Hi, first post so I better give a bit of background, I’m a 15 year old (16 next week yay!!) English student hoping to study in the US after I finish my A-Levels (equivilent to high school in the US)
Recently I’ve been looking into financial aid offered by colleges (obviously not eligible for government aid) As I’m going to need some pretty good reasons to study in the US rather than at home to convince my mum it’s worth it (I think it is). The issue is that financial aid calculators require both parents incomes and finacial details. My Dad hasn’t exactly been around (as in I haven’t seen him in nearly a decade) so I don’t exactly think it would be appropriate to go up to him ask him for all his financial details and then ask him for over $15000. I probably could cover his portion of the EFC but I’m not exactly well of and would have to take out loans to do this and obviously want to be in as little debt as possible. Is there anyway I could get his income excluded from my applications for finacial aid or will colleges insist that I include him in any application for need based aid??
Do you know where your dad is? If so, you can ask him to complete the financial aid application forms the colleges require.
If you have an estranged relationship, you would have to request a waiver for the non-custodial parent info. Your estrangement would need to be well documented by a third party…school counselor, clergyman, or the like.
You would,have to contact EACH college to which you apply. These waivers are not automatic, and there is no guarantee you will get one at every college to which you apply…or for every year you are in college.
My mum knows where he works, because they work in the same place (when I say that they don’t like see each other for lunch they are both police officers and they work in a huge department like thousands of people huge) and he gives child support now (as fare as I’m aware) but how willing he would be to cough up thousands of dollars in tuition fees when he was expecting to pay non, I don’t know. it’s really stressing me out because wherever I go to uni (whether it’s the UK or the USA) I have to give both parents Info and it’s kind of a sore spot with my mum.
You know where your dad is. He is not out of the picture entirely. From what you have written here, I would say it is highly unlikely you can get a non-custodial parent waiver. In addition, he pays child support, another check for knowing him,and involvement with you on some level.
You cannot get a waiver simply because you don’t want to include your dad’s income…or because he isn’t interested in paying part of your college costs. Those are not a basis for a waiver…at all.
You do understand that you know where your dad is, you get child support, your mom knows where your dad is…he is not a missing in action parent. No basis for a non-custodial waiver, in my opinion.
Of course I understand that, I did know before I asked that there was a good chance he wouldn’t be excluded. I just wanted to check before I brought the topic up with my mother (like I said it’s a sore spot) and my Mums life is pretty stressful at the moment (my Grandad has just suffered a stroke abroad and my entire family has been a bit up in the air). Was hoping haveing to ask my Dad (who she hates even more than I do) for thousands of pounds wouldn’t have to be put on the list of things to worry about. I guess that’s a conversation I’ll have to look forward to haveing.
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so I don’t exactly think it would be appropriate to go up to him ask him for all his financial details and then ask him for over $15000. I probably could cover his portion of the EFC
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No, that won’t work.
The school won’t be able to determine WHAT his portion is w/o providing his info. The school isn’t going to let you just say, “well, I know about how much he earns, so his portion would be about $15k.” lol.
NO, without his info, you’d get ZERO aid.
You’re an int’l. I suspect it’s even harder for int’ls to get waivers since it is harder to verify the truthfulness of the claim.
Stay in the UK and use the loans set up for you there, no way in the USA do you get such a generous and forgiving loan repayment arrangement. Unless you are truly a superstar student of Oxbridge calibre?
“Unless you are truly a superstar student of Oxbridge calibre?”
Actually just to point out I’m a high achieving student on track to receive A’s and A*'s in my upcoming exams, I start my A-levels in September an on the ‘gifted an talented’ track. So, I kind of am of Oxbridge calibre so am in a fortunate position to be able to apply to more prestigious colleges with better financial aid packages.
Once you have your lower 6th results and your SAT and subject test results, you will be in a position to better assess the point of spending money on US applications. A levels are such a different beast to O levels that getting your SAT ASAP would be useful to see if you land in the ballpark. Have you got your ECs established?
Unfortunately not because when I start my A-Level courses I will be moving schools (sitting my GCSE exams now, they’re not called O-levels any more) and even more unfortunately the EC’s at my school now suck if you aren’t sporty, can play a musical instrument or super religious (it’s a church school) there isn’t anything you can do, and there is no system for creating new clubs.
