<p>Facts:
were a middle class wage earning family for whom $50K/yr is a major burden
kid got into a GLADCHEMS. Didnt check FA box for better shot@admission
can beg, borrow & steal for a year. After that its Powerball or bust
school says tough nookies. Thats a 4 year box check, not just year one. Need job loss, parent death or fugetaboutit.</p>
<p>Question: after first year, would the other GLADCHEMS look askance@xfer for financial reasons (whereby we would, of course, check the box)? Would we have to paper that over? Take the SSATs again? It kills me cause it never crossed my mind that was a 4 year commitment to no aid. Got 5 days to break the bank or break her heart.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s fair to your child to enroll them in a school, knowing that it will only be for one year. That’s a lot of upheaval if you know in advance that there’s no way they can stay.</p>
<p>Yes, you would have to go through the entire application process again to gain admission to another school. (If you were accepted at more than one school, and declined acceptance at one to go to another, I believe you would still have to go through the application process again at a school where you declined their offer of admission.) And as so many posters have stated, needing financial aid makes your chance of acceptance much more difficult.</p>
<p>You would have to ask your child’s current teachers at the new school for recommendations for applications to other schools. The teacher (and probably the administration) are going to want to know why you are considering leaving.</p>
<p>If you can not afford the full four years at the school, one option would be to stay at home for next year, then apply next year as a 10th grader to different schools, and request financial aid next time around.
(You’d have to ask the school where you have an acceptance this year how they would feel about you declining acceptance this year, and reapplying next year with a request for financial aid.)</p>
<p>Maybe there is some way - a difficult way, of course - to make it work. Here’s a link to a thread with information from poster ChoatieMom. (Her son was accepted at Choate without any aid - and they have struggled and sacrificed so that he could attend anyway.) Go to page 2 of the thread; her post is #26.</p>
<p>Alright, let’s try looking at the good side of this . . . </p>
<p>If your daughter got into a well known school, it must mean that she’s pretty highly qualified. That does not, by any means, mean that she’d be able to get into that caliber of school with a financial aid request, but it does mean that she’d have a fair-to-good chance of getting into a not-so-famous (i.e. lower ranked) school with the financial aid you need. And she’d probably have a fair-to-good or even better chance at one of the girls’ schools. Perhaps not the news you want to hear . . . but it’s better than no chance at all, as long as you’re realistic about the range of schools she applies to and don’t set your sights too high.</p>
<p>Now what I’m talking about, of course, is reapplying next year and being forthcoming about your financial circumstances.</p>
<p>What you do in the meantime is another matter entirely. If your daughter enrolls at School X, my feeling is that she’s going to have a difficult time explaining the decision to transfer. How do you “paper over” the fact that you were, shall we say, less than forthcoming with the first school regarding your finances? And, obviously, it would be extraordinarily difficult for your daughter to start at School X knowing that she’d have to withdraw after a year.</p>
<p>Frankly, I can’t imagine what you were thinking . . . knowing that a financial aid request would make it harder for your daughter to be admitted, knowing that you would need financial aid, and then trying to bypass that additional hurdle by simply concealing your actual financial circumstances from the school. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but many of us on this forum need financial aid and have had to deal with our children’s disappointment when that meant that they did not get into schools they otherwise would have. You are now, obviously, facing the same situation.</p>
<p>If you really can’t find any way to beg or borrow the additional funds, then you need to sit down with your daughter and figure this out together.</p>
<p>Parts of this thread are relatable for me. I applied last year for ninth grade with FA and was wait listed, not FA wait listed, just wait listed. I applied again for tenth grade without FA partly to increase my chances but mostly because my parents were opening a new business which they thought would help pay tuition. So March tenth came this year and I had three acceptances. My parents tell me that they won’t be able to do it because that previous business venture and a loan didn’t prove successful. So now I’ll be attending my local public school. It’s hard for me because after two years of boarding school applications I finally got the letters I wanted but a teacher at school says I can apply again (I know, a third year of apps!!) and my parents will apply for FA. I don’t know if applying again would be worth it but I’ll give it a try because it’s really my dream.</p>
