<p>I recently received a great aid package from Vandy. It had $20k. I was really surprised, because I thought my family was in the income bracket where you receive nothing. But nope, I got $20k.</p>
<p>But the issue is, I've gotten NOTHING from other schools. Well, almost nothing - just some loans and work/study that really doesn't do much to cover the huge cost of the other schools. </p>
<p>I think part of the discrepancy might be that I have a parent that works at Vandy. However, I currently do not qualify for tuition money from Vanderbilt for any other school. So I'm not sure if Vandy is covering the cost here because of that or not.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what might really explain this discrepancy?</p>
<p>Apparently, my parent says that he really doesn’t get anything for working there. </p>
<p>And it looks like pure financial aid grants. It doesn’t look like scholarship money.</p>
<p>I am actually sort of regretting my application, because it looks like I have NO chance of going anywhere else. I understand why there’s a lot of reasons I should go, but I didn’t fill out 21 forms for nothing. Sorry to rant, but I don’t want some weirdly inconsistent FA situation to railroad me into having only one choice.</p>
<p>Are finances a consideration…or not. From your above quoted post, it sounded like they were not. You need to have this conversation with your parents. Vandy is a terrific school. You would be saving your family $80,000 over the four year period…which would otherwise be out of THEIR pockets. This is a family decision only YOUR family can make.</p>
<p>In addition, the school does give merit $$. You will need to see your final package. If your parent’s employee discount kicks in along with anything else the school is giving you.</p>
<p>I’ve been admitted into about ten. One of them, Wellesley, which is supposed to be quite generous, gave me nothing, besides the regular work/study and Stafford loans. I never heard Vandy as being described as a generous school, so I was surprised, but even if it is, I would think that my other schools would give me something.</p>
<p>I guess it’s our home equity then?</p>
<p>I think Vandy is a good school, but I’d like to get away from home. And I would like a less Greek-dominated school. I wouldn’t mind going to Vandy, but I’d like to be able to go to a school based on something other than financial aid reasons.</p>
<p>Many, many people choose the best college that they can afford- which could be described as “financial” reasons. </p>
<p>Some don’t have the choice of any offers they can afford, so they choose to take a gap year to reasses and apply to schools where they have a better chance of receiving merit aid.</p>
<p>You applied to some pretty competitive & expensive schools- did you also apply to any that would offer you merit or that were not so expensive?</p>
<p>Look, like I said here, there are plenty of reasons why I should or shouldn’t attend Vandy. (Ok, I admit there are more reasons that I should) But what I want to find out in this thread is why I have my aid discrepancy and if there’s anything I can do to try and close the gap. If you don’t want to answer either of them and you think that I need to 100% go to Vandy or whatever, that’s fine. But you can tell me in a PM or in another thread or whatever. I’d love to hear your reasons. But I just really want to clear up my financial aid situation here. </p>
<p>So if I didn’t make it clear before, I’d like two things answered:</p>
<ol>
<li>Why do I have such a large FA discrepancy?</li>
<li>Is there anything I can do to close it?</li>
</ol>
<p>Without knowing your FAFSA EFC, this is what I’m guessing…</p>
<p>1) Vandy doesn’t use home equity so they determined that you have about $20k in need using THEIR formula (which can be unique for that school).</p>
<p>2) Vandy is a no-loan school, so they gave all aid with grants. </p>
<p>3) Your other schools DO use home equity, so they determined your need to be about $8k and filled that need with student loans and work-study. </p>
<p>So, it looks like there is about a $12k difference in determining need…which is because of home equity OR unique school formula OR some other unknown reason.</p>
<p>And even asked if you would be required to take a Stafford loan offered to you. Which is it…can your parents afford ANY college…or not? </p>
<p>Like I said earlier…the cost of attending Vandy is about $80,000 less out of pocket for your parents than the other schools who determined you did NOT have need using their formulas to compute need based aid. </p>
<p>Why do you have a discrepancy between schools? Because Profile schools use differing formulas to determine financial need.</p>
<p>I think the issue is that now that she is in Vandy, her parents want her to go there. She was hoping there would be a financial argument for going somewhere further from home.</p>
<p>She is disappointed in the fact that Vandy turns out to be less expensive than the other schools because it is one more way out of this that she can not use, one more argument she does not have in her favor in her quest to go up east.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you are disappointed. Life is like that. You get something great. It turns out to be slightly less than perfect.</p>
<p>I hope you get what you want, but it’s looking like you’re going to be in Nashville. Isn’t it funny how so many people wish they were in your shoes right now, even some kids who are “stuck” going where you wish you could go?</p>
<p>It’s likely that your other schools you applied to are need based aid only and Vandy gave you merit money. Under that scenario getting nothing from the others would be expected. We have a similar situation with a few schools giving my D merit scholarships - and others giving her lesser amounts of need only grants/loans to meet need because those schools don’t give merit to anyone.</p>
<p>I have to repeat, my money is NOT merit based. It says on my form that it says it’s “need-based.”</p>
<p>Again, I said that you can judge my decision to want to not go to Vandy any where else. But this thread isn’t the place for it. I just want my FA questions answered. Thankfully, I got the first part answered. But now I’m wondering if I could get any other schools to reconsider their packages? Wellesley for one said they would be willing to reconsider, although I’m not sure how successful that would be. Apparently inversely, my friend received a better aid package from Wellesley last year but was able to convince Vandy to give her more money. Would that be possible in reverse?</p>