<p>OHMomof2: The NY Times article says the program is for low-income kids. DS is not a low-income kid. Our family is around the top 25% of family income. But he got the packet and eight fee waiver forms.</p>
<p>We’d love to use them if we’re eligible but am concerned that if we use them and DS was not supposed to do so, this could lead to later disqualification on admissions and financial aid.</p>
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<p>I hear you, I’d be worried about that too. I wonder how they came up with the list of kids to send waivers to.</p>
<p>These waivers are meant for any of 8 colleges on a lengthy list that includes many schools, but Common App is not together in any way- they will not take it if you do not regularly qualify for the NACAC and the other waivers. However, there was someone who posted a few pages back who said their counselor had figured a way around this, entering something in somewhere to indicate this fee waiver with no need. Otherwise, and I say this based off of 3 phone calls and 4 emails to college board and common app, everyone who does not meet financial criteria can screw themselves.</p>
<p>I received an email about receiving 8 fee waivers in a “realize your college potential” packet from collegeboard, but I never actually received it in the mail. I tried calling their customer service line, but the rep I was speaking to had no idea what I was talking about. I sent an email to collegeboard but they haven’t replied yet. </p>
<p>Is there any way to get these mail to me again? I could really use the 8 waivers.</p>
<p>^ If you actually qualify for fee waivers you can get them from CB and/or NACAC anytime by talking to your guidance counselor.</p>
<p>I called College Board today. The lady I spoke to told me that the fee waivers were part of a pilot program that the College Board is starting this year. She said that through the Common Application, you may only use the fee waivers if you qualify for financial aid (this must be verified by the counselor).</p>
<p>Last week, my son received an email from College Board. I copied and pasted most of it below:</p>
<p>Congrats on all your hard work as a high school student so far.
Because you performed well on the SAT®, we have mailed you a packet, “Realize Your College Potential,” that includes eight (8) college application fee waivers along with college planning information and resources.</p>
<p>I researched, and it appears legit. His scores are good (710 V, 600 M, and 650 W), and we are in VERY rural, WNC…so I am thinking that’s how he qualified - even though we do not meet the qualifications for Free & Reduced Lunch. </p>
<p>Anyway, we’ve yet to receive the vouchers. My son called to confirm that we had not received the fee waivers a week ago, and still no fee waivers.</p>
<p>He has applied to the 3 schools that he’d consider his top choices, but would CERTAINLY apply to more if we receive these waivers.</p>
<p>Have any of you had experience with this? Can I call directly and speak with them? They are so picky as to whom they’ll speak at College Board…thanks for any insight you can offer :). I appreciate it!</p>
<p>Tracy</p>
<p>Email the relevant colleges from the list directly. state that your son received this email -copy paste - due to the following scores, that you live in very rural wnc but have not received the actual vouchers : can he still apply and expect the application fee to be waived since otherwise you would not be able to apply ? odds are that the answer will be please apply indeed. :)</p>
<p>My D has also have received the College Board packet with the 8 fee waivers with the same opening letter. It seemed to imply it was because of her high scores. We would in no way financially qualify for any kind of waiver. But when we got them we were pleasantly suprised! How nice to save a little money on fee after fee…</p>
<p>When applying to our first school EA, we read and read all the info and it really implied that we could use these. On the Common App, we read and read all the instructions and eventually felt that answering “yes” to the “do we qualify for a waiver” question was what we were supposed to do. We submitted without paying and put the waiver in the mail to the school.</p>
<p>It then looked like our GC was supposed to submit a fee waiver support doc and I really started wondering if our submission method was the right thing to do. I called GC, she had never heard of these and asking if she could take a look at them. She put out some phone calls and has not gotten much of any answer. She is baffled as to why my D got them!</p>
<p>I then called the CB and the man said that we should not use them unless we can legitimately qualify for a fee waiver financially. I let him know what happened with our first submission and he was going to call me back as to what we should do to remedy that situation. That was yesterday and haven’t heard since. I may just call the school directly after Nov 1 and explain the situation. We have since submitted to D’s first choice ED and just paid for that as we were too nervous that it would affect app. </p>
<p>Still a bit confused as to whether we can use these waivers or not…but will check back here to see if anything pans out. Hope my info has helped and not just muddied the waters!</p>
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<p>How about calling the college? It seems a lot of people who don’t qualify for regular waivers got these, your call probably won’t be the first…</p>
<p>Yes, OHmomof2, I am going to call college directly today!</p>
<p>The question about waivers in the Common App mentions TEST fee waivers, and then lists the various reasons as listed in post #18. We usually don’t qualify, but clicked “yes” so as to use the CollegeBoard APPLICATION waivers, and it wouldn’t let us proceed to the payment page. When we changed the YES to a NO, it allowed us to proceed to the payment page, but the only options to pay were check, credit card, and international…no place to enter anything about a fee waiver. Anybody else have this situation?</p>
<p>All in all, an outrageously messed-up rollout of this program. You’d think someone from CollegeBoard would come on here and clarify this issue.</p>
<p>Hey just wondering, I just recieved 4 of these today, but why is everyone else getting 8? :(</p>
<p>My family makes <$40k and I have used waivers for the SAT and have free lunch. Did CollegeBoard go cheap on me?</p>
<p>The college board waivers are not the same as the “realize your potential” vouchers. The 8 vouchers can only be used at the colleges listed. The college board waivers (4) can be used anywhere.
I think the confusion is compounded by the mess that C4 is for the common app.</p>
<p>CB has a Facebook page - I see one or two questions about it. Maybe if you all ask they’ll notice?</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.facebook.com/thecollegeboard[/url]”>https://www.facebook.com/thecollegeboard</a></p>
<p>Anyone know what we should do? I’ll go to my school’s college counselor but I have a feeling shes going to tell me to call the CB and we know how effective that is.</p>
<p>I called College Board and a woman told me I was not going to get to use these fee waivers. Has anyone used them successfully?</p>
<p>I received the Realize Your Potential Fee Waivers as well. Tonight I was on a chat with Cornell University and asked them about these College Board Waivers. This is what he said:
" we do accept the College Board’s fee waivers regardless of financial need."
I took a screen shot of the chat and I will be checking with each school directly. It’s interesting to note the College Board instructions, say when you use the Institutional Application, and are asked to specify a type of fee waiver "please choose ‘Realize Your College Potential’ or “Other.” Wouldn’t that imply that these waivers are different than the general financial need fee waivers?</p>
<p>We just received the packet of 8 application fee waivers in Oregon today and we were so excited, and my son was really thrilled with potentially add 6-8 reach schools to his list. Then I though I would check it out on this forum, and now we are conflicted and confused about whether we can use them. We are a middle class moderate single income family with 1 in college and a Senior and Freshman in high school. We do not qualify as Free and Reduced Lunch or Low Income, but we are on a tight budget and were limiting how many schools our son can apply to. He was hoping to use these for some reach Engineering schools such as Duke, Cornell, CMU, Hopkins… Now we don’t know if he can. We will be watching this post. I will talk to his GC tomorrow and post what she says.</p>
<p>I was excited to get these in the mail. I talked to my counselor today because she has to confirm them through the Common App. I don’t qualify financially, so we called CB. They said that they mail these out but only those who qualify financially are able to use them. Pretty upset because no where in the Realizing Your College Potential package does it say anything about being financially eligible to use the fee waivers.</p>