<p>emilybee,</p>
<p>Of all of the potential “hooks” for admission, (URM. legacy, athlete) and potential advantages (geography, first gen, low-income, donor-status, etc), none guarantee admission. Whether paying full price is or is not an advantage for any given school is unknown, but the likelihood is enough that it has been discussed and written about by reputable sources.</p>
<p>So if you are planning on filing FAFSA, then you would mark “yes” on the application for the question about financial aid?</p>
<p>Emilybee - you are missing the point. It takes more than the willing to pay to get a student into a top tier school. When someone is talking about a hook, it means it’s something which would be a tip, not the deciding factor. College counselors at my kids’ private school advised parents not to apply for FA if they wanted their kid to get into their reach school, considering that’s how they make their money, I would tend to believe them over one data point. </p>
<p>No, I wouldn’t pay 50k+ for NYU.</p>
<p>Cross posted with Bay.</p>
<p>Still waiting for an opinion on marking “yes” or “no”.</p>
<p>I came across CC link from 2008 that parents are asking the same question. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/563745-what-level-income-should-you-forgo-fasfa.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/563745-what-level-income-should-you-forgo-fasfa.html</a></p>
<p>Lest anyone get the wrong idea about the sticker for NYU! </p>
<p>Tuition at NYU costs between $41,614 and $45,683 annually. Housing and meals (commonly known as “room and board”) average an additional $15,000 annually. The total cost of attendance at NYU - if one lives on campus, as most of our students do - can cost nearly $60,000 annually before financial aid. Roughly 70% of our students receive aid to help reduce the costs above. </p>
<p>[Financial</a> Aid](<a href=“Aid and Costs”>Aid and Costs)</p>
<p>Yet, my son got more money from his reachy reach school than all the others he applied to. </p>
<p>But whatever. I’m just glad I took the college financial adviser’s advice.</p>
<p>Lakemom - Not sure you want to make this decision based on anyone’s opinion here.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Is Syracuse admission need blind or need aware?</p></li>
<li><p>Does you kid want to go to Syracuse and optimize the chances of being admitted? </p></li>
<li><p>Are you willing to pay full sticker if the kid does get in if there is no merit money coming your way?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Then don’t flag it if there is any chance that the flag has a way to impact the school’s decision. It can definitely make a difference in a need aware school. Need blind is the one where none of us know what happens but speculate some decisions can swing towards full pay candidates all things being equal.</p>
<p>OTOH - If it was me and I qualify for FA, I would flag that as yes and have backups with the view that there is always another college out there with money to give.</p>
<p>Lakemom, you need to discuss with your spouse and perhaps a financial adviser. </p>
<p>However, Syracuse accepts 59.8% of all applicants so, imo, I doubt checking off FA will cause your child to be rejected. </p>
<p>I don’t know if Syracuse gives merit (and I have nothing against the U as I did graduate work at Maxwell as did my DH) but I would suspect most of their FA packages would be made up of loans more so than grants.</p>
<p>I’ll will have to do further research. Thanks for all your input!</p>
<p>You know, I love how some parents in various other threads act like applying to college should totally be done by their kids with no help from their parents. As if kids can track all this subtle stuff and track all the dates (Univ of Del needs the app in by Dec 1 if you want to be considered for merit money). </p>
<p>I’d love to know when they get the bills did they even think that they might have wanted to look over the application before their student hit “send”.</p>
<p>Lakemom,</p>
<p>We checked “no” on all of the supplements, yet my daughter received significant merit offers - named scholarships for four years at two non-need blind schools. Her other schools were need only. It is difficult to say, but my guess is that merit aid is used as a carrot at these schools without respect to need. As far as full-pay, I agree with most of the posters that it is only a hook at certain schools that have a difficult time filling their classes with qualified students.</p>
<p>"You know, I love how some parents in various other threads act like applying to college should totally be done by their kids with no help from their parents. As if kids can track all this subtle stuff and track all the dates (Univ of Del needs the app in by Dec 1 if you want to be considered for merit money). "</p>