<p>I don’t know what you consider “a major burden.” The definition varies a great deal. What’s your plan for college? Is she your only child? If there are siblings, I think it’s unfair to prioritize one child over the others. “Sorry, you can’t go to the movies because it’s all committed to tuition.” </p>
<p>If she is your only child, would you consider downsizing? Four years go by very quickly. Once kids go to college, empty-nest parents can fit into a smaller house or apartment.</p>
<p>You should have checked the box, but it’s too late now. I think the most sensible thing to do would be to explain to the school that you can’t swing four years of full tuition. Reapply next year, and check the boxes! I’d say you could reapply to the school you must turn down at this point, as the admissions teams are well aware of how hard it is to pay tuition.</p>
<p>Include your daughter in your discussions. Don’t just inform her of your decision. Eighth graders are mature enough to understand, although it will be painful. It would be even more painful to send her to a school she must leave after a year. The $50 K could help to enrich her experience at home, and make her an attractive candidate next year, or when she applies to colleges.</p>
<p>You know, the one thing not mentioned yet in this thread is the assumption that your family would even qualify for financial aid.</p>
<p>As Periwinkle pointed out, the definition of “major burden” varies widely. I understand that you have very little time left before a decision must be made, but I’d strongly recommend trying to find out first if you’d even qualify for financial aid. You might have assets, investments, savings that would make your daughter ineligible for a financial aid grant. Not saying that’s the case . . . but I’d think it’s something you’d want to know. If, in fact, the only way for your daughter to attend boarding school is for your family to sell investment property or forego family vacations (for example), then it’s better to know that now than later. And perhaps your family will decide it’s a change you’re willing to make.</p>
<p>I’d strongly suggest asking the school if they’d give you an extension (beyond 4/10) while you try to figure this out. And ask the school’s financial aid director for help. (Make clear that you’re not trying to get a grant from the school, but just trying to get a handle on your finances.)</p>
<p>You can do a lot with the resources you do have. Suppose your (clearly well qualified) daughter stayed at public and you spent fifty thousand dollars (!) for her personal enrichment over the next four years. That would cover singing lessons, personal tutors for all difficult subjects, online gifted and talented classes, a special coach and a trip to nationals in an EC, and a summer boarding school camp. You can give her a golden ticket for whatever she wants to do outside the basics - basics which public high school already covers for free. Judged relative to her peers, she can shine and get into her college of choice.</p>
<p>So tell her no on GLADCHEMS… and yes on AWESOME.</p>
<p>Some people have had success with receiving aid in a late search for schools. I remembered the thread above, and after a while I even found it. This might be a way to salvage your kid’s experience. I think a really good point mentioned is to figure out whether you would qualify for aid, anywhere. I would not think the particular school you are talking to would look favorably next year in light of this year’s application that did not ask for aid, but that is just my opinion.</p>
<p>We had a very similar experience to the family in the link anothermom2 posted. It has all worked out beautifully. Yes, there are schools who will come through with FA late in the game if you do the legwork!</p>
<p>Good luck with a search. My caveat about the above link is that it dates to spring of 2009 and schools were probably working with a financial aid budget created before the 2008 crash (and before they got hit with many requests for aid from struggling current families).</p>
<p>A few schools are still need blind for full FA students - it’s worth casting a net. And if you split that initial $50,000 over three years (or four) you could be a partial pay. That would make you more attractive than a full FA candidate for last minute slots. It means less funding the school has to find for you.</p>
<p>The reason why the checkbox is for four years is because parents have already tried that strategy - get the kid in as a full pay to make them more attractive and then ask for aid in subsequent years. Never underestimate the lengths other people have gone to to secure a spot for a student. But the school factors tuition payments into their long-term projections. If the strategy worked, everyone would do it and the school would find itself heavily burdened with low tuition revenues and high draws out of it’s endowment.</p>
