<p>The instructions in this packet tell you to select the “Yes, I feel that I qualify for a fee waiver” box on the common app. But then you have to lie about the criteria and ask your counselor to lie too. I just called the College Board to ask about this, and was condescendingly told to be “honest” on the common app. </p>
<p>What a joke. They send out these unsolicited fee waivers that get families’ hopes up and then say we are dishonest if we follow THEIR instructions on how to use them. This is yet another example of how the College Board is evil, incompetent, or both.</p>
<p>It is frustrating! I emailed my son’s guidance counselor and was told to contact the individual college and ask what to do. I’d love someone who has used the waivers would share if the individual college supplements attached to the common App gave you a chance to answer yes. I also feel uncomfortable saying yes on the common App itself when I don’t meet the criteria they lay out ex…free lunch and such.</p>
<p>IIRC, even if you mail the fee waiver, it must be signed by a school official who must state that you are fee waiver eligible. The problem with the program is that the CB had originally designed the program for high achieving low income students. However, while they figured out who to target based on SAT scores, they did not vet the process to make sure that the students they sent the information out to were also low income, resulting in the CB send fee waivers to a lot of high scoring students who were not also low income.</p>
<p>Some of colleges have this question under their Question section on CA:</p>
<p>Do you intend to use one of these school-specific fee waivers?</p>
<p>Maybe this is the place to answer yes so that you can bypass answering the question in Common App while still being able to use the “Realize Your College Potential” fee waiver. However, I assume you still have to contact each college to make sure it accept this fee waiver.</p>
<p>The problem is not with the school accepting the fee waiver as pretty much all schools are going to accept the CB fee waiver, provided that you are fee waiver eligible.</p>
<p>sybbie719, some schools have their own fee waivers besides the one from CommonApp. That is why they have the question “Do you intend to use one of these school-specific fee waivers?” under the school section.</p>
<p>Asked my GC today and she said she’s going to consider it as a merit-based fee waiver and told me to go ahead and use it, even though I’m not low-income.
I even showed her the CA screen where I have to mark that I’m eligible for fee waivers, and she said to check mark it
So I sent my app to 4 schools today, and mailed the fee waivers
Luckily if anything goes wrong, there’s an option to change payment type </p>
<p>Just a question- if I mark that I qualify on the CA screen, will it limit me to not pay for the 8 schools? Or do I have to go around the system somehow- I don’t want to be dishonest and take more fee waivers than I have.</p>
<p>"IIRC, even if you mail the fee waiver, it must be signed by a school official who must state that you are fee waiver eligible. "</p>
<p>I’ve looked at my son’s specially numbered fee waiver itself- there is no spot for a school official, unless you mean -after the college receives it, an official at the college would have to ‘Sign off on it’. I have not used them yet because I am so conflicted. They would definitely help expand his college choices.</p>
<p>My daughter has been given fee waivers by several schools - Tufts, Northwestern and Oberlin. The only way to use these with the common app is to check “yes” when asked if you qualify for a fee waiver.
Her guidance counselor agrees with roxy481, my D was given these waivers to use by certain schools. There is no spot for a GC to sign these waivers. So far we have used 2 from the packet and 2 directly from the schools.
The answer quoted from the college board is not accurate, as many people here have received conflicting answers.<br>
Our family feels these schools WANT certain students to apply so they offered waivers, end of story. No worries here.</p>
<p>picktails: Did you go to your guidance counselor and show the packet, when I emailed the guidance counselor-she said she didn’t know and to call the individual schools. That didn’t really answer my question. Now I wonder if I should go to her in person with the packet and ask if she’ll support my son using them. If you check yes on the COmmon APp, does the GC have to do anything? OR Do you just follow up by mailing in the Fee Waiver directly to the College? WHAT TO DO??? THanks for all input.</p>
<p>There is a difference between waivers given directly by the school, and fee waivers given byNACAC, ACT and the college board. It is not unusual for a school to directly send a student a fee waiver. The school will indicate in their free fee waiver instructions on how the student should use the waiver; some will say apply directly through their site, or provide a link or a code for the student to use. </p>
<p>Hard copies of the NACAC, ACT and CB fee waivers will usually have a place for the signature of the GC/CEEB code if they have to be mailed in to the school (NACAC fee waivers must have the school seal in place). If you check yes on the common app, it goes to the GC, whose e-mail you placed on the common app and it has to be verified by the GC that the student is fee waiver eligible.</p>
<p>Where it gets sticky is that good GCs live and die based on having good relationships with colleges and being known as stand up people. If the veracity of a GC is called in to question over something as small as a fee waiver it leaves one to wonder what else are they being less than truthful about. My recommendation is to see the counselor, have the counselor call the regional rep for the college and ask how to proceed. then document, document, document. GC should follow up with an e-mail; this is pursuant to my conversation with Jane Smith, admissions rep at Joe and Willie College regarding the the CB fee waiver. As per your instructions I am doing A, B, C, D (and place a copy of the e-mail and response in the students college file).</p>
<p>mimioh5, did you check on each college’s Question section to see whether there is a question “Do you intend to use one of these school-specific fee waivers?” ? If so, I think you should contact the college to ask whether you can use “Realize Your College Potential” fee waiver form.</p>
<p>Sybbie your information is false. I am looking at the College Board fee waiver right now. It says “2013-14 OFFICIAL FEE WAIVER.” Underneath it says “WAIVER # xxxxxx.” Under that it says "FOR USE BY with my daughter’s full name and address. At the bottom it says “Please right the name of the college to which you are submitting this waiver below:”
That is the ENTIRE sheet - no mention of a GC signature.
The waivers directly from the schools also do not have a school signature or code requirement.
mimioh5 - I did not show the packet to the GC just described it to her. She said congratulations!</p>
<p>roxy481 - we do not qualify for fee waivers; our household income is over $100k a year.
However, my daughter is a URM with high scores, so she has been getting many waivers and even a phone call.<br>
I highly doubt any of these schools will protest her use of the wavers.</p>
<p>We also don’t qualify for fee waivers, no free lunch or any of the other criteria they mention. Did you check yes on the Common APP though to use the fee waivers? If Im being repetitive I apologize.</p>