Fortunately my new school has tons of clubs and activities I can do. And I am doing this thing called NCS (sort of like a team building/ creating independence/ community project thing) over the summer so hoping that will look good on applications.
Well, my dd got a waiver in this situation from all 4 colleges we asked so I don’t think you can say there is no basis. However we have additional information to supply and maybe you do to. No one here can tell you how this will be handled. All you can do is understand the process and the reasoning behind it and submit your information. It is possible, and likely even probable you won’t get any waiver, but it is possible you will. You have to go through the process and be willing to put a lot of time and effort into applications while not knowing. So you should take what people say into consideration and analyze the situation yourself to see if you think you have a basis to ask for a waiver and if there is enough chance you will get it.
Normal basis for exemptions include abuse,restraining orders, incarceration, no means to find whereabouts. A profound lack of contact for a decade may be basis.
The basic premise is that aid is based on both parent income no matter if they will contribute or not. Married or divorced. But there are many colleges, especially the state funded colleges that only use the custodial parent income/assets. So students here don’t have to only apply to high end pricey colleges. If they can’t afford those they go instead to a college they can afford. Public are lower priced and there are a great deal of very good ones here. You can apply to them too and just use your mother’s information but they will be very limited or nonexistent for aid., except a known few. You will have to pay a premium for not being instate except at some that give exemptions for those with high stats.Still might be lower than a private. How does it work in the UK?
So you can decide if you want to ask him for the financial information forms to be filled out, they don’t obligate him to anything and your mother and you won’t get to see the figures if he doesn’t want. Then see if you can afford it without his contribution, it is possible you will still get good aid, but you may not be aware the high amount of parent contribution expected here it can be 20 or 30 pct of income even at colleges that consider they ‘meet need’. Or you can ask for a waiver and understand that you may not get it. In that case you won’t be considered for any aid without his figures.
Financial aid in the UK is very different, universities don’t give out any financial aid themselves. Practically all financial aid is awarded by the government. However when I call it financial ‘aid’ it is just in the form of loans. University used to be free in the UK and was paid for by the government. But the amount they pay towards uni costs has gone down and down. So even though the maximum you pay for university is £9000 (Because the government pay for the rest) a year you have to take £9000 a year in loans to cover that plus another £5000 (£8000 if you study in London) a year in maintenance loans (But that doesn’t nearly cover everything). Fortunately (In some respects) there is less of a ‘saving for college’ culture here in the UK because people aren’t expected to go to university, so my Mum doesn’t have tons of money saved away for college tuition which actually works out to be a benefit when applying for financial aid. We also don’t have things like a second home or anything else that would reduce the amount of aid I got. For a lot of colleges, even though the actual cost of studying there is way higher, it works out cheaper to study in the US than in the UK.
It works out cheaper only if you get significant financial aid. Which you might. But be smart in your applications: try for all the US schools known to be generous to high-achieving international students. And still have a back-up plan in the UK. Frankly, I think having an Oxbridge degree would be preferable for someone who’s likely to have to work in Europe (it’s hard to stay in the US after you finish your studies.) Only Harvard, Yale, or maybe also Princeton and Stanford have the stature of Oxbridge. Going to a ‘lesser’ US school would be a silly idea, I think, if you have admission to Oxford or Cambridge, even if the latter entails some debt.
Oh yea, of course I’m still going to apply to universities in the UK and if I get into a better university in England (Like Oxbridge) than I do in the US I will obviously choose to go there. However it isn’t all about stature to me, I much prefer the US system to the one here in the UK, I like the fact you can do a mix of different subjects whilst still concentrating on one. In the UK you get to do one subject and you have to stick with it.
Have we seen examples of int’ls getting waivers? I’m not saying that there haven’t been any, but I’ve never seen any post that they have.
Most univs do not have the means to really fact-check much for the int’l FA applicants. For that reason alone, I would think that the “bar is higher” for int’ls to get such a waiver.
I am certain I have read a report of one at least from the UK, in this forum. Pretty clear circumstances as I recall. So I can not speculate if this is rare or not or there are differing standards. I think supplying as much information as possible so there is not mistake that there are no deep pockets here where the Dad has millions but just won’t pay.