<p>I will warn you, however, if the student was admitted under full pay, they may or may not have been as attractive under the FA formula. There’s a lot more leeway in the former than in the latter in terms of what a school looks for when building a class.</p>
<p>Reapplying is an option - but not a guarantee of a spot as is evidenced by all the families on FA waiting lists this year. Consider if you can pay half for two years, and use that time to scrape up additional funding for the remaining year or two at that level. </p>
<p>I’m with @ChoatieMom. 100% of my income goes to tuition, we downsized, stopped eating out, live on less, postponed my retirement contributions. You do what you have to do. Have never regretted it.</p>
<p>Had the same thing happen to us, generally speaking. We applied late and were told that all FA was gone. Managed to do full pay for one year. Applied for FA the next year (same school) on the regular FA website (sorry, name escapes me.) Received enough to make second and final year possible (came in as a junior). We were also told that the school assumes that full pay means for all four years.</p>
<p>It is not a fair assumption. Things change. And not big, colassal changes, just things like change in pay, another kid going to school, car dies, tuition hike more than anticipated, etc. Boarding school forces tight budgeting for many and it doesn’t take all that much to upset the balancing act. </p>
<p>On the glass half full side, there is always a chance that someone who is receiving aid may be able to swing it financially in later years without the aid.</p>
<p>I am a little confused by this thread… Our daughter just accepted an offer from her dream school… Nowhere in the admission process did we indicate that we were “full pay for all four years”. Nor did anyone ask. We knew we didn’t have a chance at getting FA so we didn’t bother applying for it. Folks on this thread seem to suggest families would be ineligible to request FA later ($200K+ later with multiple kids in school). That’s not my understanding and I haven’t seen anything to that effect in any of the admissions or financial aid information that we received during the process. On this thread its treated like common knowledge that there is only one bite at the FA apple.</p>
<p>People would need hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in a bank account to know that private school costs are completely covered. And, even then, things happen which might make a family seek financial aid in subsequent years.</p>
<p>I’ve seen the decision to not request financial aid described as being “not forthcoming”. This strikes me as a little harsh. A family that can swing multiple tuitions now may not be able to swing them in 2, 3, 4, 5… years. If that happens, they apply for FA. At which point the schools decides yes or no. Then the family may (or may not) have a tough decision to make. </p>
<p>I would think it was understood that ability to pay for years of private school is an uncertain thing. Doesn’t every parent have the idea in the back of their mind that they might, someday, need to tap FA as the perfect price discrimination of higher education suppliers slowly impoverishes families fleeing public schools?</p>
<p>You should definitely have a talk with the financial aid office at your daughters school to clarify. Generally, once a school commits FA to a student, it is assumed that the student will continue to need it for the next four years; the same logic is applied to FP students. Only in the event of a serious, longstanding change in financial circumstances would an FP family be considered for FA. If you can only afford to be full-pay for one year, then you are an FA applicant, not an FP applicant. However, because we dont know which school you are referring to, you should contact the school to correctly understand your position.</p>
<p>Actually - no. This is a case of learning the “rules” which is why this board serves as such a good resource for new parents testing the water. We’ve spoken about this for several years when parents are tempted to take this step. </p>
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<p>The majority of families at these schools do have access to that amount of funding (assets, loans, etc.) which is why the percentage of full-pays is twice that of FA students.</p>
<p>If you don’t ask for FA it is assumed you don’t need it - for any of the remaining years. When parents think they can’t swing the full load, then I suggest they divide what assets they can spend by the number of years (say $50,000 by 4) and put on their PFS that you can afford to pay $12,500 for the first year - with the assumption they can pay the same amount each subsequent year.</p>
