<p>Hi, We submitted a request to Brown’s FA department to take another look at D’s package. This was done April 6th via fax. We still have not received a response. Today, we called to check the status and was told it was ‘out for review’. This seems like an extraordinarily long time to wait. We will be on campus tomorrow and asked if we could see a counselor at that time. It is ‘first come, first served’ and the counselor may not be able to give us any more information than the same ‘out for review’.
Our experience with another college of equal caliber’s FA department was that an appointment was made easily, the outcome of which was an immediate increase to D’s package.
Is the way Brown’s FA department runs an indication of how Brown operates in general?</p>
<p>My experience was walking in and having it immediately late out and fixed up for me.</p>
<p>Fax is probably the worst way, and ADOCH can be tough, but I was able to get in the office on ADOCH no problem. Just go early. Realize that a huge chunk of the people at ADOCH are going to have financial aid questions and there are only so many people in the office.</p>
<p>If we lived close to the university then faxing would be the worst way, but given that we are 1000 miles away the FA office advised us to fax. We confirmed a couple of days later that they did receive the fax.
Again, being so far away, I only hope that we are able to get in and see a FA counselor without spending all day waiting. *The concern we are having is how the two experiences between these schools is like night and day.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>All I can tell you is that other then ordering transcripts, I’ve always had an immediate response for anything I’ve ever done. If there were additional forms, faxing is fine, but I would have waited on the phone to speak to someone directly, personally, rather than send an appeal by fax.</p>
<p>Like I said, good luck the next two days-- I know for me, I spoke with an FA officer with my father the Tuesday before ADOCH (so tomorrow) for over an hour when I came here four years ago and had it all figured out on the spot. for the next four years.</p>
<p>When we visited Brown during ADOCH 2 years ago, there was a session for parents on financial aid. We went, and spoke to the director at the end. So that’s one option.</p>
<p>We also stopped by the financial aid office, and someone talked to us immediately. We weren’t appealing our package, though.</p>
<p>I imagine that given this economy, financial aid is flooded with appeals.</p>
<p>In general, I’ve found the Brown bureaucracy to be typical of large institutions. Sometimes things go amazingly well, like a well-oiled machine. Other times, I’ve felt like I’ve banged my head on the wall needlessly, and still didn’t get what I wanted. And that’s 30+ years of experience dealing with Brown.</p>
<p>faxed; within 2 days i think? 5k increase. not enough though… i still need to send the custodial waiver form</p>
<p>I faxed an FA appeal to Brown and after 10 days, when visiting the campus, went into the office and the officer could simply say it was being reviewed. The next day I got an e-mail with their new offer. However, wasn’t overtly impressed. I sent them 2 peer schools FA offers that were both offering 3500 less in part contribution than Brown, and Brown dropped my FA by 900 from their original offer. So I suppose it’s some, but no where near a match.</p>
<p>^ I think they don’t have the money to give, spunangle. Brown is hurtin’ for certain financially. I was at ADOCH with my sister yesterday and picked up a copy of the Brown Daily Herald (daily student newspaper). They had articles about cut backs on ADOCH and they are losing 30 athletic coaches whicih they wil not be able to replace. And the buildings are in bad shape compared to other school she has gone to over the past 2 weeks for accepted student days. We were at Brown last summer, and I frankly thought the place was very much run down since then. Just my observation.</p>
<p>The state of our facilities are no different than last year, and in fact better, from a student perspective. It’s also important to realize we’re hurting less than pretty much all of our peers because our yearly budget was made up of a smaller percentage of endowment earnings. Our endowment is at the same level it was essentially before the recent runaway earnings made on false investments by banks. Our yearly budget is staying essentialyl the same as it was this year for each year in the next five, so we’re slowing the pace of planned improvements and going to have to absorb some of those increased costs, but unlike some other peers we have no need to borrow 1bn dollars…</p>
<p>The BDH constantly has articles about issues at Brown because students have tremendous access to the decision making bodies that set spending priorities on campus so many of us are quite involved at an intimate level with the goings-on of our own school.</p>
<p>Gabba, I agree with you on the state of the buildings at Brown. I need to remember that some of the buildings are historic so they won’t be in the best repair. But I had to use some of the bathrooms in those buildings and was surprised at how bad they were. </p>
<p>We finally got to sit across the table with a Fin Aid officer. The adjustment to the aid package barely covered the cost of the trip there! As for the financial aid from Brown compared to others (JHU, Wash U, etc) their package is abysmal. I mean it isn’t even close! So dollar for dollar it can be hard to justify no matter how good the school may be perceived.</p>
<p>Appealed and they added $500 to my work study. Gee thanks. I get to work an extra 65 hours. </p>
<p>And I agree with the other posters on here that the insides of many of Brown’s buildings look like they lost the brooms and vacuum cleaners about 3 years ago. The inside of the Applied Math building looked like a haunted house, complete with cobwebs. Classic quote from the mother of a girl standing next to me at ADOCH: “Where is the money going?”</p>