soooo I talked to the financial aid office at American aka my top choice, and they told me that it would be best for me to submit an appeal for more financial aid. this is because on my CSS profile, I messed up on the outside scholarship section, and I accidentally reported every scholarship I applied for rather than what I had actually been awarded. so basically au took an extra $25k out of my financial aid package bc I reported getting that much in outside scholarships when in reality I got nothing (lol). does anyone have any experience appealing for financial aid at this university? my college decision is basically riding on whether or not I get this extra money, and I wanna know what my chances are of it working out.
We have no idea of how this will work out. AU isn’t known to meet need, and likely they’ve already awarded much of what they can.
All you can do is submit the appeal.
Let this be a lesson-learned. Read questions carefully. It’s doubtful that the wording on css profile suggested that you should list scholarships that you’ve applied for but had not been awarded. There would be no reason for them to want that info.
Do you have other affordable choices?
I have experience with the AU Financial Aid and I’m sorry to say that it was not positive. We called Fin Aid because we were surprised that we received ZERO aid from AU when every other school offered us an award. While reviewing the app with the fin aid counselor, he said – each school can interpret the FAFSA how they choose meaning AU chooses to be frugal and not to offer as much money as other schools reviewing the FAFSA. I’m very disappointed. They application fee to AU was one of the most expensive and yet AU’s financial offers seems ridiculous compared to other schools. Feeling like AU only wants students who are able to pay in full to attend.
Don’t ask about chances here – submit the appeal to American ASAP – it is a one paragraph explanation – so get it DONE – so that you can get an answer before May 1st.
“Chances” don’t matter – either your award will be increased or it won’t, and the only way to find out is to submit that appeal. You could have done it already in the time it took you to post a question here.
I would say definitely try it out. You never know the result you might receive. I know someone who appealed and really wasn’t sure about it but received another 2k from the appeal.