People with $1.2M+ homes and getting significant financial aid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understood that accident to be a message and did not apply again. If it was unintentional, that was a fat envelope to stuff by accident.

Well what message did you take away?

That I should not apply regardless of my income.

The message I would have taken away is that the school is criminally negligent with the confidential personal and financial information of its families, and I would find a new school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understood that accident to be a message and did not apply again. If it was unintentional, that was a fat envelope to stuff by accident.

Well what message did you take away?

That I should not apply regardless of my income.

The message I would have taken away is that the school is criminally negligent with the confidential personal and financial information of its families, and I would find a new school.

Right, agree. It’s a negligent mistake. Absurd that the prior poster took away an irresponsible racial message.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Donors shouldn't give if they don't trust the school. You should trust them. The school doesn't benefit by giving financial aid where there's no value-add to the community.

The added value is giving aid to middle classed families? The school wants its student body to be representative of society at large. The community needs to be more a barbell of rich people and those you seem to need to think are charity cases. In this area, a family earning $200K cannot pay for two children to attend private school. But we need them in the community, so they get adjusted tuition.

So, yes, donate. So that your children have friends all along the socio-economic spectrum and a diversity of backgrounds. Otherwise they're going to graduate with a very skewed perception of the world.

Hahaha. People do NOT send their children to our $55k private school for diversity of socio economic backgrounds. Please.

If I wanted that, I’d send my kid to the giant local very good public which has GENUINE socioeconomic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understood that accident to be a message and did not apply again. If it was unintentional, that was a fat envelope to stuff by accident.

Well what message did you take away?

That I should not apply regardless of my income.

What? You don't seriously believe the school intentionally sent you all the other students' personal details?

Somebody messed up, possibly in addressing the envelope or pulling everything off the printer in a stack. Did you inform the school they had spilled this personal info? That's a serious error.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Donors shouldn't give if they don't trust the school. You should trust them. The school doesn't benefit by giving financial aid where there's no value-add to the community.

The added value is giving aid to middle classed families? The school wants its student body to be representative of society at large. The community needs to be more a barbell of rich people and those you seem to need to think are charity cases. In this area, a family earning $200K cannot pay for two children to attend private school. But we need them in the community, so they get adjusted tuition.

So, yes, donate. So that your children have friends all along the socio-economic spectrum and a diversity of backgrounds. Otherwise they're going to graduate with a very skewed perception of the world.

I appreciate this post, especially your point about not wanting the student demographics to be a "barbell" of the very rich and very poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Donors shouldn't give if they don't trust the school. You should trust them. The school doesn't benefit by giving financial aid where there's no value-add to the community.

The added value is giving aid to middle classed families? The school wants its student body to be representative of society at large. The community needs to be more a barbell of rich people and those you seem to need to think are charity cases. In this area, a family earning $200K cannot pay for two children to attend private school. But we need them in the community, so they get adjusted tuition.

So, yes, donate. So that your children have friends all along the socio-economic spectrum and a diversity of backgrounds. Otherwise they're going to graduate with a very skewed perception of the world.

Hahaha. People do NOT send their children to our $55k private school for diversity of socio economic backgrounds. Please.

If I wanted that, I’d send my kid to the giant local very good public which has GENUINE socioeconomic diversity.

I agree that public is probably where you should go. You don't want the inclusive culture and student body that every independent school (and college) is working hard to achieve right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understood that accident to be a message and did not apply again. If it was unintentional, that was a fat envelope to stuff by accident.

Well what message did you take away?

That I should not apply regardless of my income.

If you aready are paying it why do you need aid. Maybe those are just who applied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Donors shouldn't give if they don't trust the school. You should trust them. The school doesn't benefit by giving financial aid where there's no value-add to the community.

The added value is giving aid to middle classed families? The school wants its student body to be representative of society at large. The community needs to be more a barbell of rich people and those you seem to need to think are charity cases. In this area, a family earning $200K cannot pay for two children to attend private school. But we need them in the community, so they get adjusted tuition.

