<p>" Colleges that request commitments to offers of admission and/</p>
<p>or financial assistance prior to May 1 must clearly offer you the</p>
<p>opportunity to request (in writing) an extension until May 1. They</p>
<p>must grant you this extension and your request may not jeopardize</p>
<p>your status for admission and/or financial aid."</p>
<p>One of my son's schools is basically telling him he needs to decide now about a scholarship-type program or he could lose it. I am having him write a letter to the college asking for an extension. What should he say and who should he direct it to? The college itself? The scholarship program? </p>
<p>They did not offer the opportunity to request an extension but did say, in effect, the offer stands as long as they have room (which we took to mean, if they get all the spots filled, the offer is off the table).</p>
<p>I think the fact remains there are X number of dollars in a pot and a school typically extends offers beyond that, factoring in yield from previous years. You can ask for an extension but I would suspect your admission offer can be extended but to “force” an extension on valuable scholarship dollars is not a given. When the pot is dry, the pot is dry. It is possible that there are other students, with the same offer in hand that jump on the chance because it is right for them at the time. It does not undercut your child’s desire to weigh the options, but the saying, “the early bird gets the worm” is fitting.</p>
<p>And from the wording above, I would suspect they are referring to government aid, (Pell, etc) and that private scholarships can set their own guidelines.</p>
<p>Scholarships programs are not the same as financial aid. I would go back to the paperwork you have on this scholarship and see what their decision deadline is. It could be quite different then the Federal Financial Aid deadline you are quoting.</p>
<p>They are putting him in a very difficult position, to accept the scholarship when he hasn’t even heard from other schools yet on admissions. It may be that they would like to offer the scholarship to others if he declines it. I know what I would advise my child - accept and you can change your mind later. If he is sure he would not attend - decline. If he is on the fence and they won’t grant an extension - accept.</p>
<p>He cannot accept because it will be binding.</p>
<p>It is a scholars program. He was one of 54 finalists and they want him as a scholar but he simply cannot make the decision right now. </p>
<p>As of now, he understands he could lose out on this full ride “plus” program, but it’s simply too difficult to decide that quickly. (They called him 3 days after finalist weekend)</p>
<p>So, writing a letter I guess wouldn’t help.</p>
<p>It <em>is</em> a difficult situation. He and I loved our time there and he is very seriously considering it. How many colleges can one attend and earn money while doing so, <em>and</em> have all sorts of extras? </p>
<p>OTOH, he was accepted into his SCEA college with extremely generous financial aid (because of our income). We would still be covering about 6K a year between he and we, his parents, but we feel that’s doable.</p>
<p>He’s also waiting to hear from 2-3 other schools that could be contenders. He feels he would like to visit at least 1-2 other school before making the decision.</p>
<p>I understand there were probably a lot of finalists who would take the offer in a heartbeat. We did not meet any other finalist who had an offer like my son does, though. Also, there were finalists who were locals and this particular program selects at least 50% of the finalists locally.</p>
<p>It’s so difficult to say no for my son, but he felt he truly needed some more weeks to decide. I want to support him and help him not to feel guilty for making this decision. My husband isn’t necessarily helping by trying to get him to go to this college. Sigh.</p>
<p>I do not believe the association recommendations are binding, however, many colleges are forgiving if you can’t make a decision. The best thing to do is to ask. Remind your son of the reasons why he applied to this college…that might help him make a decision. Also make sure in your hearts and wallets you understand what you could potentially be losing (if they won’t grant an extension) or turning down. Lots of kids get wishy washy this time of year when they have to make decisions, but ultimately it is the wallet that may dictate the final decision.</p>
<p>What I mean by binding is: if he says yes to the scholars program, they will mail him a commitment form that he signs and sends back. At that time, he will commit to the program and I assume (I think the director said) it’s binding. He’ll withdraw from all other colleges at that point.</p>
<p>We’re homeschoolers so I’m the GC. I did speak with a private counselor and she agreed that my son should write a letter. I guess it should be sent to the program within the school and not admissions since admissions isn’t asking my son to make a decision; it’s only for the specific program.</p>
