At Pomona College I see that you can beg off early decision of you’re not offered “enough” financial aid. Or as they put it “not be offered an award that makes attendance possible”. As a paying parent I have a certain amount that in my mind makes attendance possible. But perhaps the school sees it differently. Any insight on how that is determined? Basically if it wound up costing very much more than UC we’d probably want to move on. Our experience with UC for S1 has been great and this is for S2. Thank you.
"Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment. "
Personally, I think that it is wrong to set your kid up for the expectation that if they get accepted to their ED school, they can go and then have parents pull out because of money when this situation can be avoided.
There may be a big difference between what you feel that you “want” to pay and what the school feels that you “can” pay based on your income and assets.
If you are running the net price calculator, you will know whether or not Pomona’s numbers are going to align with what is comparable to what you want to pay for UC. Remember if you have a complicated financial situation (business owners, divorced parents/blended families, real estate outside of your primary home , then the calculator may not be accurate for you.
There is an expectation that you have done your financial due diligence when applying for ED. Unfortunately, based on the number of threads from parents and students on how to get out, this piece may be lacking. My advice is run the numbers and have a talk with your kid about how much, bottom line you are willing to pay/borrow for Pomona or any other school. Look at paying for college over the course of 4 years
You mention S1. How much of an overlap will there be for your 2 kids. Plan for the increase in price once S1 graduates, especially from you don’t have any more kids overlapping with S2. Factor in a 3-5% increase each year in costs. Run the numbers with 2 in college and run the numbers with one in college. When you run the numbers, If you are not committed to spending the money over the course of 4 years, and you have no real grounds for a financial appeal outside of you don’t want to spend that much money, tell your kid now and avoid disappointment and heartache later.
Thanks @sybbie719. I ran the NPC earlier and it actually came out a little less than UC. But I’m a little skeptical that they’d really come up with as much of a grant as the NPC claims they would. And I’m still unclear on the wording of the agreement. But you’re surmising they’d be in general alignment with NPC?
Regarding expectations - I’ve been very clear with S2 on the money side. He is likely looking at graduate school after college. So I’m advising against his taking on debt for undergraduate.
Regarding overlap - there’s full overlap for four years S2 as S3 will be in college two years later.
Maybe I could have them do an early financial aid analysis. Carnegie Mellon provided this and that was informative (if not encouraging).
Are your finances complicated? Divorced parents, small business ownership, rental properties, and trusts can all throw off the NPC results. You likely won’t get as much aid as is shown if you have one or more of those.
You can ask if they will do an early FA read, not sure but it can’t hurt to ask.
How do the NPCs look at other similar colleges that meet need? Say, Amherst, Carleton, and Williams? Are you clear on loans vs grants in the results, too?
Essentially, if you ran the NPC and got an estimate you find doable, and the early ED FA offer doesn’t match that, you should 1° first, call/email financial aid and ask about the discrepancy: perhaps there’s something they’ve misevaluated, or perhaps you can bring more information to light that they can review then 2° if it still doesn’t align with the number you’d got when running the NPC, then you can withdraw.
However you shouldn’t apply ED if the NPC indicates the college won’t be affordable.
Note: any PHD program worth going will fund your child. If they’re not funded, they should NOT go. The issue is med school and law school, where funding is the exception, not the rule, and never “full”.
@intparent Nothing complicated with the family or businesses. The npc was much higher for Tufts than Pomona - like 2x. The boys are due a 15k grandparent trust when 19. But I think that went into the npc calculation, Most of the Pomona aid showed grant or scholarship and not loan.
I understand that Carnegie Mellon meets full need for students accepted ED. They do not make that same “promise” for RD students. What I would like to know is if they guarantee to meet full need in subsequent years for students to are accepted during ED? I think that this is an important question to ask since they normally don’t meet 100% demonstrated need.
@sybbie719, I am curious, does CMU make that commitment on their website? Also, OP, Tufts is not a college that commits to meeting need. Pomona is. You should run a few NPCs for similar schools that meet need and see how they look. (Sorry, take that back, they are not need blind, but do say they meet need).
At the CMU info session we attended, the rep was very, very clear that they do not meet need, they don’t have the resources to do it. No mention of ED or RD in terms of FA, though I have heard what sybbie has, I think it was here.
Oops - sorry Tufts. I got my EFC runs mixed up. Tufts, Amherst, Bowdoin, Pomona all came up with excellent fin aid with our numbers - competitive with UC. It was actually Cal Tech that proved an outlier - far more costly. And I might have been thinking of the Tufts NPC figures from last year with the S1 was looking at it and there was “no soup for you”. Having two kiddos in at once appears to make a big difference.
PhD students typically are funded by their universities. They get tuition covered and a living stipend in exchange for TA or research responsibities. It isn’t a lot, but plenty of students live on it. Med school is not typically funded, though. If he wants to go to med school, he might skip CalTech anyway. I suspect it is very hard to get the GPA needed for med school there.
Having two kiddos in at once appears to make a big difference.