<p>Keep in mind that top day schools are often much harder to get into than top boarding schools. Many areas do not have nearly enough day school seats for the demand. Therefore, the top ones have no problem charging high fees.</p>
<p>principalviola, this is an agonizing choice for many middle-class parents. Even if you live in a good school district, many schools are threatened. If I Google "school budget cut," and choose to focus on news stories, I come up with 20,300 hits tonight. The public schools are not immune from economic troubles. If it were an easy choice, I don't think so many parents would be continually posting on CC, looking for some hope.</p>
<p>I agree with that. What I am saying is, most top day schools (the ones in "Boston" are in rich suburbs... Boston Latin may be an exception) are situated in zip codes with MEDIAN salaries above 80k. For example, Andover's zip code had a median of 87k. </p>
<p>Private schools in which the tuition is affordable without FA will have compromised their budget a lot. Also, I can tell you that the local day school which costs 17k a year has had to cut down a lot more than my public school. </p>
<p>It is agonizing, I agree; most good boarding schools have very generous FA packages.</p>
<p>Principalviola, I believe that NAIS has calculated that a family needs an income over 100,000 in order to not need financial aid for a single child attending private school. This article has more information, but it dates from 2003: NAIS</a> - About NAIS - Middle-Income Families and Aid Eligibility. </p>
<p>Many good day schools are near school systems with flagging or failing school systems. It's in that region that parents can see the need to "go private." </p>
<p>Public schools in Massachusetts allot a great portion of their budget to special needs. I congratulate your public school district, if they are not feeling the pinch. Boston Magazine ran a feature article in 2003 about the conditions in local high schools. Many of the towns are "affluent": What</a> Are We Doing to Our Kids? - Boston Magazine.</p>
<p>Many good boarding schools do have good financial aid offers, for students who qualify for financial aid. Most of the schools do not have merit aid, though, and middle class families don't qualify for need-based aid, on the whole.</p>
<p>Any helpful hints for trying to get additional financial aid? Received financial aid offers from 2 schools, but there was a large difference in the amount offered. Well, large for us--$10K. The easy answer is to just go to the school that offered more money--but it is not nearly as academically strong, much further away...numerous reasons why both parents and son prefer the school that offered less $$.. Will schools match offers?? How do you approach this with the school? Any lessons learned from your experiences are very much appreciated.</p>
<p>02hockeymom: My experience has been that if you want to request more financial aid, you need to appeal the award and provide additional financial information showing that you need additional funds. The schools that I have had contact with seem to get offended when you ask them to match awards from other schools, but that's just my experience. You should contact the financial aid director at the school of choice and ask him/her how to go about appealing the award.</p>
<p>Offended or not, they sure don't like you to ask for additional aid. I think you can appeal but be sure to give reasons why you need additional aid and not focus on another school's better offer (you should mention it of course). Just be prepared how you'll react if they say no.</p>
<p>so when the coach says that "FA is negotiable" he is just blowing smoke? Son is being "recruited" by the hockey coach, but I think got in on merit--89% SSAT, 4.3 GPA--not sure if any of that factors in unofficially to FA</p>
<p>Noone knows what the school will say- you might as well try for more money if you feel you need it. I don't think they'll be offended if you approach it nicely. If they say no just graciously thank them for their time and let them know you will get back to them with your decision.</p>
<p>I didn't mean they'd be offended by asking for more aid - they would be offended by the comparison of another school's offer. I've tried it with two schools (two kids), both were offended by mentioning aid from another school, one school gave additional aid, and one did not. Neither rescinded the original offer so you have nothing to lose by asking.</p>
<p>PhotoOp,
you got extra $$ at one--any idea why or how? I appreciate it--just got more info from the school and saw all the extra fees--wasn't expected that with tuition so high!!!</p>
<p>I did appeal an offer that much less than another school (and also left a "gap" between the Cost minus EFC.) The letter was as gracious as I could possibly make it; I think the worst thing to do is act like you deserve FA. They increased the FA significantly (maybe 10K, I can't remember) but did not match the first school's offer. In the end we went with school #1. </p>
<p>I think the FA people don't want a direct "match this offer" like you might do in other situations, but knowing that you have an acceptable alternative should give you the confidence to ask for more.</p>
<p>Be very very careful with your tone.</p>
<p>I agree with Grejuni, tone should be very positive, and thankful for the initial offer. </p>
<p>I just wrote to the financial aid director and asked to appeal the decision. I told him that the school was our daughter's first choice but that she had received better financial aid offers from two other schools. I included a breakdown of our monthly net income and expenses. The result was favorable and they ended up matching the two better offers. They weren't happy at all that I included a copy of one of the other school's offers so I wouldn't do that - I wouldn't even mention where the better offers were from, but personally I would probably mention that you received better offers from other schools. You need to do this well before the decision deadline, I wouldn't wait until afterward. The director submitted my request to the financial aid committee - it took a week or so for them to get back to me.</p>
<p>I was specifically told to NOT tell them what school or who much another offer was. That there is an informal "agreement" to not compete like that. In fact, one mom said she was told when she appealed at a "top" school to "stop talking" when she giving them info about other offers. She was told that that by simply saying they were their first choice and that you had a better offer was enough and you'd get the best the school could do at that point.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Principalviola, I believe that NAIS has calculated that a family needs an income over 100,000 in order to not need financial aid for a single child attending private school. This article has more information, but it dates from 2003: NAIS - About NAIS - Middle-Income Families and Aid Eligibility.
[/quote]
Those numbers from NAIS are from 2003 and are saying that a boarding school has $22,000 in costs, so obviously as the costs have gone up - about 2x since then - the income limits have as well. There is no way a family earning $100K can pay full tuition on income alone. The EFC takes into consideration assetts as well and most families that have a high EFC have significant assetts as well as income.</p>
<p>Does retirement savings (401K) count and make your EFC higher? Even though that money can't be used?</p>
<p>We do not have 401K here but we do have RRSPs which are similar. SSS told us that these do not count towards what you can afford but simply give an idea as to your situation.</p>
<p>Like you are in pretty good shape if you can afford to save money! (Sorry, feeling bitter)</p>