<p>They’ve been really nice, they really have. I just don’t want my son to lose the opportunity because he couldn’t make a decision that quickly. I don’t think he’s wishy-washy. There’s a lot to weigh at each school.</p>
<p>My son said there were a lot of great things about the school and the offer. I honestly don’t know how he’d feel without this offer. He still would have a full ride almost without the offer if he named them first choice for national merit. So, that’s certainly still a possibility.</p>
<p>You might CC admissions on the letter. What is the deadline date they are giving you? Does it have to be postmarked by a certain date, in the mail or received?</p>
<p>And I might also call admissions or have him call and ask about the deadline date. See what they say, how hard and fast is it…</p>
<p>Kat
ps I realize it is a specific program asking for this but admissions is admissions, call them and ask</p>
<p>I didn’t read all the replies so I don’t know if this has been suggested. You can try this from another angle. I know some schools say that if you were offered a financial or acceptance opportunity elsewhere which requires an early reply deadline, they’ll do an " early read" on your app and tell you if you’re likely to get in or not. So instead of asking the people who offered the scholarship for an extension, ask the schools your son would choose over this scholarship if they could give him an early read. Many schools, including a few Ivies, say they will do this if you have proof that the other party has a reply deadline before their decisions come out.</p>
<p>That’s a great advice, born2dance. Sbjdorlo, your son seems like a very capable young man and Im sure he will thrive wherever he chooses. I must say you are extremely lucky that you don’t have restrictions of applications. Two of my kids graduated/or are attending NYC private schools - we have a rule that if a kid applies to an EA/SCEA/ED school they may not apply to any other school, unless it’s rolling. And if they got into an EA/SCEA school, they may then only apply to two other schools, and actually my son’s school just made a rule that if you apply to a SCEA school and get in, that is it. Thus there are not many options to choose from, if you are successful.</p>
<p>Are you saying your kids’ high school limits how many colleges they can apply to??? Whoa! I’ve never heard of that. What could possibly be the reasoning? I don’t understand what say a high school has in how many school a kid applies to.</p>
<p>What if a kid applies to a school SCEA, gets in, gets an initial f. aid offer, figures out that they can’t afford it, and decides to look for better deals? I mean, good grief, finances have to be a consideration and until final financial aid numbers are in, how can a person know if it’s affordable? We got an initial f. aid offer from the SCEA school but that was before we filed taxes and filled out FAFSA, etc. Once we get the final offer, then we’ll be in a better position to know exactly what we’re dealing with.</p>
<p>Guess I’m doubly grateful that we privately homeschool in California; we definitely have more autonomy.</p>
<p>mhmm – that’s outrageous! EA means that the college imposes no restrictions on where else the applicant applies. So how does the HS justify imposing restrictions?</p>
<p>The HS’s rationale is that no one is served by kids applying to that many colleges. You get over 30k students applying to the same 15 colleges - they are more or less the same 30K students. It only serves the colleges and their race for ranking numbers. They argue that the colleges, when they see kids applying from the schools that have these agreements, know that they are the kid’s first choice, more or less. In terms of fin. aid - if you’re looking at schools that don’t give merit aid, the $ number will be more or less the same, since it’s based on financials. They give you an option of 2 other applications if you are admitted to your EA, plus rolling, so generally you are able to get your state and a well known merit school in. Also, they do not have to do ED/EA/SCEA. We can wait for the RD round and look at the choices then. This is the reality for kids going to top privates in Manhattan.
In terms of the comment of getting in SCEA and not liking the fin. aid offer - there are only so many SCEA schools, you know what they are, each has a calculator on their site, you pretty much know how much you will get from them. This is where you make a decision of whether to apply early or not.</p>
I did speak with a private counselor and she agreed that my son should write a letter. I guess it should be sent to the program within the school and not admissions since admissions isn’t asking my son to make a decision; it’s only for the specific program.</p>