Is it known if most schools have an appeal option?
Schools are not required to reconsider financial aid awards of any kind. Some will, and some won’t. Even for those that do reconsider, this is done on a case by case basis so knowing what happened with others won’t help to know about you.
And even if a school reconsiders your financial aid award, there is no guarantee your aid award will increase, or increase enough.
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I agree with you. Do any schools actually have an appeal process or do some people just attempt to contact the office to ask if it would be possible for the aid award to be reevaluated?
So what we did for my 2019 child is we wrote to her top choice and asked them what their process was for financial aid appeal. We wrote to the financial aid office. They then gave us a form to fill out and asked us to attach the offer letter she received from another school of comparable price (not sure their exact wording as this was a few years ago). She did this and then the office called her the next day and offered her 3k more.
@yankeefan20 Some do. The school one of my kids’ attended has a form on its website for families who want to appeal their aid. Another is attending a school that simply instructs students/parents to contact the financial aid office if they have want to request reconsideration of their aid package. Neither school gives merit aid, though, so I assume a successful appeal would require additional and detailed documentation of financial need.
Yes, some schools do have an appeal process in our experience. We recently went through this with my daughters first choice school. If there was one thing that I would suggest it would be to establish a connection with the admissions officer. Seek and follow their advice especially in this case where you don’t have need-based aid notification. Be open and courteous about what your circumstances are with the AO. We had strongly established that my daughter wanted to go to the school, and that if it was financially possible, she would.
In our case, we acknowledged that we were willing to pay a higher cost for school A versus school B, C, or D etc. but that at the end of the day it is a value equation and there were limits to what we could/would spend. We discussed with the AO our financial concerns for the upcoming year.
Perhaps we were just fortunate that the school was willing to reconsider (and fortunate that we had other merit offers in hand.) I can’t rule out luck in this case as well.
Good luck to you!
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You need to contact your colleges to find out if they have an appeals process, and what they process is.
The colleges will answer your questions about this.
The answers will vary.
I don’t think you can look at getting appeals in school year 2020-2021 the same way that your other children may have gotten appeals and increased aid in the past.
Many colleges have taken a major financial hit due to COVID-19 and students not attending school. I know that I was at a meeting at one of the CC faves, and they announced that they took a $350 million loss during the fall term, which was going to affect course offerings and teaching loads.
I know another school in NYC, where they had to lay off 80% of the res life due to a lack of students living in on-campus housing.
I think that families need to have a 4 year plan to pay for college.
If you are attending a deep pocket/healthy endowment school that meets 100% demonstrated need, then I am not talking to you. But the reality is that the overwhelming majority of colleges in the US are not deep pocket/healthy endowment, meet 100% demonstrated need schools.
Some schools, Wesleyan off the top of my head tells you straight, no chaser that it does not matter whose award you present to them that they do not consider financial aid packages from other schools. If the school only gives need based aid, you are wasting your time presenting a merit offer from another school.
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Best advice I’ve gotten
Chance of getting more money if you don’t ask- 0%
Chance of getting more money if you ask- greater then 0%
Who truly knows what will happen this year. They may get less enrollment due to covid or get kids who didn’t accept their admissions and thus that money they had reserved for them is now back on the table.
For us, more money would truly help in the decision process for my dd number 1 choice. Going through the application process we didn’t know exactly what she would get as most of the schools websites were not all crystal clear about this. So you apply and hope you get some decent money, which was the case as most of the schools she got into.
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You have not if you ask not.
So yes, ask, but make sure that you have some affordable options.
[quote=@cgemaj]
Who truly knows what will happen this year. They may get less enrollment due to covid or get kids who didn’t accept their admissions and thus that money they had reserved for them is now back on the table.[/quote]
Enrollment managers already know what the anticipated yield is going to be and take in to consideration their head to head competitors and revealed preferences. They use years of data to determine their retention and graduation rates. There is really not a pot of left over money, because they already know that every student who is offered a scholarship or merit money is not going to take them up on the offer.
The challenge and big problem would be if everyone who was attended a scholarship attended. This is what happened to Temple and why they stopped offering guaranteed scholarships because they actually ran out of money.
Since you mention Temple, I will ask you quickly about how that works. Did it used to list specified GPA ranges for applicants and then it would guarantee a specified amount for each range?
temple has changed their whole scholarship process. please check their website
Temple no longer offers guaranteed merit awards based on stats.
Plus, you are a transfer student and I’m not sure this ever applied to transfer students.
@Yankeefan20 if you are looking for scholarships for yourself, make sure you are looking at what the colleges offer transfer students. This very often is not the same as what new freshmen are offered.
I did check and the school is intentionally vague about it. It does not say how many people are offered what amounts nor does it list specified qualifications for each amount.
I do not know how it worked previously at Temple?
Mine got into temple- SOB and received only 5k. I agree it’s vague.
Temple drastically reduced their aid a few years ago, and that was before Covid. I wouldn’t expect much help from them.
Appeals might garner a couple of thousand dollars, but they won’t close a $20k/year gap. If you tell us your stats and budget (Pell + NJ state grant + parent contribution + your work earnings) we might be able to make suggestions. What major did you study for your Associate’s degree? Are you planning to study the same thing at a 4 year school or are you applying to a different major?
@Yankeefan20 Temple, like most universities, offers merit aid the way they choose to offer merit aid. Their merit aid is competitive and the number of awards given will likely vary depending on the year, and those who apply.
It doesn’t matter at all what Temple used to do. They don’t do it now.
The school is not being “vague”. They are the same as the vast majority of other colleges.
If you want to be guaranteed merit aid, you need to apply to colleges that guarantee merit aid to transfer students. I can’t think of a college that does this, but there might be some.
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Some privates do that are not ranked high. They probably feel they have to give something. I don’t think many people pay full tuition at private schools that are not ranked high.
@Yankeefan20 if you are going to toss out information, it would be very helpful if you could list the colleges and their policies.
Merit aid at places that award merit aid is used to entice great applicants to attend. There ARE highly ranked schools that give very competitive merit aid too.
And I stand by my comment. The vast majority of transfer students do not get the same level of aid as incoming freshmen. Definitely not the same level of merit aid. And in terms of need based aid, that level of aid will only be high at schools that guarantee to meet full need for all…including transfer students.
And yes, there are people who pay full price or close to it for colleges that are not in the top 20.
I didn’t say the merit amount is the same for first-year info and transfers.
St. Peters “Yes, they’re for transfer students too, and range from $14,000 – $25,000 based on academic GPA. Over 98% of Saint Peter’s students receive some type of financial aid.”
With the exception of Princeton which accepts very few transfers and offers need-based aid, I believe every private school in NJ offers some merit aid to transfers.