“… And just like that, a yes becomes a no. Because tuition, room, board and fees at Selective U are $64,800. Per year. The $5,500 in federal student loans, which is what we can expect in financial aid, will put only the tiniest dent in that number. So, except for bragging rights, that school is off the list.” …
An all-too-familiar story.
I don’t get your point. They applied to schools across the affordability spectrum in the hopes of getting merit aid at the schools new they couldn’t afford unless they got merit aid. Sound like they approached it properly and will be fine.
Are you suggesting they shouldn’t have tried for the merit aid schools?
When you aim for merit aid at a college you couldn’t otherwise afford, it’s a “reach” school regardless of your admission chances. So you need true admission and financial matches and safeties to balance your list.
Agree, unless the needed merit scholarship is automatic for stats that the student has (or automatic for NM status that the student has). Competitive merit scholarships should be treated as reach; if a competitive merit scholarship is necessary to afford the school, the school should be put in the reach category.
All they did wrong was let the kid Snapchat out a picture of the acceptance letter, unless he included the text: “Not going here!”
It is useful info. For Most people who don’t frequent CC, this is “new”. They figure high stats = Harvard and big scholarships! Those reading the article might actually be promoted to A). Look up college COA and B) once they have been revived, start looking at how they can realistically pay for it!
I have a problem with this statement:
A “financial aid advisor” should know well enough that some schools don’t offer merit awards at all, that others are particularly generous with merit awards, that still others aren’t generous with either, and that the NPCs give a decent picture of what a family should expect.
That is why our family loved schools like Temple University … if you have X test scores and X GPA then you qualify for X amount of merit aid!..I hope more schools hop on that trend!
Certain classes of merit scholarships are relatively easy to know:
But many other classes of merit scholarships are opaque in terms of how likely the applicant is to get one, and for how much. This applies to almost all competitive merit scholarships, as well as merit money embedded in nominally need-based financial aid (“preferential packaging”).
Also, remember they quote one paragraph. Perhaps he said all that in the interview and the paper chose on sentence to quote.
I thought the author did exactly what everyone on CC is always suggesting. He applied to a wide range of school types with different costs and chances of getting in. His parents prepared him that he couldn’t go to a school unless there was enough aid.
What I thought interesting was that the adviser said very few schools reconsider financial aid. On CC it seems like a lot of schools do reconsider and may award extra $$.
^This might be because CC posters are less likely to frame the question as “Snowflake got into college X. What are you going to do to match that?” and more likely to be diplomatic, in part because many here will quickly point out the pitfalls of the first approach.
@twoinanddone, depends on the school and how much money they have. Also depends on how much a school really wants you and what the competition is. Oberlin and WashU may up merit money/fin aid to match fin aid at an Ivy/equivalent but may not match a full-ride at Podunk U.
Some schools do seem to have a bigger warchest and seem more willing to use it in April than others.
it is a crap shoot at schools that aren’t automatic. So i don’t think they necessarily did anything wrong other than try to specifically target schools that were good with merit. You can at least look for schools that have a higher percentage of students with merit awards. For example Tulane now awards around 43% of freshmen with merit. Boston College is around 1%. (Of course, they may have been talking about Tulane for all we know, they make they’re own rules there)
But playing the percentages is helpful. you can get data for individual schools at collegedata, but this nytimes report from several years ago gives a quick at-a-glance look at how schools stack up percent-wise and amount-wise.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/07/08/education/edlife/8edlife_chart.html?_r=0
We’re in that same donut hole bracket. FAFSA said we should be paying about $12,500 per kid for the two in college. Of the eight schools that accepted D, first year costs ranged from $20k to $33k. Willamette, for example, offered her one of their best merit aid packages, just nothing else. She knew the situation going in, so her real choices were from the three lowest COA.
I do not understand why people apply where they cannot afford attending. Why? There are so many, many wonderful FREE places where top kids who got into top schools that they cannot afford, would be paying close to nothing or absolutely nothing.
@MiamiDAP , I see why kids apply to schools with competitive merit. Someone has to win, and if you are competitive then why not take a shot, assuming you have all your safety apps completed? It may not be affordable w/o merit, but you can’t win if you don’t play.
Many, many free/low cost options for those folks who won’t get FA, but can’t afford full COA? Any examples?
Our DD applied to many schools knowing full well some were more likely to give merit and some weren’t. Sure, some have a nice little table that says if you get this ACT you get that $ scholarship, but most don’t.
Schools she applied to as a last minute “why not, I won’t get in here likely,” accepted her and gave her very large merit scholarships. Who can predict?
Other schools with the same stats, same kinds of high caliber kids, gave her nothing. It cost us only the price of sending ACT scores and a short essay to take the chance on $20-$30K. Why not? As long as you have SOMEWHERE you are not opposed to attending on your list, this approach doesn’t hurt.