<p>HOWEVER if you do that - your child goes into a more restricted application pool and may or may not be offered a spot. So the schools do consider it dishonest if you apply without need for FA (and therefore don’t fill out the PFS form so that it is transparent what the financial condition of the family is) then expect the funds to magically appear the next year. That’s the part that will be considered lack of “candor.” FA candidates - even those on partial scholarships, have to fill out extensive forms showing everything from income, to cars driven, to debt load and retirement income, and even vacations taken and the net value of them. Full pay students do not. So the school has the right to assume you’re going to be able to pay the whole amount for every year and took your child on that basis.</p>
<p>Schools DO ask parents who were full pay one year and need aid the second year to fill out a PFS and their deadline is a month or so earlier than those who return on existing FA packages. But the chances of being accepted are very low. The letters to parents make it clear that those families who didn’t need aid, but suddenly request it, have to show a significant event to justify consideration (significant drop in income, job loss, etc.). Otherwise what you’ll find is that your child is readmitted for the next year without aid. And you’ll have to decide to find the funds, or withdraw the child. </p>
<p>Note on the CC boards how many parents applied for FA (and truly don’t have the funds) and their children subsequently received acceptance packets while the parent received the “bad news” that the acceptance comes without funding - which for most family is the same as a “no.” Or how many students were put on waitlists because of the FA needs.</p>
<p>So unfortunately, not asking for aid will be viewed as trying to game the system - getting the child in under more favorable conditions, only to turn around and ask for resources that will have to be allocated from the pot reserved for the next incoming class (not likely).</p>
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<p>It is what it is, because, in the past, some parents took that calculated risk hoping for a favorable outcome and the schools know it. And many MANY families are fleeing their bad districts hoping someone else will pick up the tab for it.</p>
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<p>Advance research would have verified that - yes - this is in fact the case. Going to a BS is a privilege and the schools as private entities are not obligated to take or fund everyone who wants to go. </p>
<p>One thing to consider, is that the “scholarship” you would be requesting would come from funds provided by other alumni, donors and parents who contribute on top of their current tuition bills. There just isn’t enough money to go around. And it’s not their job to subsidize your child. If you have the $50,000 to spend the first year, the assumption is that you will have it to spend each additional year. Or that if you don’t, you don’t go. </p>
<p>I agree with ChoatieMom - you should contact the school now and explain what happened. But there is a chance you’ll knock your child into a less competitive pool - or you’ll hear that you’re on the hook for $200,000 without a significant life changing event to dictate otherwise (paying full freight the first year is not considered life changing). </p>
<p>You made an understandable mistake. It’s a hard process to navigate. Better to find out your options now, then enroll your child and have to tell them the next year they can’t go back if the funds don’t appear.</p>
<p>It looks like you’re going to have to break her heart. But she will be in very good company with all the other remarkable girls who can’t go because they need FA. There are, indeed, many heartbroken young ladies on waiting lists who know in their hearts that the phone will most likely not ring for them because they have no gown for the ball. It makes my daughter feel a TINY bit better knowing that she is not alone, but only the tiniest bit.</p>
<p>The good news is that your daughter is still the same great girl that the school wanted.</p>
<p>Let me clarify. I used the phrase “not forthcoming” . . . but what I meant was “lying.” Harsh? Not really - not where a parent is aware that his child’s chances of admission will be diminished by a financial aid request and for that reason deliberately elects not to disclose circumstances necessitating financial aid.</p>
<p>If you can’t pay the tuition, then request financial aid when your child applies . . . or be prepared to see your child end his or her boarding school prematurely when your funds run out. Obviously, if there is an unanticipated change of circumstances, then the school will take that into account and attempt to find funding for you. But if you know ahead of time that you can’t afford four years at School X, WHY would you not disclose that at the outset???</p>
<p>In the OP’s case, the answer seems to have been, “Well, I knew if I said anything that she might not get in.” Why should the school (or the many donors who fund the school’s financial aid program) reward that kind of dishonesty?</p>