FA & narrowing applications

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
1

<ol>
<li><p>We need significant FA</p></li>
<li><p>After seeing last years results of FA I am of the opinion the FA packages for 2010-2011 school year will be reduced given no "major" upward economic shifts.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

<ol>
<li> I want to limit S apps to his "dream" school and a few others that are strong matches & known for FA & merit.</li>
</ol>

<p>S. is very happy at his current day school and would be content finishing HS there, so our ultimate goal is not BS just for the sake of BS. Another words, we don't wish to cast a wide net just for the sake of getting into a BS.</p>

<p>Is anyone else who needs FA limiting child's apps based on FA?</p>

2

<p>This is exactly what my parents and I are doing because we need significant FA. I’m only applying to 3 boarding schools (4 was the ultimate maximum set for me). We’re not applying to any “safety” BS; rather, our safeties are day schools in my area.</p>

3

<p>My only recommendation would be to at least visit schools outside of what you now consider your top 3. When we started the whole process our list of schools was far different from the one we had when we finished visiting. Reading about schools does not capture their essence and only a visit can give the feel and let that whole “fit” thing shine through.
I know about 30 families who needed FA last year and while many had offers, only about 1/2 received the amount they needed in the end. From the outside looking in, I would theorize that the ones that received “seemed” to be more rounded in their applications.</p>

4

<p>I’d agree not to limit yourself too much right off the bat. Until you’ve actually visited the schools, you and your child may not know which ones are in fact the best fit.</p>

5

<p>We also needed significant FA. Here are my suggestions-</p>

<p>-Visit the schools, they really are different in person.</p>

<p>-Make sure you include schools where your child will be one of their top picks. I believe you have a much better chance for aid if they really want you.</p>

<p>-Don’t base your choices on endowment size, some of the smallest endowments may offer you the most help.</p>

<p>My middle S is applying this year and will be applying to 3 maybe 4 schools. One is a reach, with lot’s of money. The rest are schools where he will be a very competitive candidate (we hope). I believe those schools are his best chance for the aid we need.</p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>

6

<p>One piece of advice: Don’t automatically accept the offer as the final offer. We appealed our fa decision and the amount was doubled. We did have information that wasn’t available when the packets were due (ie; salary was estimated in Jan, pre 1099 forms). We wrote a letter explaining that and how my d really loved the school. All true, and from the heart.
But yes, I would limit the schools. I would also definitely apply to schools that offer merit scholarships.<br>
zp</p>

7

<p>But what do you do when you have no local options? </p>

<p>What would be the advantage of limiting applications? I am earnestly asking the question, because I don’t quite follow what the advantage is.</p>

8

<p>Be sure NOT to focus on the total amount of the endowment fund, but to the average FA award. The reach schools have large endowments that rival most smaller schools, but if you aren’t accepted, it doesn’t matter. Find a school that you love and that will love your kid! If they love your kid, they’ll find the $ you need.</p>

<p>edit: just realize that I restated most of what scotland said…</p>

9

<p>If you don’t have local options, it would not be an advantage to limit applications, imo. The OP said the child was already in a satisfactory school - so that’s the safety, I presume the financial safety as well.</p>

<p>One of the points the college admissions forums make is that a safety school should also be a financial safety. It is less transparent for private secondary schools in terms of aid, but there is some info out there. For example, look at the average award and the income levels of the families getting awards. Extrapolate as to whether this will fit. I have to say that our private day school sent a letter that said that few awards went to students who entered in 2009, and that there is a similar expectation for this year. Previously they gave more. </p>

<p>Naturally, one reason the “need blind” schools get so many applications requesting aid is that they do give a lot of aid. The qualifications are somewhat more transparent in terms of who on the low end can expect aid. If it is extremely desirable to find a school, then the net should be cast as widely as practical under the family’s circumstances (“fit”, geographic area, availability of needed aid). If it is just a question of getting somewhere preferred to the current situation, then maybe it is not so necessary to find many schools that are candidates for the child.</p>

10

<p>Financial Aid needs a bit more in-depth analysis than it is usually given on CC. If you go to the tenschools.org website and the school’s own sites and then do a bit of calculating you see some of the issues. When comparing schools, realize that most provide free-tuition for faculty children. That inflates their scholarship #'s and reduces the pool available for outsiders. Many schools have day students. Their tuition is lower and so are their scholarships. While they disclose the % of day students, they do not breakout the financial aid. Finally, tuition varies as does the school size, so comparing total aid is fraught with problems.</p>

