<p>Books & Supplies $880.00<br>
Loan Fees $82.00<br>
Miscellaneous $2,738.00<br>
Room & Board $13,830.00<br>
Travel $830.00<br>
Tuition & Fees $36,882.00<br>
Total Budget $55,242 </p>
<p>Scholarship-Loyola, came up short. Too expensive to attend.</p>
<p>Concord, thats a killer package. I would die for something similar. I’m looking at private loans currently while I wait for an appeal. Congrats!</p>
<p>speaking of loans, am i misreading stuff or is federal loans’ interest rate really 6% : |</p>
<p>Collegebound, we’re a little better ($17,500 unmet), but in the same boat.</p>
<p>Met with a FA counsellor at the President’s Open House yesterday, who said don’t count on much if anything more on appeal, so we’re pretty disappointed.</p>
<p>We just don’t see any way to bridge the gap ourselves.</p>
<p>Does it seem that Fordham’s packages are consistenly less than others’? And does that in turn that there a disproportionatley more “full pay” students there?</p>
<p>I still don’t get how you can calculate an EFC, then design a FA package that doesn’t even come close to the unmet need. What’s the overall philosophy?</p>
<p>NYDadandMom: I agree, I think they were obviously going for more full-pay kids, which I guess makes sense, but still. And I like how on the online page, they list out all the different awards and how much they even say how much aid you’ll need to attend Fordham, and yet, the offer is nowhere close to it…</p>
<p>Folks – There is a great article at the home page of college confidential I suggest reading. It is an article in the NYTimes and it spent some time at a financial aid office understanding how they do what they do.</p>
<p>My take away…best qualified students are the ones who whose need will most likely be met. Few schools have the resources to meet all identified need (Ivies, Notre Dame are the few I know of), so for other schools, if you are not the top tier of their applicants, there is no assurance of all the need being met.</p>
<p>Schools “allocate” these dollars in ways that allows them to strengthen their applicant pool and unfortunately, that means not everyone’s needs are met in any year. This economy as modest impact to that philosophy the schools have adopted.</p>
<p>Getty59, that makes complete sense to me as the explanation (not that I like it).</p>
<p>Our daughter was a freshman last year, and had better stats – significantly better, but not by an order of magnitude.</p>
<p>The 8 schools to which she was accepted couldn’t wait to meet 100% of need.</p>
<p>This year, Loyola MD came very close to meeting our s’s need, while Fordham was 35% short. I expect that’s because he is a stronger than normal candidate there, but only an average candidate for Fordham.</p>
<p>Still, it’s a frustrating process. It’s the obverse of the “need blind” admission process – just because you’re good enough to get in does not mean that you’re worth supporting with enough financial aid to attend.</p>
<p>Having said that, the Fordham Financial Aid rep assured us that our son’s package was “one of the best” she’d seen, so either she was just blowing smoke, or there’s a fundamental disconnect in Fordham’s Financial Aid process.</p>
<p>Me too. I mean, I understand their reasoning, but like NYDADandMom, I don’t like it. I almost feel like I would have been better off if they had rejected me, because then I wouldn’t be in this situation. =[</p>
<p>That’s most likely true, but I think the majority of it depends on how much Fordham really wants you, EFC excluded. My EFC is 0, but my financial aid package was awesome, so I assume Fordham is willing to shower me with cash just so I would attend. It worked.</p>
<p>DS was offered a full tuition scholarship to Fordham. He decided on another top tier school that offered him everything (tuition, room and board, plus books).</p>
<p>I got what I asked for in grant/aid money and now I can sleep! They were very accomodating!Good luck to others who appealed.</p>
<p>Ditto here! Gave us most of what we needed (including work study) on reconsideration.</p>
<p>S will be going after all, and is thrilled!</p>
<p>Oh awesome! I’m glad to hear it. 
Hopefully it’s similar news for the rest of us waiting on appeals.</p>
<p>Just got a call from Fordham, they added work study to my D package for another $2800. Hooray…books and expense money covered! TAP came through with a tiny $500.00 but they said we might not get any. So final result…EFC 14,000 and unmet totals 19,000. Not bad…I’m feeling blessed! D is ecstatic as she’s responsible for half. </p>
<p>NYDadandMom and S…congrats on your package and to your son for being able to attend.</p>
<p>collegebound91…I hope you share good news with us soon!</p>
<p>Great News Do Work! Hope we hear the same from CollegeBound!</p>
<p>I was very very fortunate, Fordham revised my package and made it within arms reach for me and my family. The gap is manageable, albeit that I will have to most likely take out a loan if I don’t receive some outside scholarships. Our EFC is low, like 3 grand, and the unmet is about 19 aswell, but we are making it happen. My deposit was overnighted yesterday =] Good luck everyone with their appeal, and I’m glad I can attend Fordham. Go RAMS!</p>
<p>2009PantherPaw…I’m so happy it worked out for you too! It’s great to be able to attend your first choice. Now we are figuring out our loan options. We’ve been happy going through SalliMae, they make it easy. Congrats!</p>
<p>Got ours, and it was enough to make it work. I’m definitely going!</p>
<p>Well, I feel very fortunate for those whose appeals worked out. We have not been so fortunate after finally hearing back on our appeal due to special circumstances. Although I am in transition (ie out of work) due to the economy, and now will have two kids in college (daughter also getting no financial aid from her college), and my wife’s work hours (and therefore pay) are variable from week to week, Fordham has advised they cannot provide further aid to us, leaving our unmet need at $44K+. We documented the much more lucrative offers that we had from other colleges, and our current economic challenges, and the fact that we are still getting no financial aid from either of our kids colleges, but alas, our son wants very much to go to Fordham. Some challenging times ahead…</p>