@thumper1 Sorry, I should have clarified. We applied to late for merit for Buffalo, but only by a few days. I reached out to a rep there who was her admissoins rep, and she said that she might be able to get us merit anyway. I explained that Buffalo would need to provide merit to financially meet the other offers. That was the “need” I was referring to, not actual financial need. My bad, that was misleading - unintentionally. I just meant that for us to justify going to Buffalo we would need some additional merit, and the admissions rep seemed very open to making that work. So we shall see, but that would still only match best offers.
https://financialaid.uconn.edu/cost/
Hoping UConn is on the accepted list and that their nearly $30,000 a year cost of attendance is within your price point. If your DD takes the $5500 Direct Loan, then your out of pocket would be in the $25,000 range. Hopefully that is doable.
I don’t think low income students are raking in the FA. Most low income students commute. They might get a Pell Grant of $6,000 a year.
They can borrow the same loan amount as all other students, $5,500 a year.
That might pay for tuition at an instate public, or it might not.
Most likely the family can’t contribute anything.
Technically one could say that for $200,000 income $500 a month should be an affordable amount to contribute.
UConn unfortunately denied, but they did accept to Stamford branch with option to later transfer. We are considering this, it would be the cheapest option.
Sorry to hear that about UConn. I will say, we used to have a UConn branch near us, and some students choose to commute to that over the local community college…which is also here. Then they transferred to the main campus after a year. Not a bad option…if the others don’t work out.
The other option would be having your daughter take a Gap Year…and apply to places with more significant merit aid for fall 2020. That’s probably not her top choice…but it’s an option.
Just wanted to post that I’ve had a lot of the same thoughts over the week or two. I did some digging, and it is true that many deadlines have passed (2/28). When I’ve spent a lot of time going through online listings of third party scholarships, even though I filled out a profile, still, about 90% of them were for a school DS doesn’t go to, a county we don’t live in, a company we don’t work for, etc.
I also am not sure about putting in the time for an essay, unless you find one that REALLY suits your daughter. There are a couple of easy ones such as Taco Bell Live Mas (not sure about deadline), a homeless shelter donation video one, here…I’ll post the list of ones I found that seemed not too hard, and still open (NOTE: doesn’t mean I have ANY idea of how hard they are to get. I honestly think chances are slim).
As for motivation, I know many parents who straight out told their kids “if you can’t get the tuition down to $xxxxx, you can’t go there”…and these kids have been searching and applying since late fall.
Here are the “easy” achievable ones that I found:
https://studysoup.com/scholarships/dosomething-homeless-shelter. EASY. Donate to a homeless shelter to get a chance to win a $5000 scholarship
https://www.rover.com/college-scholarship/. Write a 400-500 word essay about how technology makes you feel connected, or not, to society. Deadline 5/1
https://www.rover.com/college-scholarship/. College is power, 150 word essay on why you want to go to college , $1000 due 5/30
http://www.digitalresponsibility.org/scholarships/. Four easy scholarships, short essays on easy topics $1000 first one due 4/30
https://www.moneysolver.org/scholarships/emoji-scholarship/ Describe which emoji describes your life best and why $1000 8/31
https://www.moneysolver.org/scholarships/easter-scholarship/ Create an essay QUESTION based on easter$1000 due 4/30
https://www.moneysolver.org/scholarships/mothers-day-scholarship/ Same org as above, create a mothers’ day card (also one for fathers day)
https://www.floridarentals.com/dream-vacation-scholarship/ Write a $1000 word essay about your dream vacation, $1000 due 8/30
Did you run net price calculator at Susquehanna? They offered my S with higher GPA but lower SAT score a lot of merit.
https://www.susqu.edu/admission-and-aid/tuition-and-financial-aid/net-price-calculator
You need to focus on the local scholarships - they will apply to whatever school she attends. Contact the financial aid offices at the schools she’s considering, and ask them how they will treat them - if part of her aid package includes loans or work study, the scholarships might replace those first.
Why do I suggest local scholarships? Because I sat on the committee for those offered by our Music Parents Association - we offered 4 scholarships each year, for members of our band, chorus, orchestra, and color guard. With 100 band members, we always had applications, same with Chorus, but they were not always the students we would expect. About half the time nobody applied for orchestra or color guard, even though we knew there were eligible students. They were small scholarship $500-1000, but every penny counts! Some may be primarily for demographic groups that don’t apply, but sometimes that’s just a preference - the music scholarships required participation, but there are many scholarships in our town targeted at Italian-American students. If nobody fits that bill, they look at the other applicants. Again, sometime nobody applies because the “other” students think they have no chance. But if they had been the only applicant…
This student does not have any need based aid…at all. Her FAFSA EFC exceeds the cost of attendance at all of her schools.
So…there is no need based aid to be reduced by outside scholarships.
@mommdc Just ran the NPC for Susq. - Came back saying 32K in merit award. Which would put the cost of attendance at 33K, which is about 2K cheaper than what was offered by Seton Hall and Binghamton, so in a similar ballpark. I think the reality is that for a kid, who has 1300 SAT and has taken AP classes and has a 3.5 weighted average, seems all places sort of come to a similar merit conclusion
All the more reason to apply for outside scholarships, as they will add to any merit based aid