<p>So what is out there?</p>

<p>----------Aid (MM)–Students–% on Aid—Avg Aid /Recipient–
Exeter …15.0…1062…48%…$29,426
Andover…14.6…1105…42%…$31,197
Choate…9.0…850…36%…$32,609
Lawrenceville…8.0…807…31%…$31,978
St. Paul’s…7.2…536…37%…$37,686
Hotchkiss…7.2…565…36%…$35,398
Deerfield…6.2…600…37%…$27,928
Loomis…6.0…690…30%…$28,696
Taft…5.1…577…37%…$23,889
Hill…4.4…493…40%…$22,312</p>

<p>So … Exeter has the Largest Aid Budget, Andover is the largest school, Exeter has the most aid Recipients, Exeter has the highest % on aid, and St. Paul’s has the highest average aid per recipient. All of these numbers do not show how many went (or stayed) elsewhere because the aid offered was insufficient for the family. </p>

<p>As you can see, the budgets vary ($4.4-$15mm), the school size varies (493-1,105), the percent on aid varies (30-48%), and the average award varies ($22,312 - $37,696). </p>

<p>I also calculated the Total Aid divided by the Total Students which comes out as follows: Exeter ($14,124), St. Paul’s ($13,433), Andover ($13,213), Hotchkiss ($12,743), Choate ($10,588), Deerfield ($10,333), Lawrenceville ($9,913), Hill ($8,925), Taft ($8,839) and Loomis ($8,696). </p>

<p>Tuition (boarding only) varies also from Exeter at $38,720 to Hill at $44,000. FINALLY… I took the average grant per recipient. Here again there is tremendous variability. This represents the percentage of costs covered by the school, BUT since a number of schools have a large and varying % of day-school students, and they charge them less, it it is difficult (impossible) to make accurate comparisons. But, for what they are worth, they are: St. St. Paul’s (94%), Hotchkiss (88%), Exeter (76%), Lawrenceville (76%), Choate (75%), Andover (73%), Loomis (67%), Deerfield (67%), Taft (58%), Hill (51%). The better analysis would obviously be if these schools disclosed the % of costs covered for their average day student and their average boarding student. They do not. </p>

<p>As I said this comparison is only for those schools that are members of the Ten Schools Admission Organization. But it does give a glimpse at how the schools vary in budget, size, and % receiving aid. Feel free to update these #'s, but if you do, please use either the Ten Schools data or the school’s own websites. Other sources are sometimes obsolete. I have tried my best without going too crazy. But errors are possible. I hope this is useful in a very macro sense.</p>

11

<p>Winterset - This is very interesting info. Thanks for doing all that number crunching.</p>

<p>I find it very interesting that last Spring, there was a lot of Exeter bashing on this website because Exeter came out and publicly acknowledged that they were no longer “need blind” due to the economic situation and a reduced endowment. People were praising Andover for keeping their “need blind” commitment. But these numbers show a different picture. Exeter comes out ahead of Andover when taking different cuts at the data as shown above.</p>

<p>I am biased, but happy to see that St. Paul’s is very generous and remains committed to providing FA.</p>

12

<p>But try not to draw too many conclusions. Realize that SPS may be the only one of these 10 schools without day students (someone can correct me?). Think through the math and you wil see it could move the numbers either way depending on the relationship between day tuition and boarding tuition, the split in aid $, and the number of day students. So it is unclear what that does to these numbers, but those ratios are THE least reliable. </p>

<p>Yes, it appears that Exeter has a large commitment to aid, both in $ given and the % of students given aid. Andover also does a nice job and so do most of them. </p>

<p>I applaud the move from historic exclusivity to meritocracy by all of these schools!</p>

13

<p>I don’t know how to read these numbers, but here’s the most up-to-date info about Andover.

</p>

<p>Is Exeter’s data current? I am biased of course, but I think Andover and Exeter are covering more of its student body for FA and their tuition is significantly less than other schools, which is better than covering fewer people but with more money. Then of course most other schools listed here do “a nice job” too ;).</p>

<p>Edit: compared with its tuition which is less than 40K, Andover’s average $35,200 for borders is pretty generous.</p>

14

<p>I certainly do not want to step between Exeter and Andover! Maybe someone from Extere can say if these are their most current numbers? Where possible I used the 10 Schools numbers. When details were unavailable there, I went to the School’s websites. So hopefully the 10 school numbers provided by those schools were all equally current or equally dated, but they do not tell you. </p>

<p>The full release from Andover touches on some other interesting points. It clearly shows that students applying for financial aid are (for whatever reason) less likely to be admitted. And yes this indicates that the current % on Financial aid has increased from 42% to 44%. But it appears that the growth in requests for aid (55% to 61%) is ahead of the growth in aid provided to students admitted (42% to 44%).

