Reply to Financial aid is a scam

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Financial aid is a scam"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is why I tell parents to have their children apply to 20 schools that all fall in a similar category. I did this with each of my kids (pissed off our FCPS guidance department) but the results were insane.

Oldest. Applied broadly and ended up at Wellesley which ended up costing us 10K a year less than in-state at UVA. She was fine with a women's college fwiw

Second, applied broadly and landed a full ride at Wash U. Also, fine with it (wanted STEM and though hopkins and CMU were a fit. Oddly got less money at Tech or "lesser" schools fwiw). We negotiated among these schools and Wash U basically bit itself up to a full ride.

Third -- pulled a full ride at Malacaster. same story. [/quote]

PP, can you say more about this? Did you negotiate price among the schools that had offered admission to your kids once they were in? Did you pick the top school and go back to them with a request for more aid based on what was offered elsewhere? [/quote]

It is a crazy hustle but only a month of nuttiness so worth it.

In late March to early May each college sent their aid packages. We immediately asked for more/reconsideration and expressed interest in attending the school if the aid situation made it feasible (no hard numbers). A lot of schools didn't care (NYU) but others really opened their wallets or we willing to have calls to discuss. For the latter, we had phone meetings that my kid AND BOTH PARENTS attended together. Expressed interest, asked for more funding, etc.

During late April, we took all of our peer schools (so schools that fell around each other in rankings etc) and if they were willing to match an offer. most didn't just match but exceeded them. The kid then picked.

You have to divorce the idea of a perfect college once you get beyond a general approach and be very flexible but for the money all three of my kids were willing to do this.

ALL OF THIS endlessly pissed off FCPS guidance and admin fwiw. Like my kids got a metric ton of shit requesting so many applications letters from guidance but whatever. Half of the apps were fee waivers, fwiw. We got them automatically or just asked and were given them in the fall.[/quote]

Did any schools not offer more?[/quote]

Yes. for some, they said they were willing to provide more aid or consistent aid (all four years, lower GPA min etc).

This is a highly unpopular approach for some reason fwiw.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics