Child wants to ED to Wellesley

Dear parents,
My daughter wants to ED to Wellesley. Wellesley says they give good grants and the average loan a student would have is 15,000. Sounds too good to be true .
Please share any information you might have about Wellesley in this context
Thanks

If you are concerned about financial cost, check with the financial aid office and see if they can give you a pre-read on what ind of FA your family might receive before she applies ED. Worth an ask.

Thank you… did not know that was possible

@coolmom101
Before you hit the ED button, i would strongly suggest you run the net price calculator for Wellesley using YOUR financials from 2018, and assets as of now.

While the average might be whatever, you may find that your actual aid is less. Need based aid awards are given based on each student’s financial need. Averages mean nothing!

Are you divorced? Do you own a business or are you self employed? Do you own real estate in addition to your primary residence? If NO to all three…the net price calculator should give you a decent estimate of potential aid at Wellesley.

I’m going to add…if you really have significant financial considerations, you might want to think twice about having your kid apply ED at all…as you will have no ability to compare net prices across multiple acceptances and aid packages.

Look for the Net Price Calculator on the Wellesley website. You can put your financial information into it, and it will give you an estimate of the financial aid. Make a copy of that information, so if her aid package is a lot less, you can ask them what happened.

Wellesley is a need-blind, meets-full-demonstrated-need college— in other words, it is one of the nation’s most generous colleges.

Run the net price calculator on the Wellesley website. IF their estimate of what you would pay looks affordable, your daughter can apply ED.

If she is accepted but the package is not adequate, you can try to negotiate it up (after all, they want their admitted students to attend!), and if you do not succeed, then she can turn down the ED admission and apply RD elsewhere instead. You are allowed to back out of ED for financial reasons.

As a parent of a child at a different college (Williams) that, like Wellesley, is one of the few colleges that are need-blind/meet-full-need, I have been so impressed with how well they take care of their kids with financial need. My son’s roommate, as well as many of his other friends, are so well supported— free textbooks, travel expenses and storage, music lessons, skiing lessons and rental equipment, special trips to explore careers… It is incredible.

When people say the top privates are expensive, they are paying attention only to the sticker price, not to the reality that they are steeply discounted for kids who need it. My son’s roommate said it was dramatically less expensive for him to go to Williams than it would have been to go to his state university, since the state university’s aid package was not nearly as good.

One other thought: because there is always the chance she will be deferred or rejected by Wellesley, as well as the additional chance that she will be accepted but you may decide the aid is inadequate, she should simultaneously apply to some other colleges with nonbinding early action plans or rolling admissions. Then, she will likely be admitted to one of them at the same time, and it will be less crushing to be unable to go to Wellesley.

ED is best pursued when you will be happy to attend the ED college, but when you keep an open mind and let yourself be excited by some other college options as well (just in case).

The week before my son heard back from his ED college, he got into another college early action. He spent the week excitedly reading about the college he had gotten into. While he was thrilled to get into his top choice ED, he would not have been devastated had he not.

Others I know did not apply to early action safeties, and were so anxious during the months between being deferred by their ED college and getting their first acceptance months later.

If you know you will be able to go to a four year college safety that you like reasonably well, then it is an easier wait until other acceptances arrive RD.

@TheGreyKing

There are more than just a few colleges that are need blind and meet full need for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It’s international students where there are only 5 schools that have this pledge.

This parent needs to do that net price calculator. They can also do the FAFSA in a couple of weeks and get that EFC number. They need to also keep in mind that Wellesley (like Williams) uses the CSS Profile in addition to the FAFSA, and the Profile looks at more of the finances than the FAFSA does.

We don’t know enough about this OP to advice if ED at Wellesley is a good idea…or not.

My D graduated from Wellesley. She had significant financial need and Wellesley met it (I cried when I saw the award letter). We later had some special circumstances and Wellesley adjusted their aid accordingly.

But definitely run the NPC and see what they predict you’ll receive. Because of our need and the results of the NPCs we ran, later when our S applied to colleges, we felt comfortable letting him apply ED to another meets full-need school (not Wellesley, obviously).

Among colleges that make this claim, FA generosity varies widely (see this older thread at http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1675058-meet-full-need-schools-can-vary-significantly-in-their-net-prices-p1.html ), so run Wellesley’s net price calculator (at https://www.wellesley.edu/sfs/yourcost ) rather than relying on this claim.

Wait a sec. Her chances aren’t all about generous aid. OP has said zip about how she matches what W wants. I wonder if parent and child have done that step. It’s not just stats and much more than what an applicant wants.

To be fair, the OP’s concern is about cost. So an NPC check before going further investigating the school is in order. If not affordable, then there is not point going further.

@lookingforward With all due respect, the OP was very specific with his/her question. It was not about chances, or fit. It was about historical patterns for financial aid. I, for one, believe in respecting posters’ abilities to ask questions they want answered, not questions we have decided they need answered.

A “pre-read” on financial aid ?

Please do not follow this suggestion. Just use the online net price calculator.

Yes, they should run the NPC, if they fit its constraints. Fine.

But after that task, ED decisions should be informed. OP did state ED, too.

Wellesley has less than 20% admission rate. The great financial aid is only available if you are an accepted student…with great financial need.

As an example. Family member who went there got a $10,000 grant. That left the family with $60,000 a year or so to pay out of pocket.

Need based aid is based in each individual student’s financial information. Forget the averages…they aren’t you.

Run the net price calculator.

While they may meet full demonstrated aid it looks like their packages may contain loans so they may meet need with loans.

@Dolemite

Wellesley meets full need. The only STUDENT financial aid loans are the federally funded direct loans.

Of course, if the net cost is still too high, the family can take Parent Plus or private loans…but that’s not student financial aid.

@thumper1 So that means they may include the $5500 Direct Loan in your package as part of meeting your needs?

Found this from 2018 so may not be entirely accurate:

Wellesley College
Aid is loan-free if your calculated family contribution is less than $7,000 and your parents earn less than $60,000. All other students qualifying for financial aid can expect to have a maximum of $15,200 in loans over four years.

@Dolemite

What you quote is correct. The max for all four years is $15,000 or so. So really if they divide the federally funded loan equally over four years, it would be roughly $4000 a year.

But I should add…the student can request and take the full $5500 Direct Loan as long as their other aid plus this loan doesn’t exceed the cost of attendance.

And just as a PSA to others the term ‘Meets Full Need’ is not the same at all schools that use it. There are schools that meet full need with NO loans involved (HYP, etc), some that use federally funded loans for some income levels like Wellesley, and those that also may include loans from the school in the package (UNC-CH).