Live with single parent, no contact with other parent (elaborated more in budget section below)
Intended Major(s) Psychology (psychology concentration at Brown). I hope to double major/concentrate in Environmental Studies, but did not indicate this on the application.
Took most rigorous classes offered at school (Honors, Pre-IB, IB)
College courses at local community colleges: 3 psychology classes, Intro to Sociology, Intro to Philosophy
Awards
Mock Trial regional awards (multiple years)
Science Olympiad state and regional awards (multiple years)
National Merit Commended
Chinese speech contest state awards (multiple years)
Extracurriculars
co-founder of volunteer club at school which fundraises to donate books to underprivileged local schools (3 years)
officer of a biology club at school (2 years)
paid local environmental internship, 1 of 6 selected
local sustainability program at animal sanctuary
Science Olympiad competitor since 7th grade
Science Olympiad volunteer coach at former middle school (3 years)
Mock Trial competitor (4 years)
Part-time job at pizza place, 4 hrs/week (since early 2023)
Part-time job as server, 4 hrs/week (since summer 2023)
paid summer school job as a teacher’s assistant (summer 2023)
Essays/LORs/Other
LOR from Chinese teacher
LOR from Enviro. Science teacher
LOR from counselor
Not sure how to rate the letters of rec or my personal statement.
Cost Constraints / Budget
Live with single parent and younger sibling. Parent makes around $145k, however when we completed the EFC calculator for Brown, it said EFC is $92k per year, which seems very high.
Parent still encouraged me to apply to Brown and said they will find a way to make it work if I am accepted. However I don’t want to place a large financial burden on them if I get accepted via ED. If the cost ends up being too high, I will be looking towards the UCs and CSUs if I’m able to, even though I know that ED is binding.
Schools
Brown University ED
Northeastern EA
Loyola Marymount EA
UCs: UCB, UC Davis, UCI, UCLA, UC Riverside, UCSD, UCSB
CSUs: San Diego State, Cal Poly SLO
Other schools I’m considering are Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Amherst, Boston University
ED is only binding if the financial aid offer makes the college affordable.
Did you submit the CSS?
Perhaps run the NPC on Brown again, making sure you didn’t make a mistake (an extra zero, a “.” that didn’t input…). A possibility is that your house is worth a lot, your parent owns a second home they rent or owns a farm.
If you like Brown, you may like Vassar or Connecticut college, perhaps Bryn Mawr?
Run the NPC there, too.
Dartmouth is extremely different from Brown (location, vibe…) why are you interested in it? (Not saying it’s impossible but trying to understand what makes then both a good fit).
You’re a great candidate for Brown and you definitely stand a decent chance but of course it’s impossible to know whether you’ll make the final cut among all other qualified applicants. Your odds are as good as possible for this type of school.
Northeastern is a match but same thing, acceptance rate makes it a reach.
LMU is a safety. Is it affordable?
I don’t see how you don’t get into SDSU and Cal Poly is pretty safe too for your stats and Psychology.
And you’ll definitely get into some UCs.
So the challenge is finding an ED2 college that wouldn’t cost you much more than the UCs for Brown!
Thank you for your response! I did submit the CSS to Brown. My parent does own a few real estate properties which I believe increased the EFC significantly as well.
I was initially interested in Dartmouth due to the strong enviro. sci program and the encouragement of double majoring there, however after doing more research I’m feeling more drawn to schools like Brown.
Regarding SDSU and Cal Poly, I didn’t realize how competitive/impacted the psych major is until after I submitted the application.
I will look into Vassar and Connecticut College, thank you for the suggestions!
You included the IB and College courses for the extra Honors points? Each college course gets a Honors point in the UC GPA calculation if transferable and the UC’s will look at all 3 UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped weighted and Weighted (uncapped).
Most UC’s use the Capped weighted GPA (maximum 8 Honors points) in their posted admit stats, but UCLA and UC Berkeley emphasize the Unweighted and Weighted Uncapped GPA’s.
You are a very qualified student based on all hard stats which is great news and a testament to all your hard work.
The bad news is that roughly half the kids (if not more) applying are similarly academically qualified. As you know Brown’s acceptance rate even in ED is far less than 50% meaning some great kids don’t get accepted.
The differentiation amongst these students are the “softer” aspects of the application like LORs, essays and personal statements. Hard to figure out what makes a candidate stand out but the cohesiveness of the students narrative, potential contribution to the Brown community, and your potential and desire to have “impact” post Brown seem to be very important.
Wishing you luck! FYI you should also be aware the Vassar and Brown are significantly more difficult acceptances for females versus males so please consider your likelihood of acceptances against this historically skewed result.
Lastly, my son went to Brown and I attended Vassar so please let me know if I can offer anything specific.
Don’t ED to Brown. It’s too late I’m sure - but they tell you there’s not an impactful lift and you don’t want to be bound.
