Last Friday I was accepted to my absolute top choice, Pomona College. Despite stating to demonstrate 100 percent financial need, their financial aid package is WAY more than my parents could afford. We are in the process of appealing the award (my father lost his job last year so our 2015 income is much different) but most likely we will not receive as much money as we are hoping. We are looking at around 45k a year.
On the other hand, I was also accepted to NYU on Friday as an MLK scholar that would provide 45k per year along with other benefits. Although it seems like going to NYU is the obvious answer, I wanted to hear other peopleâs thoughts. Pomona is seriously an amazing school with top notch education (majoring in polisci), and NYU is way less highly regarded and Iâve heard pretty awful things about the classes/professors/student life.
Quite honestly, Iâm finding it so difficult to even considering turning down Pomona. It hurts me to know that such an awesome school (with awesome people in it!) found me worthy enough to attend their institution but I just canât afford it.
What do I do??? Advice/honest comments please
Appeal the award â tell them you have a better offer from a competing institution, but that Pomona is your top choice. Congrats by the way on two great admits and the MLK scholarship! New York is a fun city, just saying!
If your family situation has changed (lost job), then you should definitely appeal the award. Good luck!
Hereâs some info from the college itself:
https://www.pomona.edu/financial-aid/policies
Requesting a Reconsideration
Sometimes things change. You may always appeal to the Financial Aid Committee for a reconsideration of your award decision if your family experiences a significant change in circumstances. We meet on a regular basis throughout the year to discuss appeals for more aid.
If you have new information to bring to our attention, you should contact us or submit a Request for Reconsideration form [PDF] to request a review of your award decision. It is usually best to speak directly with a financial aid officer first, and then follow up with a detailed letter of explanation and any supporting documents as instructed by the officer.
NYU is a great school so you shouldnât be disappointed to go there because you didnât theoretically get a scholarship! Itâs worth a shot to appeal, but I do think NYU is the better option considering its affordability. Good luck and congrats on your acceptances!
NYU is an amazing school and MLK scholars is a truly fantastic program that youâd be crazy to turn down. Like people would kill for the opportunity youâve been given. On top of that, the political science program is ridiculously good at NYU, and you will have so many more opportunities in New York City that in suburban southern California.
As for whatever bad things youâve heard, there are going to be bad classes, professors, and experiences at LITERALLY ANY COLLEGE. For the most part the classes at NYU are interesting and educational, the professors are top-notch and experts in their field, and student life will be what you make of it. But there are so many student organizations youâll find more than youâre interested in than youâll ever be able to join. As for your statement, âand NYU is way less highly regarded,â Iâm not sure where youâve heard that from, but NYU will open so many more doors for you than Pomona. It is regarded very highly in most circles, and you would lucky to receive a degree from an institution of such a high caliber.
Personally I think itâs ridiculous this is even a question, but I understand your reluctance to give up an unaffordable school that youâve dreamed of attending. Thatâs actually what NYU is for many people. I donât mean for any of this to sound harsh, but coming from someone who has dreamed of going to NYU for as long as she can remember, giving up the opportunity youâve been given seems unbelievable.
âIâm not sure where youâve heard that from, but NYU will open so many more doors for you than Pomona. It is regarded very highly in most circles, and you would lucky to receive a degree from an institution of such a high caliber.â
Sorry, @getaclucy, but no. It is not true that NYU will open more doors than Pomona. Pomona is a top 5 LAC that kids turn down Ivy League school for. It is a top 15 feeder school for graduate, law, med, and professional schools, and NYU doesnât make the top 50 (https://hubpages.com/education/Wall-Street-Journal-College-Rankings-The-Full-List-and-Rating-Criteria). NYU is not even considered a top 30 undergrad university. Pomonaâs endowment per student is much larger than NYU (20x higher!), they have much more funding for research/internships/etc, the class size is smaller, the student body is more accomplished, the professors are there to teach undergrads, there is a much more cohesive and residential vibe than NYU, and the whole 5 college consortium means that itâs not just going to a tiny LAC vs. a research university, itâs going to a LAC with a much better social life/resources than just about any other LAC out there. The big push to NYU is its NYC location, but Pomona is in the heart of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, and there are ample opportunities to go out.
