<p>Hey! My apologies if I ended up posting in the wrong section - I’m new to the site so I’m not particularly sure where I should start.</p>
<p>I know that it may be a tad bit early for this thread, seeing as I’m a sophomore in Bulgaria, but I have a question that’s been plaguing my mind for several months now. My brother graduated Amherst College four years ago, and coincidentally enough Amherst just so happens to be my dream college. </p>
<p>I’m going to be applying ED for the class that graduates in '19. My main question is - does the fact that my brother graduated six years prior to my application make me a legacy, or do only parents count? Would it give me a bigger plus if he was considered one? Does anyone have any statistics on the acceptance rate of ED legacies in Amherst? </p>
<p>I could really appreciate if you helped me out, because my brother can’t seem to answer me either.</p>
<p>PS:
What happens if I apply ED and get accepted, but the financial aid offered isn’t enough? :/</p>
<p>Thanks so much in advance! :)</p>
<p>Amherst parent here…I distinctly remember at one of the family meetings ,administration made a point of stating that siblings are considered legacy. Best wishes</p>
<p>You can either negotiate for my more aid or you can back out of the contract.</p>
<p>You can use the Financial Aid Calculator on the Amherst site to get a pretty good estimate of what your expected contribution will be and what the college will provide. Knowing this, you can decide before sending the ED application whether you can or cannot afford it. If you are not sure, it is most ethical to apply RD. Yes, one can “get out of” the ED contract if one can prove that it is financially impossible, but since you can determine that ahead of time, applying ED and then backing out is taking away an ED spot that someone else could have had. As to your legacy question, I know that being a legacy (or good at a sport) helps in ED. I wish I did know what percentage of all of the ED admissions are legacy or athletes; I don’t know the answer to this. My son just got in ED but he is neither a legacy nor an athlete.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the fast and informative replies :o Honestly, I’m kind of relieved that I’m a legacy 
</p>
<p>jennieling, congratulations to your son! Thanks for the calculator tip as well, but I have a small question about it. My parents are divorced, and several years ago my mother just up and went somewhere abroad. We don’t really keep in contact. In this scenario, do I just skip the things I have to fill in about her, or what? And in several years time, on the financial aid application itself, do I add that somewhere as well? :/</p>
<p>One last question (…I hope!) - I know that GPA isn’t everything and it really matters what kind of person you are, your EC activities, your SATs/TOEFL/etc but ermm… I’m not really good at GPA calculating since Bulgaria simply doesn’t have that. However, back in freshman year I got a B in IT, Physics and P.E. for the end of the year. Chances are I’ll keep getting Bs and Cs in PE because I’m awful at sports!
My question is - does this matter? Provided that I get As for the terms until I graduate, will the freshman marks pull me down along with the PE ones? I’m kind of worried about that because I actually wanted to apply with a perfect GPA, but yeah. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance yet again :)</p>
<p>The Financial Aid officer at Amherst told us that Amherst uses the FAFSA and the CSS Profile. The FAFSA only looks at the custodial parent’s income/assets (sounds like that is your father). That is used for U.S. govt aid–Pell grants if income is below a certain level, otherwise loans if the family wants them. The CSS Profile, however, is for determining Amherst aid (which is only grants; Amherst does not give loans at all). The CSS Profile is used by most very selective colleges, I believe. It looks at the income and assets of BOTH parents, custodial and non-custodial, whether they are divorced, legally separated, or informally separated. So if, for example, the non-custodial parent has a very high income, then the student would not be eligible for any Amherst grant aid, even if that parent were not contributing much to the student’s college (although they ethically should be!). I did read once, somewhere on College Confidential, that if a non-custodial parent cannot be found, there is some special “waiver” form that you can fill out. I believe that with this waiver the college will not look at the noncustodial parent’s imcome–because you are saying, “Hey, I don’t know where this parent is–or I have no way of getting her financial papers.” I don’t know if that would work in your case with your mom; it sounds complicated, so you would have to ask Amherst. Also, I don’t know if what I explained above is different for internatl students, but you could check w/ Amherst on that, too. Good luck!!</p>