<p>I totally agree. I’ve gotten my hand “slapped” by some clueless CC’ers who think all 17yr olds [especially males] can do it all, beyond looking for and applying to colleges that may be a good fit, including doing the research into merit awards / and understanding, all by themselves, the FA implications of applying to different colleges under different circumstances, as well as take ever increasingly harder classes in their Sr year, continuing their EC’s and having some sort of life outside the classroom. Sorry, but I wasn’t about to leave the potential of winning $160,000 in merit $$ on the table, cause I thought it would be better for DS to try to handle it ALL.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input Gourmetmom. I think that figuring out what schools might use FASFA in their merit calculation might be a worthy task. </p>
<p>And Menlopark mom (I used to live in MP BTW) I agree. There are so many details that if you aren’t a person with a head for that it would be easy to miss dates, forms and payments.</p>
<p>That was another added benefit of my son’s private school. DH and I literally had to do nothing but tour schools and fill out the FAFSA and CSS. Everything else was handled by the GC. All apps had to be into the GC by Nov 1st regardless of the schools deadline. ED apps had to be in office by Oct. 1st. Every app was proofed by the GC and kids hit the submit in GC office. We didn’t see son’s essays or supplements or any of the apps. We only gave him the info the app asked about us (where did we go to college, yrs, etc.) Kids also had to submit to GC in Sept. who they wanted to do their recommendation and GC made sure all recs were done before they were needed. This alone was worth the price of tuition, imo. </p>
<p>I also insisted DS schedule all tours and interviews and call the schools if he needed any questions answered.</p>
<p>That would never happen at our public school. But honestly emilybee, I love my son’s essay and reading his EC paragraph as well as what he is writing for the supplements. I wouldn’t want to miss reading all that as it has been years since he let me read his regular school work. </p>
<p>What I can’t figure out why all the schools don’t use the common ap and then just add a supplement that asks for as little extra info as they want. Usually it is what your major is and if a parent went to that school and 2 of my son’s schools say they accept the common app essay as their essay if you are using it. </p>
<p>Why do schools make more work for themselves?</p>
<p>Well, I know I would have started making suggestions and it would have deteriorated from there. 
</p>
<p>I didn’t find out until after he’d been accepted at all his schools that he wrote his essay in 15 minutes! It would have been a nagfest at our house if it was me bugging him to do his essay. </p>
<p>All his schools were Common Ap and the supplements were all of the Why X College variety.</p>
<p>" Well I know I would have started making suggestions and it would have deteriorated from there"… LOL!! EB… This is what happened at our house this weekend… I tried ever so gently to add a suggestion that he make his first sentence more exciting and it did NOT go over well. So glad he is also at a private school and he had to turn it in today for his GC to look it over. I do feel a little happy about the fact that your S did his essays in 15 minutes and was admited to schools… I think my S does MUCH better under pressure and I’m sure he will do his best work when the deadline is looming. I’m just a type A mom who wants all this done and over so he can start pushing submit… none of this can happen until those darn essays are done…</p>
<p>My S is lucky as he has very few supplemental essays that are that lengthy, and some that have none. Once he is done with the CA essay he will be basically almost done.</p>
<p>5boys, I did finally read it over this summer (unbeknownst to him) when I was organizing and throwing out all the getting into college stuff and stumbled upon it. It was one page typed and definitely in his voice. I would have wanted to suggest tons of changes if I had read it before the fact or fretted that every school would reject him because of his essay.</p>
<p>
Well some schools want a better idea of how you think that the Common Application essay(s) usually provides. My son had a great time writing an option piece for Tufts where they asked for an alternative history of the US as if we had lost at Lexington. My son researched headlines and letters and modified them for his version. It was a pretty impressive piece. I liked his “what I learned from origami” essay, but this really highlighted both his creativity, and his knowledge and love of history. His “Why Tufts” and “Why Chicago” essays were also I suspect different from the usual. </p>
<p>What really bugs me is how many supplements ask for the same information that is already on the Common Application main page.</p>