</p>

<p>PAParent: Any thoughts on what this shows?</p>

<p>Also I am not clear if all schools calculate “demonstrated need” the same way, so caveat emptor.</p>

15

<p>And of course, the education at all of these great schools costs more than even full tuition, so all students are subsidized and can be grateful to alumni and other supporters of the schools over the years. </p>

<p>I think the numbers are interesting (Thanks, Winterset and PAParent), and an important message for prospective parents is that schools give a lot of aid, whether officially need blind or not, and they are all trying their best under challenging conditions to get diverse, excellent groups of students. I suspect that, like Andover, schools are protecting their FA budgets and taking the cuts elsewhere.</p>

16

<p>So what SHOULD it be like? Because the FA requestes grew 6% (55% to 61%), the percentage of students on FA should grew proportionally by 6%? That would assume there is an equal proportion of qualified non FA and qualified FA applicants, which may not be the case. But I don’t pretend I am an expert. Other people who are more knowlegable can chime in on this topic. </p>

<p>As for “demonstrated need”, you are right there is no clear definition. I guess the best you can do is look at how much you actually pay (substract amount of aid from tuition) - in other words by how much less you pay than your EFC, to determine which school has a better offer.</p>

17

<p>PA Parent, </p>

<p>You are correct. The data provided does not support the statement, “It clearly shows that students applying for financial aid are (for whatever reason) less likely to be admitted.” It’s possible, but since it is not an apples-to-apples comparison drawing such a definitive conclusion is not valid.</p>

<p>The 61% figure is the number “requesting FA information.” It is not the percentage applying for FA nor is it the percentage of the applicant pool that are eligible. By contrast, the 44% figure is the percentage of admitted students that did apply for FA and were eligible. </p>

<p>For example, suppose that 61% requested FA information, 52% applied and 44% were eligible. In that case, the data would show that FA students were admitted at precisely the same rate as non-FA students.</p>

<p>In fact, it is quite likely that Andover’s need-blind status distorts these numbers relative to other boarding schools. If an upper-middle class student believes that applying for aid will not harm his or her chances for admission it absolutely makes sense to try, whereas that same student may apply to an overtly need-aware school on a full-pay basis. If admitted and found not eligible for aid, that applicant would increase PA’s “requested financial aid information” percentage while decreasing the percentage of admitted applicants offered aid. That same applicant would have a relatively neutral impact on the need-aware school’s statistics.</p>

18

<p>Thanks Winterset!</p>

<p>The numbers are a great reference & the conversation has been wonderful.</p>

19

<p>Something perplexed me about the cited figures for St. Paul’s. It may be counter-intuitive, but it is not a good thing if the average aid recipient is receiving too high a pecentage of costs. It would mean that there are almost no middle to upper middle-class students in the class. For example, if awards average 94% of cost as stated, a student receiving a $12K partial scholarship would be offset by 10 or so full-ride students. Adding in the more than 60% of the student body that is full pay would yield a compus that is almost binary - either full-pay or full-ride with very little in between.</p>

<p>However, SPS recently posted up-to-date figures for 09-10 ([St</a>. Paul’s School ~ Facts and Figures](<a href=“http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=113624]St”>http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=113624)). The average award of $37,428 represents 87% of the $42,900 boarding tuition and 81% of the $46,295 full cost of attendance. </p>

<p>For comparison, the latest stats on the Andover website indicate the average grant to a boarding student in 09-10 is $35,200, which is 88% of tuition ($39.9K) and 84% of estimated total cost ($41.9K). </p>

<p>Make of this what you will, but the data seems to indicate that although SPS has a slightly lower level of overall socioeconomic diversity (36% on aid versus 44% at PA), within their respective FA pools both schools actually have a similar distribution of funds between students of differing economic resources.</p>

20

<p>Thanks Padre13 for your insight. While I agree that analyses based on the published data can be helpful, the reliability of the data and whether it is a true comparison of apples with apples will affect the validity of the conclusions. The statistics Winterset cited was using data from different years for different schools, for example the numbers for SPS was apparently for '09-'10 but numbers for Andover was last year’s (I am not familiar with others schools so I don’t know what year theirs are). Secondly, the average amount of grants for SPS was for boarding students (it’s an all boarder school) while other schools are an overall average including both boarders and day students (it makes a big difference. For example, average grant for boarder at Andover is $35,200 while for day students it’s $25,100). Thirdly, the amount of grants have a lot to do with the tuition charged. The comparison of absolute amounts in different schools doesn’t make much sense. It’s true that not all data are available, but that’s why we can’t conduct all the analysis we would like to. </p>

<p>I would go directly to each of the top schools’ websites (there are not that many) and get the information you need from there. First hand data is more reliable.</p>