The aid looks at more than just salary. I would undue the ED if I could - because for a psych degree which will be fine most anywhere, I would not want to burden my family.
If mom says it will work vs. make it work - it’s different - but make it work - i.e. it’ll be a burden i’ll overcome - not worth it at all when you have plenty of other opportunities.
While your test won’t count at the UCs and CSUs, hopefully you’ll get in.
An Amherst to BU are so different - do you know what you want in a school besides a big name? Dartmouth too.
With your stats, lots of schools would give you big merit - you could spend $20-$40K if you wanted too OOS (you talked about burden) - so something to think about.
I think you have the potential for any school - but will any school be best for your family? But congrats on your overall - which is fantastic - so job well done - and this can give your family flexibility if you need it.
Based on what you wrote, that’s the question I have.
Especially for psych and ES - not exactly two high outcome out of undergrad majors.
This is likely your issue WRT to your projected family contribution. Real estate equity for things other than your primary residence is considered an asset. So if these properties have value, that IS increasing your projected family contribution. AND if any of these are rental properties, the rents are considered income…which may not even have been reflected in your net price calculators.
At this point, just hang in there, and see what happens with your ED acceptance. If the school is not affordable, you will need to decline the admission should you receive one.
Is your other parent alive? If so, Brown and many other private schools will require both parents’ financial information for financial aid purposes (UCs and CSUs only require the custodial parent, which is the parent providing the greater amount of financial support).
I didn’t know that. Parents were never married and split up when I was in middle school. I have had no contact with them for the past few years, and they don’t contribute any financial/child support. On the CSS profile, I only filled out information for the parent I live with. Would they still require financial info from both parents?
In the second to last column of CSS Profile Participating Institutions and Programs , you can see if a college using the CSS Profile requires the non-custodial parent finances (but verify on the college web site or directly with the college, since sometimes this list has incorrect or out-of-date entries).
If the college does, you can ask for a waiver; the waiver form is https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/css-profile-waiver-request-non-custodial-parent.pdf . It is not necessarily the case that each college’s decision on the waiver request will be the same as with other colleges’ decisions. If you do not ask for a waiver from a college that requires the non-custodial parent finances, your financial aid application will be considered incomplete, and the college will not give financial aid.
I can’t chance you. I’ll just note that despite being a meets-need school, my daughters have found the NPC for Brown to be quite high compared to many of its peers. Certainly higher than most of the other ivy league schools, but also considerably higher than many of the liberal arts colleges that they considered (for example, Smith, Pomona, Haverford, Williams, Skidmore, Wesleyan, Bowdoin and so forth). All of those schools are affordable based on our family’s data while Brown does not seem to be. However, I really doubt it will make our budget even if she is admitted. So you might have better luck with the estimated cost at some of the other colleges that interest you. I don’t have any real estate though, and my guess is that your mother’s properties are one of the biggest variables raising the price for you. Presumably the other colleges will also take her real estate into account.
“July 2020: Per discussion with Matt Davis Fin Aid counselor at Brown, Brown uses 100% of equity, but encourages families to appeal. He mentioned that Brown can adjust the assessment rate on asset 2-5%, though the standard for home equity is 3.6% of home equity.”
Many similar institutions cap home equity at a multiplier of household income—most commonly 2x income, though 1.2x income is also common— and then use an assessment rate of 5%.
HOWEVER, Brown has excluded equity in the primary family residence as of 2022-23:
“The University will eliminate the consideration of a family’s home equity in their primary residence as an asset when calculating a student’s available financial resources.”
With this change, I don’t know why Brown’s NPC would be comparatively higher presently. It could be that their on-line NPC hasn’t been adjusted accordingly.
I have seen cases where FA offices admit that their NPCs provide inaccurate estimates based on home equity Mt. Holyoke is one such institution. Their NPC shows lower need-based aid numbers than what actual aid amounts would usually end up being.
You could run the Brown NPC with and without home equity entries to determine the sensitivity of their calcs to that.
I went and checked out Brown’s NPC. They don’t ask about the primary family residence there–they have removed that from the calculations. They do ask about other real estate holdings and assets.
I ran my numbers on Brown’s NPC and compared to two LACs that meet full need where I know the exact aid amounts and also know that the NPCs are very close to the actual figures, Brown is almost exactly in between them (the discrepancy between the two others is almost entirely attributable to one having a no-loan policy while the other doesn’t). [Here’s a tip also: if you are signed into a College Board account, it will grab the most recent NPC numbers you have filled in anywhere. If you want to run different sets of entries, you can also save the link and return to that, and then do the same as previously stated in terms of transferring that data to other NPCs]
I don’t know what might be causing the Brown NPC to be higher for you. I would think that the schools would treat non primary home real estate assets similarly.
for Brown!