I may qualify for a common app fee waiver, because my family receives public assistance, and I could get a letter verifying this financial need. However, according to the net price calculators to several colleges, I won’t qualify for much financial aid. Will this discrepancy, if I apply for both the fee waiver and financial aid, negatively affect my admissions chances?
If you qualify for the fee waiver, use it.
Very few schools meet financial need. The fact that you qualify for a fee waiver but will receive little financial aid will most likely impact your ability to afford the college.
Use the fee waiver if you qualify…but according to other threads you are looking at some $70,000 a year colleges. I’m having trouble understanding how you wouldn’t receive sufficient aid to attend some of the colleges you listed and also qualify for a waiver…unless your financial situation has significantly changed since 2018 which will be used for the 2020-2021 financial aid forms.
Curious! How does a family qualify for public assistance but not qualify for much financial aid?
And who/how will pay for your college costs?
The student could be living with a parent who qualifies for public assistance but also have a parent who could pay for college. It could also be a situation with a lot of assets but not a lot of income. Some public assistance programs are income based, not asset based.
I guess I could see it in a situation where parents are not together if the waiver is just due to the custodial household getting assistance but he’s applying to schools that use the CSS profile with a high income non-custodial parent.
Either that, or running the NPC on schools where it doesn’t matter what your need is like public, out of state. A full Pell doesn’t put a dent in some of those costs.
To answer everyone’s questions, I have a parent on social security disability, although my other parent works, so we have a high total family income. To clarify, I haven’t applied for the waiver yet.
Are your parents separated/divorced?
@MYOS1634 No
Then if you qualify legitimately use your fee waiver and don’t add a financial burden to your parents.
College Adcoms don’t actually have that date, it’s for the financial aid office.
You will need to justify your income.
Is someone in the family getting SSDI a qualifier though? I thought it had to be need-based public assistance?
@cram545 , if what your family can and will pay, and what the schools say they should pay Acc to NPC has a wide spread, you have an important issue to confront: affordability.
What are your school choices saying you have to pay, what is the gap? If financial aid is not going to cover what you need, you need to look at schools where you are likely to get a good scholarship. You need to come up with a list of such schools. It’s s whole other hand now. Though it certainly is difficult to get accepted to HYP et all, it’s even more difficult to get a full ride from most any school. You have to focus on those schools that even have scholarships in amounts that you need and then get one, in addition to getting accepted
I doubt that OP will qualify for a fee waiver if s/he is living with both parents with one receiving disability benefits and the other parent earning a high income.
The first qualifier is student receiving free or reduced lunch. Schools will run. Their meal code reports to get their kits of qualified students.