All of the scholarships my daughter was given outside of Yale was applied to her total bill including parent contribution. She even has a credit balance. Unfortunately that doesn’t help with books. She also is doing a work study and is working two jobs for Yale. They pay her directly so it does not come off of her student loans but builds in her account so she is using that for books and expenses. She did win considerable amounts of outside scholarships though and I don’t know if that matters.
Thanks for all the info!
@oldladyandmom @classicalmama @Memmsmom @momofmusician17 @vtclover @Tperry1982
Sorry if I missed anyone.
This is very helpful.
I certainly think having a job and attending school is important. I’m just a bit concerned about the first year and all the challenges it entails.
My son has applied to some outside scholarships through Fastweb and I will continue to encourage more. He will also have a summer job so that should help.
It sounds as if the work study options are fairly diverse.
It’s a balancing act to be sure!
@tonymom, I share your concerns. DS had no work during his freshman year, and then had a difficult but rewarding summer job. In addition to getting an internship for next summer that is, by most accounts, very demanding (and for which he has significant reading/learning to do in advance of starting), he seems to have signed up for all sorts of jobs during the current semester. I’m happy that he will, of necessity, learn time management, but I reminded him not to forget why he’s at school.
I guess it’s a good and normal thing, but young adults seem to have great difficulty with moderation.
I know that a lot of the campus jobs are very flexible for scheduling. I suspect this is so that the students do not feel overwhelmed. My daughter’s jobs have both been very accommodating to both her academic schedule and extra curricular activities.
@Faulkner1897 and @tonymom,
Coming very late to the conversation about the Yale-Harvard game. DD goes up to cambridge for the game, spends the night on Sat with a friend from harvard, and flies out of Boston back home to So Cal on Sunday. But I’ve heard that groups of kids will stay in the harvard RCs or get hotel rooms.
For another Y-H game, DH and I flew into Boston a few days early and did some sight seeing. Saw game. Yale lost but hey, we beat the spread!!. Then we flew out of Boston on Sun with DD.
Flight prices on Sun before thanksgiving are still pretty cheap. The prices go up around Tues and Wed before Thanksgiving.
My son thinks he has the best campus job - singing for the church choir! It is a paid gig at University Church. It mostly has grad students in it at the moment. He also sings in a repertoire choir for pay. It is a choir for grad students in choral conducting to work with for their schooling. All total, he “works” 7-8 hours a week and watches around $100 go into his bank account every 7 days.
@classicalmama - my direct experience is mine, but that was in the late 70’s. We never bothered to attempt it for my D. I do think it depends on the level of financial aid. My D is not eligible for work study. The best way to resolve it is to speak directly to someone in financial aid. That’s why I usually follow my rule of staying out of conversations about specific financial questions. The Office will be very responsive.
I agree that calling the FA office after the Yale award is in and asking specific what if questions is the best way to get an answer. The language is puzzling. The FA office says that outside scholarships are applied first to student effort, and that student effort is meant to pay for indirect costs. So if the FA office doesn’t, at some point, give that funding to the student, but just applies it as a credit to the account used to pay for direct expenses, it’s hard to see how that works. However, I suspect the answer varies from student to student.
As others have pointed out, a big advantage of the term time jobs is that they pay significantly better than typical summer college student work. I think it’s worth applying for Yale jobs. My son’s first job only lasted a semester but he was able to get a lot of studying done while working. This semester he found a paid outside internship in the field he’d like to pursue as a career through the job board. Finding one that fits into an athlete’s schedule is a challenge. At Yale, though, it pays to be proactive and persistent.
Looking at the weather, it seems DD might get her first experience of New Haven snow this weekend! From our vantage point of thousands of miles away, it sounds quite serious. Perhaps some locals could set my mind at rest?!
^Given that the kids don’t have to drive, and that Yale has it’s own power generation system, there is really no big deal with even a much larger storm than this is going to be in NH. This storm is going to be much worse for the Philly/DC area.
Thank you for the reassurance! I’ll look forward to seeing the pictures on facebook and hope things aren’t too bad for those elsewhere.
Last year, walks were shoveled effectively pretty quickly. As donnaleighg says, since they’re not driving, not much to worry about. DS made it through last year without proper boots, but I hope he has waterproof footwear this year.
We expect to be hunkered down for the weekend in NE NJ. Supermarkets are out of bread, eggs, and milk; I have no idea why people increase their store of these staples before a storm.
Good luck to anyone whose flight got canceled.
My Cali son was watching the news this am and I said, “are you ready for that?”…
I got the eye roll 
I have to laugh… this is far from serious. In fact we have not even heard of any cancellations of events for tomorrow. Although New Haven seems to be closer in the band of snow that may get about 6 inches, that is absolutely nothing for CT. It will be enough to close a few things and for people to drive slower but it won’t close the state or anything of the sort. Most of the local forecasts are actually calling for less snow than that. It will be a decent first experience of the white fluffy stuff for the kids that have never experienced it and it may be enough for a snowman but truly it won’t be anything to be concerned about.
weather update
It started snowing. It is going to be windy enough for blizzard conditions but that does not equal large amounts of snow, just that the snow will be blowing around so much that you cant see while driving. This wont affect the kids on campus at all. They are only supposed to get around 10" max. I suspect it will be a lot of very fun for the kids and nothing to be concerned about. CT is very well equipped to handle this amount of snow and quickly. I happen to know that there is already a snowball fight scheduled on old campus with over 200 planning on attending. There wont be much left on the ground after that.
@fro123 like others have said, this is nothing new for Yale. six inches is nothing. My kiddo attends a school that has 12-14" accumulate at a moment’s notice. On the sidewalks outside her dorm are red/white painted flexible poles marked off in one foot increments to guide the grounds crews where the sidewalks and curbs are. They’re 5 feet tall.
Our expected accumulations are now 3’ in Essex County NJ. I just went out with the snowblower to try to get a jump on it, and the snow is really piling up.
I am inland CT and we have 9" as of 5 min ago. I have been sent lots of pics from Yale today but they seem to have a good grip on all the walkways already. So far there have been quite a few snowball fights and snow angels. First snow of the season and its bound to be fun. We shall see how that sentiment goes in March.
The kids are having a great time in the snow, even though they didn’t get much. All fun for them - they don’t have to shovel or plow!
Is it too late to start a conversation about packing up at the end of the spring term? I think I read somewhere that it is sometimes possible to know what room a student might be in next year and can actually move furniture to that room at the end of the year. True? And how much can a student store on campus that really doesn’t need to move home? I’m trying to figure out if my student can get light enough to just fly home with a few pieces of luggage, rather than us coming to move him home.