My family income is too high to qualify for free lunch and SAT fee waivers or any government programs. However, because I am applying to so many colleges (20 ish), it can cost almost $2000 to apply to all these. We’re not poor, but not rich either and $2000 doesn’t come that easily. Is it possible I can check the last box: “my counselor can provide a qualifying statement”, to get a fee waiver even though I’m not poor?
Why are you applying to so many colleges? I think that the clear solution would be to narrow down your college list.
Fee waivers are for people who cannot afford to apply to any colleges at all. I have a friend living in a very low income household and 3 younger siblings, but she doesn’t even qualify for a fee waiver. Because of this, she’s only applied to 3 colleges, and she’s already breaking the bank. If she can’t get a fee waiver for those three colleges, then why should you be able to get one for 20 colleges?
If you can afford to pay $500-800 in application fees, then you should be perfectly fine after narrowing your list. Please don’t complain about finances if you’re going to waste hundreds of dollars applying to an unnecessary amount of schools. How many would realistically actually accept you, and how many of those would you ACTUALLY want to attend?
There is absolutely no reason at all to take on such an unnecessary financial burden. After all, you’re only going to enroll at one college.
Why should someone else pay for your excessive number of applications??
http://blog.prepscholar.com/colleges-with-no-application-fee
Apply to colleges that are “free to apply”. Many are absolutely outstanding (Carleton, Bryn Mawr…)
Bring this to your guidance counselor and see if s/he considers you qualify.
nacacnet.org/studentinfo/feewaiver/documents/applicationfeewaiver.pdf
For the CommonApp, bring some information to your counselor and ask to be considered for a fee waiver. Some top colleges will grant one up to 75K for a family of 4-5.
You can also contact colleges directly and ask for a fee waiver, stating your income and number of people in the family. They may, or may not, give you a fee waiver.
Or the OP could whittle down his college list to a manageable and affordable list!
Wayyyyy too many applications! If you have that many, you are either applying to a ton of reaches in the hopes that you will get into one, or you have failed to figure out where you actually have a chance at getting in. You should apply to maybe two safeties, four matches, and a few reaches. I think that is about right. there are a ton of threads and web pages on how to find match and safety schools. As for your reaches, do you really have the energy and time to do all the supplementary essays that go along with them? Furthermore, if you have 20 schools you want to apply to, you cant possibly have done research to know why you want to go to them all. You wil not be able to demonstrate to these colleges why they should accept you. If you are just going for a name, that is a mistake. Get rid of at least 8 of the colleges on your list for a start. Shame on your guidance counselor, who should have told you that is too many. Regarding expense, you have probably missed the boat, as at least two of the colleges my D has applied to offered fee waivers for applying by a certain date. Sorry to say, but applying to too many colleges isn’t a good reason to waive your fee.
The point of “my counselor can provide a qualifying statement” is for your counselor to provide evidence of hardships (e.g. job loss, death/illness in family, government aid) that isn’t reflected in your family income.