My daughter has narrowed down her picks to three schools, all private. She has a 3.99 GPA and 35 ACT, National Merit commended, plus sports, music volunteering, etc. All three schools came back with about the same financial offer, which is still about 6K higher than our EFC. Since she is theoretically a desirable student, we would like to go back to at least 2 of them and see if we can do better. How does one do this? Do you contact FA, or admissions? Any advice on what we’d say? Thanks in advance.
I do not have any experience on this (high school senior here), but I heard that it is more effective if you send a nicely written letter saying that you have been offered more money from another college, or are considering a state school because it is cheaper
I think you need to be honest. If one of these schools is number ONE and your kiddo will attend…start there. Tell them that your daughter has this school as her top pick, and you are tying to make the finances work. But right now you are a little short. See what they do.
But if they give you the money, I think you should be prepared to take the offer.
Another thing…if this school does not meet full need…it is very possible that they won’t be able to do more.
Is this a Profile school also? If so…the institutional need based aid calculations would not be based on the FAFSA EFC.
Thank you. @thumper1 - what is a Profile school?
Some schools require the CSS Profile in addition to,the FAFSA as a financial aid application form.
Unless your student is attending University of Chicago…if you had to do,the FAFSA only, your college does NOT guarantee to meet your full need. This means that the $6000 gap you are seeing will likely not be filled…at least not completely.
Are these FAFSA only schools? If so, then these schools probably don’t promise to “meet need.”
If they’re CSS Profile schools, then your FAFSA EFC isn’t what they use.
I think they are CSS Profile, since we had to fill that out. In any case… She is on the fence between Carleton & St. Olaf. Their packages are very close, so getting a better deal from one would help her decide. It seems like when others have posted this question people say “can’t hurt to ask,” so I’m thinking we will do so. But I don’t know the best way to go about it. Admissions or FA office? Email, phone, in person? Do I mention the other school she is looking at? (They are 5 min apart and rivals - at least the students are. The colleges share some resources.)
I should mention - besides helping her to make a decision, the other reason we are hoping she can get a better financial package is that even the “efc” portion will be almost all loans for her, unfortunately. We’re in the same boat as many middle class families - we haven’t been able to set aside thousands of $ for each of our 4 kids while trying to afford life. 
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How much is your EFC?
If you’re expecting your kids to borrow the EFC, then why didn’t you have your high stats student apply to schools where she would have gotten HUGE merit…so huge that her remaining costs would have been a reasonable low debt amount? She can only borrow $5,500 as a freshman.
With an ACT 35, there are schools that would have given her free or near-free rides!
Are you planning on co-signing 4 kids’ worth of loans? That could be a ridiculous amount.
The director of admissions is the person to contact. What you need is a huge merit award.
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Here’s our “stats”: our son’s EFC was $18,000.I imagine it won’t change much with our daughter - maybe go down a little because we will have 2 in college (my son just finished freshman year). We have two more kids at home. We are hoping our daughter can attend school for about what my son is paying (borrowing) - about $18,000. We are middle class with very little to contribute to tuition, honestly.
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Oh good heavens.
I really see no point in the “why didn’t you…” type of response. I think it’s better to just look forward and see what can be done.
I’m wondering myself about St. Olaf. Go look at their FAQ on financial aid-- that will give you some clues on how to work with them. I mean, that’s assuming it’s St. Olaf you’re needing more money from. Otherwise I don’t now.
@choirsandstages Because:
A) there are other kids who could benefit from a better strategy.
B) she could take a gap year and apply to schools where she won’t be burdened with excessive debt.
She simply does not want to go far from home (University of Alabama or Mississippi, for instance) for personal reasons.
She applied to many other schools throughout the midwest and competed for full ride scholarships (Drake, for example, gives 6 full ride and 10 full tuition) but she did not win. At the other schools she applied to, most of their top awards are around 25K, which sounds great but still leaves you with 20K+ on your end, somehow. If there are other schools offering huge merit aid packages in the midwest I don’t know what they are. People report that certain schools “are generous,” but we haven’t seen the proof when they’ve sent financial packages.