So, yes, donate. So that your children have friends all along the socio-economic spectrum and a diversity of backgrounds. Otherwise they're going to graduate with a very skewed perception of the world.

Hahaha. People do NOT send their children to our $55k private school for diversity of socio economic backgrounds. Please.

If I wanted that, I’d send my kid to the giant local very good public which has GENUINE socioeconomic diversity.

I agree that public is probably where you should go. You don't want the inclusive culture and student body that every independent school (and college) is working hard to achieve right now.

You exclude people through an application process because they don’t meet some criteria you made up to pick a tiny tiny slice of people who you want to surround your kid with and you are pretending that you are building an inclusive culture? What?

[Anonymous]

Do these schools ever audit the FA?? Like confirm anything that anyone submits? I would feel better about donating to my school if I knew they did this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do these schools ever audit the FA?? Like confirm anything that anyone submits? I would feel better about donating to my school if I knew they did this.

I'm not sure how they can audit the FA (Financial Aid), but in small or mid-sized private schools, families often know each other and schools know families, and are aware of many details that are not submitted through paperwork. However, I don't think that's a reliable way to gather information.Even when you know families personally, it still doesn't give you the full picture. The most reliable information still comes from the Financial Aid application itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do these schools ever audit the FA?? Like confirm anything that anyone submits? I would feel better about donating to my school if I knew they did this.

We recently applied for aid for the first time. We had to authorize access to our IRS-provided tax returns and upload pay statements for both parents. The application also stated that the school reserves the right to request documentation for certain items we had to declare - like out of pocket medical expenses for the last year. So far we haven’t been contacted for additional information, but we just submitted about a week ago and I assume we’d not hear anything until Jan or Feb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Donors shouldn't give if they don't trust the school. You should trust them. The school doesn't benefit by giving financial aid where there's no value-add to the community.

The added value is giving aid to middle classed families? The school wants its student body to be representative of society at large. The community needs to be more a barbell of rich people and those you seem to need to think are charity cases. In this area, a family earning $200K cannot pay for two children to attend private school. But we need them in the community, so they get adjusted tuition.

So, yes, donate. So that your children have friends all along the socio-economic spectrum and a diversity of backgrounds. Otherwise they're going to graduate with a very skewed perception of the world.

Hahaha. People do NOT send their children to our $55k private school for diversity of socio economic backgrounds. Please.

If I wanted that, I’d send my kid to the giant local very good public which has GENUINE socioeconomic diversity.

I agree that public is probably where you should go. You don't want the inclusive culture and student body that every independent school (and college) is working hard to achieve right now.

Calling a 55k a year private inclusive is hilarious. Do people actually believe the PR? Your school is literally designed to exclude- isn't that the whole point of competitive admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know of multiple kids who get 50% off and they live it 1.5M homes and higher in McLean and Bethesda and are receiving significant financial aid for their kid in a top school. Also worthy of note- these are not top athletes, students, etc.

Anyone else seeing this?

Do you mean they paid $1.2+ or the homes' value is now $1.2+? Those are two very different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do these schools ever audit the FA?? Like confirm anything that anyone submits? I would feel better about donating to my school if I knew they did this.

We recently applied for aid for the first time. We had to authorize access to our IRS-provided tax returns and upload pay statements for both parents. The application also stated that the school reserves the right to request documentation for certain items we had to declare - like out of pocket medical expenses for the last year. So far we haven’t been contacted for additional information, but we just submitted about a week ago and I assume we’d not hear anything until Jan or Feb.

Same here. Applied to SR, they required extensive documentation of finances. We support two family members, my mother and DH’s sister. We have one child receiving extensive therapies unpaid by insurance. Also, two years in a row, I had emergency hospital trips that were billed over 100k (each) and the 20% out of pocket was over 35k. They were nice about it, but they wanted documentation for every doc visit and lab test. We make over 200k, and I am so grateful they were able to provide FA. DD is an exceptional student, and they valued what she would bring to the community.

[Anonymous]

Families who live in big houses and drive big cars but receive financial aid are usually those who own a business and have lost a lot of money, or have been laid off and took time to find a new job.