I really donât think you should try to talk about a school you donât know much, if anything, about. NYU is a great institution, but it is a very different one from Pomona. Am I suggesting itâs worth attending Pomona over NYUâs great merit aid scholarship? No. Thatâs a subjective point. If the situation doesnât change, Iâd probably go with NYU myself. But there is no question that Pomona is one of the best undergraduate experiences in the nation, and much more resourced on a per capita basis than NYU.
@nostalgicwisdom Your entire post sums up exactly my dilemma! Honestly, the location of BOTH schools are incredibly appealing to me. I love the personal and tight-knit community that Pomona offers, but I also love the excitement of living in NYC. Which is why it comes down ultimately to the money and the academics. Pomona wins academics but NYU wins the money (for now).
Actually, Iâm rereading @getaclucy post, and I think theyâve got Pomona College confused with Cal Poly Pomona. 2 great institutions that couldnât be more different from each other.
@nostalgicwisdom okay wow I did not talk about Pomona but rather why I believed NYU was a better choice. Sorry if you were somehow offended by something that was clearly not meant to be offensive clearly not meant for you. By opening more doors I meant the alumni network is significantly larger and being in NYC makes major internships more feasible during the school year. Clearly you are very pro-Pomona and I never stated that Pomona was a bad school. I just believe that with the info the poster has given NYU is a better choice.
Says the one with the massive NYU bias lol. I would never say Pomona is always better than NYU, but youâre the one who canât comprehend Pomona over NYU. So Iâm not going to bother arguing with you.
I would call Pomonaâs Admission/Financial Aid Office and explain the circumstances.
Pomona is your #1 and you want to commit. However, your father just lost his job, which reduced household income to $45k/year. Given these circumstances and the need for economic stability, Iâd tell Pomona that youâd appreciate a reconsideration. Also, itâs not a bad thing to bring up how much cheaper NYU will beââPomonaâs already admitted you and they have a huge endowment, so the last thing they want to do (assuming theyâre rational, which I bet they are) is admit someone and then have that person choose a different institution based solely on cost of attendance.
@getaclucy NYU is not a bad school but you really cant compare an 8.2% acceptance rate Pomona College with a 30% rate NYU. Pomona is regularly chosen by kids over Ivies. Its not close. Forbes ranks Pomona 7 and NYU 77 in its consolidated ranking.
@ramennoobles appeal to get your FA increased. If the difference is narrow enough, choose Pomona. However, if the difference is too much, despite knowing that Pomona is more prestigious, I would still recommend NYU - education is too expensive these days as it is - at some price differential, you have to go with the value proposition.
I am curious if you ran the NPC for Pomona and how the number it spit out compares with the FA they offered? If it iis different, you could also use that to ask for more money.
Appeal. They will probably not fully match because NYU is a notch or 2 below in terms of these ârankingsâ but their financial aid office is pretty good. My daughter graduated a few years ago and the did right by me. If you can send her to Pomona. I had the same predicament and a student at NYU recommended my daughter go to pomona, not nyu.
@HRSMom@mamom@jqueens@nostalgicwisdom Thank you all for your comments! Interestingly enough, the NPC actually spit out a lower EFC than Pomona actually gave me. Iâm happy to say that they reconsidered my aid, and it will now be even more inexpensive than attending both NYU and UCB! Pomona is amazing with financial aid, and they lowered it down by almost 27k. Thanks for everyoneâs help!
Pomona is a great college, which is why I find the defensiveness of so many posts rather inexplicable. Admit rates do not correlate with how good an education you will receive, or the quality of teaching. They actually say very little as you need to know more about the quality of applicants (and the criteria being applied in assessing them) to make any sense of this information.
Defensiveness is usually a sign of insecurity, as is putting down another university. Is Harvard really the âbest university in the worldâ because of its very low admit rate and massive endowment? I suppose the one thing going for Harvard is that its student rarely feel the need to be defensive.
If you like Pomona and feel that you have received an excellent education there, that should be enough. Trying to prove this with statistics is a fools errand.
