<p>How do you all manage the application fees if your child is applying to a lot of schools? My son will probably have 4 waivers and my sister will help pay a little but we're still looking at around $450. Ouch.</p>
<p>It’s not just the application fees. There’s a fee for sending the test scores, and there’s a fee for sending the CSS Profile. Of course S’s highest ACT composite score is not the test where he took writing, so we need to send 2 scores. It can really add up!</p>
<p>We make just too much to qualify for a waiver, but low enough that we are going for need based aid. I told S in August we needed to spread out the apps over Oct, Nov, & Dec to make it work.</p>
<p>college_query is right, application fees are only the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<p>If your child is applying to a rolling admissions public school, you may need a couple of hundred $ for a room deposit to hold a space in the dorms. </p>
<p>Even students who may be eligible for fee waivers for application fees, may not necessarily be eligible for college board fee waivers.</p>
<p>Yes, it adds up very quickly. </p>
<p>My way of having D to have skin in the game and to remind her that it wasn’t a free process was that she had to work the summer before application season, and she had a part time job senior year. She paid half of the fees, and I paid the other half.</p>
<p>Is there any way you can get the number of schools down? That would be the easiest solution. Maybe a little further research or a visit or two could help narrow the choices.</p>
<p>I think 4-5 is a nice number. We were short on money due to my husband’s stroke a couple of years ago: my youngest applied to two.</p>
<p>Have you visited the schools that you are applying to? Many colleges offer application waivers if you visit and some offer them after you contact them on-line. We set up a separate e-mail account for my son just for the college process. One that both of us could access and anytime either of us wanted to ask a college something, we would do it through that e-mail. He got several free application waivers.</p>
<p>Our kids did their own “limiting” for these fees. They didn’t apply to ten schools like so many students do these days. DD applied to five (really only wanted to apply to three and we should have let her). DS applied to seven but two were early applications with no fee.</p>
<p>The best way to limit the fees is apply to less schools…do the vetting before you apply.</p>
<p>Thumper, I agree about limiting applications so high fees are not a problem, but for many people (including us), we really needed to compare non-need based financial offers and many schools do not make that information very easy to find. A couple of colleges that were a very good fit, and looked like they would come through with merit aid, did not. This also had to do with how well the first semester turns out and any late SAT tests. My son applied in the early fall so not all the pieces were in place when he applied. Also, what he wanted to major in narrowed down and even changed quite a bit between application time and decision time.</p>
<p>Which fee waiver are you using?</p>
<p>SAT fee waiver</p>
<p>NACAC fee waiver <a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/feewaiver/Documents/ApplicationFeeWaiver.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/feewaiver/Documents/ApplicationFeeWaiver.pdf</a>
[FAQs</a> for Application Fee Waiver Form](<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/feewaiver/Pages/default.aspx]FAQs”>http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/feewaiver/Pages/default.aspx)
Your GC does NOT need to be a member of NACAC, they “recommend” no more than four but my 5 kiddos used many more than 4</p>
<p>Ventures Scholars- all their member institutions (200+) will waive application fees if you inlcude a copy of your certificate of being a Venture scholar…use this first and then SAT fee waiver and then NACAC fee waivers…should be able to have 20+ more app fee waived.</p>
<p>[Ventures</a> Scholars: About Us: Overview](<a href=“http://www.venturescholar.org/aboutus/index.html]Ventures”>http://www.venturescholar.org/aboutus/index.html)</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>The fee waivers are all individually based. One school is waiving because my son applied to a certain program. Two others said they would waive his fees if he applied by a certain date, I think. He’s being flown in to visit another school and I’m hoping that fee will be waived.</p>
<p>I would like to cut down the list but it’s really hard for a variety of reasons. I’d like nothing better than for him to be “one and done” but that’s not likely and he’s not really married to any school. Since a number of them are very selective, he needs several financial safeties beyond those.</p>
<p>Yes, I forgot about the other fees-SAT scores and community college transcripts! We’re definitely getting hit. Do you think any fees other than the deposit can come from a 529 account? My parents set up a small account for my son and I’ve been using it for his community college classes and textbooks.</p>
<p>Our income for a family of 5 is under 80K but over 70K, so we don’t qualify for “normal” waivers.</p>
<p>Have you checked each school’s website? DS has applied to 20 schools and onlyhad to pay for 3. All other schools waived the fee for online or CA applications. </p>
<p>Also, many schools will accept the SAT/ACT scores from the hs transcript for review. That will cut down on the cost as well. If child is denied, or you would then send only to the ones that are accepted. Not all schools will accept them this way, so check with the schools.</p>
<p>We don’t fall into that income category according to the NACAC’s website. No other schools have offered to waive fees at this point since all are highly selective schools that seem to base their waiver schedule on the NACACs eligibility.</p>
<p>My son will just have to pay for some of the application fees but why not? It might cause him to reconsider some of the schools on his list. :-)</p>
<p>400-500 dollars isn’t that much when you consider the possible costs of those ’ highly selective schools’ your child is applying to…heck,likely less then 1% of annual tuition…</p>
<p>If a family really needs to cut down on application fees, and they do not qualify for waivers, then they might want to consider reducing the number of colleges the student applies to. Yes, Kathie, in some situations students will apply to many more colleges than in the past (personally I think the ease of the Common Application has contributed to this). But if finances are a serious consideration during the application process…well…then some decisions need to be made then.</p>
<p>There is a limit to the number of waivers the College Board will grant, for example. </p>
<p>BUT I do agree with others…the amount you spend on sending these forms is a drop in the bucket compared to the potential acceptances and financial aid your child might net by casting a very broad net. BUT it does cost money to do so.</p>
<p>Yes, it is a bit expensive, but if you are hoping for merit scholarships, getting a $10K per year better scholarship from 1 or 2 of the 8 or so schools, willl make the $450 investment look pretty good,especially if your S attends there?</p>
<p>^I agree. Application fees are small investment compared to ability to compare FA or scholarship perks. </p>
<p>For us, the bigger hit was travel expenses. But it that was a good investment too, since it helped DS evolve on his priorities. We combined it with other trips as possible.</p>
<p>AP exams also cost a lot.</p>
<p>It costs a lot of money to educate kids.</p>
<p>True, glido. I guess I was naive in thinking that costs would incur during college rather than during the application process.</p>
<p>We’ve done ok in the travel expenses so far. Two schools have flown my son out, two schools I flew out with him on a really cheap flight and free lodging with friends. He’ll drive to several schools within a 3 hour radius and other schools he just won’t visit.</p>
<p>Sounds like you have it under control sbjdorlo. this summer i took my DD’12 and DS’14 on an eight-day college viewing trip. With the price of airfare, gas and hotles, it was not cheap. I brought our sophomore because there is a very real possibility we will not be able to afford to do it again next year.</p>
<p>Having said that, we view the expenses starting with the many, many educational trips we take the kids on in their first 18 years, plus all the books and all the summer activities and museums. We have spent a lot of money on gas and over priced food in museum cafeterias in the past 18 years. So, when I throw down another $60-$80 for a college app. I see it as another addition to the pile of money we have spend to try to prepare these kids to make it in this world. If I wanted to save money, I would have bought myself fancy cars and boats, etc.</p>