<p>My son has applied ED to small, selective liberal arts college in CT...seems to be a perfect match. Great interview, high GPA, 2030 SAT scores, excellent leadership EC's. Only hitch is he needs a lot of FA/ grant money. I'm a single mom, his father is not in the picture... My concern is that he may be denied since he needs so much aid and that the college will not want to commit to such a big reward before getting a fuller picture of the applicant pool...any thoughts would be appreciated!</p>
<p>Admissions departments generally do not consider financial need. Financial aid is considered by different people once the student is accepted. The exception to that is merit scholarships which are often automatic based on grades and test scores, and those usually are offered through the admissions department.</p>
<p>Is this a school that is known for being generous with financial aid? Generally, it is not a good thing to apply ED when you need financial aid, as you don’t get the opportunity to compare offers from different schools. If it is possible for him to afford attending, he must commit himself to that school, without seeing possibly better offers from other schools that may have ended up being more affordable.</p>
<p>In general, most of the schools that we could be talking about here, and I’m going to assume it’s the one that starts with W, will come through with the FA package you need. The number of kids at my daughter’s small LAC who were accepted but wound up not attending was very, very small. Even if we assume it was because of insufficient FA packages in every case, and it probably wasn’t, were talking about 2-3% of ED admissions, so you can be assured they’ll do their very best to make it possible for him to attend.</p>
<p>In the event you are in the middle of negotiating an FA package and deadlines are approaching, submit other applications even with the ED acceptance. That is not against the rules. You don’t want to be in the situation where if things fall through, you have no place to go. There is no need to withdraw other applications until the FA package is settled.</p>
<p>Thanks for you input MrMom…fingers crossed!</p>
<p>@cakes68 - Seems that you can only be talking either of the school that begins with a W or the one that begins with a C. Since you didn’t deny the one that begins with a W, I will assume that is it. Your son falls within their SAT score 25-75% range, but he is in no way a shoo-in for admittance, even if that school still had a need-blind policy (which it no longer does beginning with the class of 2017). That W school still purports to meet “full financial need”, so if he gets admitted (no guarantee) then you should be able to find a way to afford it. Your concern though is will your income level be one thing that keeps him out…and yes, it COULD be since that college is no longer “need blind”. Time will tell. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks, @stepay. </p>