<p>Does everybody who’s got $50,000+ in grants have it as “Est Duke University Scholarship” or as abunch of separate grants?</p>
<p>mnbvc, you’ve gotta call and find out what went wrong.</p>
<p>They put my EFC at 36,000. Hah. It should be 8k. How they figured four times more than I can afford is beyonddd me. We just got off of the phone with them, they were super helpful, said they’d look over everything and call us back.</p>
<p>were we supposed to get an email telling us financial aid awards are out? I logged in and saw my awards, but they never sent me an email. Just a little worried something went wrong there, haha.</p>
<p>I can’t get mine to work…could it be because I didn’t submit the FAFSA or CSS? Not like I was expecting any aid anyways, but still.</p>
<p>i log in and it says down for routine maintenance…anyone else have this problem?</p>
<p>So my estimated EFC was 8k, and then when we sent in taxes it went up to 36k, which is COMPLETELY impossible. My dad has lost his job twice in the last year and a half and we’re severely in debt with our properties. When we called Duke, we spoke with my fin aid counselor and she said that it was correct. Her only suggestion to me was to appeal the fin aid in July if my dad is still unemployed, but I there is no way I can accept May 1 with such a low amount of money.
What should I do? I’m worried sick now, because if this is it, I don’t know how I’m going to afford anywhere.</p>
<p>Best financial Aid Ever!! Got everything paid for…$1000 a semester for Workstudy and thats it. Couldn’t be any better.</p>
<p>Can some of the people who got massive aid packages (those people who said they got like 40K and such) tell us a bit about their family income/number of parents’ dependents, etc.?</p>
<p>I’m expected to pay about 35K, which sucks because that’s about 1/3 of my family income, and I also have two brothers who are going into college right after me. . . it’s 12 years straight that my family is gonna be paying for college. . . I just want a more thorough look at some of the other aid packages. . .</p>
<p>I feel like there’s something wrong with my financial package as well. My EFC is 51k while my parents make under 120k! Does this expectation sound just a little absurd? Any tips as how to deal with Duke’s financial aid office?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about finaid, but ewong, that does seem a little off. Try calling the financial aid office and asking them to re-evaluate your package.</p>
<p>My family makes 12k a year with divorced parents and two siblings. We got basically all of it paid for…</p>
<p>Did ED admits get financial aid awards or estimates at the time they were accepted? And do any of you have numbskull parents like me who put significant funds under your (the student’s) own name? How did Duke treat those funds - do they treat them the same as parental assets or want 25% of them each year?</p>
<p>my parents are divorced and my mom makes 56k a year and my dad was unemployed for all of 2009. I believe he got around 9,000 in unemployment benefits. I got 54,000 in financial aid, 2000 of which in work study, 2000 in loans, and 50,000 in federal and duke grants. I have a 0 EFC and I have to pay 2,100 for my student contribution. I have one brother and my family has literally no assets. </p>
<p>BTW for everyone who has ridiculous EFCs compared to your family income, how much does your family have in assets. I know people who make 80,000/yr and have to pay 50,000/yr for school because they have hundreds of thousands in assets.</p>
<p>When I called about that, they were using our properties as assets, but apparently they have a way of evaluating the value of a property that isn’t necessarily the right value, so you might want to talk to them about that.
Also, they won’t take appeals until July regarding unemployment, which is a huge problem because my dad lost his job in November, so high taxes but now no income =/</p>
<p>Also interested – of those of you who got over $20K in grants, anyone have parent income over more than $100K? Another way of getting at my question: If family income is say around $140K with almost all non-retirement assets in home equity (i.e. primary residence, not investment properties or second homes), did anyone get a grant over $20K? Trying to get a handle on how Duke would handle that kind of situation. Hope you don’t mind my asking. Thx.</p>
<p>Has anyone tried negotiating aid? Is it even worth the phone call? I got nothing - just a 5500 loan per year…</p>
<p>^ it was like hitting a brick wall, … they have a LONG waitlist …</p>