One of my closest friends will receive a new car, if she stays at home and goes to a school where she already has a full ride. She doesn’t even come from a well-off family either. It makes sense though, in the long run it would keep the parents happy, save them money, and compensate for the student’s loss in attending their more desired and expensive school. It’s not really a bribe, it’s just a conversation that could be had. 25k for a new car (or money towards a first home)+ a great Emory education or 200k+ for a great Michigan education. Other incentives could work too, such as paying for Grad school. Why should a student be pushed to go to a school they don’t really want to go to? An incentive could help keep both sides happy. Certainly don’t be rude about the subject, but a mature conversation about it could help.</p>
<p>@sourkraut Your best bet is to get conversation flowing with the financial aid team right away. They’ve been very prompt, helpful, and professional whenever I’ve interacted with them. I’m not sure there is much that they could do for you. I don’t think you will get much in FA, but it doesn’t hurt to pursue it. A lot of it will come down to merit aid. What income bracket are you in?</p>
<p>I just came home from a session by the UM financial aid office at a local high school. Unless you receive significant amount of merit aid, it is not going to change much your EFC or the gap in need. The guy actually emphasized that the willingness of the parent to pay the cost is not a consideration for FA at all. Have you check the Net Cost Calculator on the website?</p>
<p>I have. It comes out to 7500 in loans, zero in aid, but that is not always completely accurate. But I do have a general picture of the fact I won’t be getting much…</p>
<p>Is that plausible? Has Emory/ UMichigan participated in that kind of tuition exchange between kids of professors before?</p>
<p>This “tuition exchange” idea does not exist. You have zero chance of doing that. You also have done the net price calculator and found out that you get nothing from Michigan except some loans.</p>
<p>This is one of those situations where you already know the answer. While the net price calculator is just an estimate, you aren’t going to get much if anything.</p>
<p>The obvious course of action is to get on the phone and call the university rather than asking here where you only get opinions (and advice that you don’t want to hear).</p>