<p>For everyone who has submitted their FA documents in a timely fashion (and eventually those who didn't), will packages be put together, whether or not they are a likely accept candidate? In other words, does the FA office receive a list of "ain't gonna happen, no way" in order to reduce workload?</p>
<p>Do u mean to ask: is how much u request through financial aid ever accounted for decisions about admissions? The answer is no, mit is a need-blind admissions system.</p>
<p>No that is not what I mean at all.</p>
<p>Does everyone have a FA package put together, whether or not (at some point in the process) they will likely be accepted.</p>
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<p>No. What happens is we need to make sure everything is in and organized and to us with plenty of lead time so that when decisions do come out FinAid can start working ASAP.</p>
<p>So while waiting for the regular March decisions will the financial aid office be working on packages for the EA students (who have all their paperwork submitted by Feb 15)? Also…approximately when will said EA students receive their FinAid award letter?</p>
<p>Yes, indeed. </p>
<p>EA admits get their financial aid packages around the same time RD admits do – about the third week of March or so.</p>
<p>What does financial aid processing consist of? Is it just the financial aid department simply putting all of your stuff into a file? Do they read through it looking for possible errors and notifying students to fix these or will they wait to do that later? Are financial aid staff members assigned to applicants or is it all hands on deck processing documents in the order they come in? I saw that financial aid packages will be available to admitted students the day after decisions come out. So I guess they have been crunching the numbers for a week or two already.</p>
<p>How do we get the financial aid packages? E-mail? MyMIT? Thanks!</p>
<p>This kinda interests me as well… it seems like the people that put the packages together would have to get at least some advance notice of those accepted. I just can’t see them wasting considerable time (to no gain) on those not admitted, and I can’t see them having the ability to do even ~500 packages in one day either.</p>
<p>@collegeapp5874 I think maybe admissions forwards the admits to financial aid as soon as they (admissions) make a decision. This way financial aid can process the packages on a rolling basis and only have a few to do at the very end.</p>
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Postal mail.</p>
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This is correct, except that decisions aren’t made on a rolling basis. Everybody is selected simultaneously during the selection committee’s days of meeting.</p>
<p>@everybody – Keep in mind that the financial aid office is able to put together FA packages for the ~30-40% of the class that’s admitted EA before starting to work on RD packages. It’s not that they’re sitting around twiddling their thumbs for weeks – they are putting together packages for EA admits and getting paperwork together for RD applicants so they can proceed quickly once they do know who’s been admitted.</p>
<p>This post seems to say that our packages will be available on myMIT?
[The</a> wait is almost over | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/the-wait-is-almost-over]The”>http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/the-wait-is-almost-over)</p>
<p>Ah, perhaps. They’ve always been sent via postal mail before, but past performance and all that.</p>
<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I need a little help. I am still “missing” the Noncust Parent 2011 US Tax Return and Noncust Parent 2011 W-2 Form(s), even though I did send them in. Hypothetically speaking, if I do get accepted, how is this going to affect my financial aid?</p>
<p>It won’t affect the amount of aid you’re offered. You’ll just need to get the documents to the office – the longer it takes to get all of your documents present and accounted for, the longer it will take for the Fin Aid office to put together your aid package. Of course, you want to get your aid offer in plenty of time to decide which school to attend by the May 1 reply deadline.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all who were accepted, and now onto the next stumbling block. Received the FA package today, which informs me that my parental contribution is slightly less than $2,000 under my taxable income. What that means, for those of you unfamiliar with taxable income, is that it leaves me with that amount to pay property taxes, mortgage and frivolous stuff like food.</p>
<p>But this is pretty good compared with my child’s contribution, which is 1.3 times his net worth. If MIT can tell us how to accomplish this miracle, it will be well worth the price. Of course, he accumulated his net worth by working year round, and MIT informs him that he must supplement it by work study (on top of his extant job) in an amount that would double his current annual earnings. Another curious concept.</p>
<p>Of course, the difference can be made up by selling a kidney or two, but is that really what MIT meant by “generous” need based financial aid?</p>
<p>You can make an appointment to talk with financial aid officers at CPW, if you think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding of your financial situation. You can always call them, of course, but I think sometimes it’s easiest to talk these sorts of things out in person.</p>
<p>I have to agree with Mollie - call! I emailed this morning and got a quick reply and called and got an immediate answer. I found their aid to be way more generous than I was expecting, so I’d check with them since that doesn’t sound right to me. Basically in dealing with the FA office last year with my older son and this year, their attitude seems to be “just let us know and we can change it”. Wishing you the best!</p>
<p>I will definitely give it a go. Thought about calling yesterday, but a bit too steamed to trust myself to be civil. Better to cool off first and have a fruitful discussion, given how important the matter of FA is. Thanks.</p>
<p>Did you run the Net Price Calculator at the MIT SFS website? For us the actual award was quite close to what the calculator spit out, and we feel it’s very fair.</p>
<p>Over in the financial aid section here on CC there are a bunch of people with lots of experience with the ins and outs of FA. After you get more info from MIT they might be able to help you figure things out. Good luck!</p>