In considering applying ED next Fall—while also needing financial aid—I have noticed that potential applicants can ask a school to do an “early read” on the financial aid component. What does the school provide in that instance? …a verbal reply in a sit-down or phone conversation? …something hand-written or an email? And has anyone (positively or negatively) experienced with this scenario? (i.e. with the school upholding or not that early read quote)? I’m looking for insight, knowledge, experience in this area. Thank you!
Whether or not a school will do a financial aid early read depends on school policy. Some schools will not do this, and those that do will handle it differently. You will have to check with each school that you are interested in to see what their policy is.
Yes, that makes sense. Still wondering about any personal experiences re: individual colleges.
Unless you want to hear some random experiences at colleges that you may not have heard of, you will need to provide a list of schools that you are interested in.
Pre reads are routinely done if a recruited athlete asks for one. I have heard they are fairly accurate. Have you tried the NPC?
This will depend on the school. Some schools have a blanket policy that FA pre reads will not be done, recruited athlete or not.
Yes, have tried NPC…too much nuance in our family situation for the NPC to be of any help. My brother went through this with RD (he’s a Junior at NU now). So we know there can be a range (understatement). I realize that schools have different criteria when calculating aid but even with all of the knowledge that our family has collected, it’s still a wild wild wild card. Anyone with FA early read experience with Vandy, Duke, Emory, JH, Penn, WashU?
(p.s. not applying as an athlete)
If your situation is too nuanced, it is highly unlikely that you are going to get a pre-read because you would have to submit all of the paperwork
You do realize that you can still have your chis appt ED and ask for an appeal if the award if you feel that the iackage is out of alignment with your family’s financial situation. You could send in all your documentation for a financial review.
Yes, I know but I worry that an appeal may not be successful. (My brother’s process illuminated fully the wildly different packages out there for the same student and same financials.) And the stats (shared here and elsewhere) on which colleges are more or less generous doesn’t really align with his experience or that of his friends. Anyway, thanks for the input everyone. If anyone has first-hand experience in this area, I would love to hear. Thank you.
Other people’s experience won’t help you unless a) it’s from the same college you are EDing, and b) they have the exact same financials as your family.
You can get out of an ED agreement if the financial aid is not sufficient. Do the NPC. If the actual turns out to be significantly less than the NPC, you’d have a case. If the NPC shows that your EFC would be too high for your comfort, but you are wondering if perhaps more will come through when you submit all the documentation, I wouldn’t chance it. Unless you do get an early read and you are satisfied with the results.
If you are really that concerned about financial aid, and need to really consider your net costs…why are you even considering applying ED?
If your family finances are unusual, then just apply RD, and have a lot of (hopefully) good offers to compare at the e d of the process.
Why ED?
You can always ED and if FA doesn’t come out to be enough for you to attend you get reject it, as painful as that may be after getting accepted. Its in the ED agreement letter.
We got a read from CMU. They offer it to everyone. A letter came in the mail that had a ridiculously high EFC. They also sent, separately, a nice glossy brochure about all the different ways we could get loans and how CMU was absolutely worth going into debt upto our eyeballs for.
At least it let me know not to waste my money on the application fee!
Just keep in mind…if you decide to go ED, you might miss the chance to apply to SOME schools in time to be considered for large merit awards. The deadline for these admission applications is usually before you will receive ED acceptances.
Check the provisions of ED schools to see exactly where you can apply when you ED at a specific school. There are restrictions at some places.
And again I say…why ED if you have significant financial constraints?