Regarding a better strategy, I agree. There are personal reasons why we haven’t been able to sock away much for our kids’ college but I really thought she would do better as far as merit aid at some of the less selective private schools she applied to that were supposedly generous. Obviously state schools are cheaper but give very little as far as merit aid - a couple thousand maybe. Private schools give a lot more but tuition is in the 40K-60K range, so even if she gets a nice package (43K from one school) she is still not even at our EFC.
It looks as if you have no real leverage. If they are peer schools and one school gave you a much better package, you could have at least said that Carleton is her first choice, but St. Olaf is the more financially feasible option for our family (send in the St Olaf offer and hope that Carleton would reconsider and meet the St. Olaf package). If they are close to each other in price, one or both may tell you to walk and go with what you can afford (I have seen this play out too).
What you want to do is ask for a financial review. Has there been a change in your financial situation that you think the school needs to look at (and has not addressed)?
While you have 2 kids in college is your son also attending a similarly priced school? keep in mind that the School determines your EFC and what they fell that your family can afford to pay based on their income and assets.
Does your daughter have loans in her current FA package? If not, then she may need to borrow the $5500 federal loan (this would close the 6k gap). I understand that she may not want loans or you may not want her to have loans (because who ever really wants to borrow $$ if they don’t have to).
I did the research for my D regarding merit scholarships. Your child had a lot of options, and yes, there are schools in the midwest that offer full rides or close. I would recommend a gap year given this situation. I’d be happy to share a list of possibilities with you. $18k per year in loans is just too much. And will you qualify for that amount each year for each child? That seems unlikely.
@sybbie719 <<< Does your daughter have loans in her current FA package? If not, then she may need to borrow the $5500 federal loan (this would close the 6k gap). I understand that she may not want loans or you may not want her to have loans (because who ever really wants to borrow $$ if they don’t have to).>>>
that is only a small bit of the problem. the bigger problem is that the student ALSO has to borrow for all or nearly all of the EFC. The parents can’t pay much.
so, the EFC for two in college, is likely about $9-10k each…plus the gap.
Is Michigan State too far away? OOS Honors college invitees are awarded $15,000 annually and Honors College invitees who are awarded a Professorial Assistantship get a waiver to pay in-state tuition. They stack scholarship money, so you’d be looking at $7-8000 yr after scholarships. The PA also pays $2500/yr for two years and there may be other small, school-specific scholarships available for the asking. MSU is a rolling admissions school and I imagine FA is dispersed on a first-come basis. Still, some of the Merit awards must be turned down every year (my son almost turned his down to attend a different school) and might be available for someone else. It might be worth contacting the Honors College directly to ask. I can pass along direct contact information if you’re interested.
What were her instate public options? Would she have qualified for merit aid there? Is there an honors college?
@twincitiesjbj Congratulations to your daughter! It sounds like she’s a kid any college would want. I would just have her write a nice letter to the school of her choice and ask if they can give her any more grant aid. If you have any special circumstances in your family such as illness or disability of a parent, grandparent, or sibling, I would include that. Our friends asked for $15,000 more from Oberlin and Oberlin offered them $10,000. They might say no, but you won’t know unless you ask. I would think with your daughter’s stats, that St. Olaf would be offering her a massive merit scholarship. Our daughter also just found out she got into Carleton (her 1st choice) and the price tag after financial aid is way more than we can manage. She got huge merit aid at other schools not as highly ranked nor as good a fit for her as Carleton (Earlham and College of Wooster), so now for some soul searching and difficult decision making. Our DD2 is going to college next fall so the whole paying for college thing is a bit daunting.
Last year, after all the financial aid offers were in, I just called up my daughter’s first choice and told them what another college offered her and asked if they could match. I scanned them that other school’s financial aid/merit aid offer, which was about $5000 more than at her first choice. The college met met us about half way. Not bad for 10 minutes of work. However, I won’t have that leverage for sophmore year and I noticed that this additional grant has a name that I think translates in nonCollege speak to “extra money to increase our enrollment”.