Today I was accepted into my dream school with a $32,000 over 4 years scholarship. I was also accepted to another school that offered my $92,000 over 4 years. My heart is really set on my dream school, and I was also accepted into their Honors College. What should I do? Just ask my dream school for a bigger scholarship?
Both schools are relatively the same price ($46,000-$48,000)
There is nothing wrong with telling dream school about the other offer and asking if they could revisit/reconsider the award.
How much more scholarship are you asking the dream school to give?
Which schools are these?
In another post you wrote:
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I live with my single mother. I have two younger siblings. My father doesn’t pay child support and my mother makes around $17,000/year. There is no way she can contribute almost anything for me to go to college especially with my brother also entering the year after me. Her credit is also pretty poor.
I have decent grades (93.000 average halfway through my junior year and has been steadily increasing ) and have been projected to score around an 1800 on the SAT. How much should I receive for financial aid and scholarships? I have always wanted to go to Boston University
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Did you get an aid pkg? or just merit offer?
Just a merit offer right now. The lower scholarship is from George Mason University, and the higher one is from Franklin Pierce University.
I am just asking for enough so that I am able to attend. It’s one of the lower offers that I have received.
Boston University requires information on both parents. See http://www.bu.edu/finaid/apply/special-circumstances/parents-not-married/
Any idea how much your dad makes? Is he remarried? Is your mom remarried?
My father only makes around $9,000 so that will still have me below $30,000. Although I am no longer planning on attending BU
Should I wait to find out about my need-based aid?
Without knowing what financial aid (not merit) you may get, hard to say.
Neither of them are remarried
It is the cost of attendance minus your awards that matters, not the size of the scholarship. So right now both schools are equal, but likely unaffordable. The higher award just offsets the higher tuition at a private school compared to Mason’s lower tuition. To be clear, you would like to go to Mason but Pierce offered you more money (but costs more, so costs the same) ? Are you in-state Virginia ? Do you qualify for special Va programs for low income students ?
You really need to know which school is going to come up with a lot of financial aid for you, unless your dad is willing to come up with a lot of money for you to attend (if he has good income, he may hurt your financial aid package at schools such at BU, but this will vary from one school to another).
So you have only 25% of the info so far, and this is an unaffordable tie.
Also dream school vs non-dream school … any school that you could attend, and these both qualify, should get at minimum a complete read of their website including your particular major and ideally a campus visit (if you have financial issues but are an attractive candidate they may pay for you to visit, but at minimum there should be an overnight visit or open house or something you would only need to pay transportation for). A dream could be bad clams with dinner or it could be a real dream and the 2nd choice could turn out to be better than you thought.
You are still waiting on a need-based offer from GMU? Yes. Wait. I’m surprised that did not come at the same time so that you could evaluate the entire package.
I have visited both schools, I spent a week at GMU this summer. I am out of state for both schools, and the COA is basically the same both places. My dad is willing to contribute what he can, but he makes even less than my mom. I haven’t received a need-based offer from either school.
It appears GMU does not consider FA awards for EA students, only merit. FA comes at the normal RD time. Not the best process.
Tuition at both schools is within $1,000 of each other.
Definitely not the best process. It makes it very hard to begin to decide where I want to go!
It looks like one is an OOS public, so not likely much other aid will be coming other than small bit of fed aid.
Run the NPC on each website and copy/paste the results here.
Did you turn in all the required need based aid paperwork yet?