This has probably been answered a whole lot of times, so my apologies if it’s redundant.
Son is applying to several colleges EA. When he hears if he’s accepted, will he also be likely to know any FA (merit / need-based)? Do the FA packages tend to come with EA letters or not?
College webpages don’t say. I figure there must be some typical answer.
Thanks!
This varies by college. In 2002, my son did three early applications (his were music programs with early audition dates). He got his financial aid award (merit in his case) with his acceptances to two of the schools, and not from the third. These were non-binding acceptances.
In 2005, DD applied EA to two schools and rolling admissions to one. She got her financial aid package to one school about a week after her acceptance. She a second package with her acceptance, and she got,the third package in February. All were a combination of merit and need based, and all were estimated packages based on either a priority filing of,the Profile, or a school form submitted at the time of the application.
So…this varies…by school.
Merit offers came to my daughter with or shortly after admissions decisions. Financial aid awards, or lack there of except loans in our case were posted on the Web portals in the spring and letters followed.
Last year, my daughter received merit awards at the time of acceptance but the official FA package (with need based aid) came after we submitted FAFSA. In our case, we did not qualify for need based aid so we knew our COA when D was accepted.
@SlackerMomMD, had you thought you’d qualify for need-based aid and then got surprised? (Since you submitted FAFSA.) Net price calculators generally show good aid for us, but of course I wonder how accurate that’ll be!
@MomOnALaptop we did not expect any need based aid either. We did the FAFSA so my daughter could take the unsubsidized loan if needed.
4 of my D’s EA acceptances have preliminary merit aid figures based on her GPA and ACT scores, but supplemental scholarship applications -OR- evaluation for larger competitive scholarships based on the initial app are still pending. So what we have are “at least” merit aid figures.
2 other EA’s should be automatic full OOS tuition based on NPC’s and Web information, but one acceptance is still outstanding and the other is still in the portal with no letter reaching us yet.
I just finished the CSS Profile for another school and it seems that need-based aid will not be in the picture. I’m not sure it could have been stacked onto merit aid anyway, so could be a moot point. Based on the app submission by the EA deadline and the CSS Profile by its own EA deadline, they state on the Web that a merit aid estimate is typically issued by mid-December.
If you are expecting a substantive amount of need-based aid, I believe that will have to wait until the FAFSA is completed (one school says they begin processing applications for need-based aid in mid-February), so any aid offered before that may not be representative, unless you submitted the CSS Profile and they base their need calculations completely on that.
No surprise by then. I wasn’t expecting any need based aid. I found the NPC to be very accurate for us. No divorce. No business. No second home.
I had run NPC’s for about forty schools before D finalized her list.
Of the schools D applied to EA, one gave a full (conditional on accuracy of provided info) package just after her acceptance in November, an early read from another, and two didn’t give her any FA info until March or April, along with everyone else. They all gave merit info with or shortly after acceptance, it was the need-based aid that took much longer with most of them.