<p>I contacted the office today to try to get a sense of when we might hear on offers of aid, because we want to book plane tickets for our daughter to go to the admitted students day on 4/16 (we live in California, so it's about a $1200 trip...we don't want to do it "on spec"). Wow. I got the rudest response imaginable. He basically told me to jump off a bridge, and that we'd hear something by May 1.</p>
<p>The financial aid process has me wondering. We have an EFC of about $22K. My daughter got into BU, but with only $6K in loans offered. Now GWU doesn't seem at all interested in following up their offer of admission with an offer of financial aid, either. Why do schools do this? I would think it would lower their yield by quite a bit, so it seems counter-intuitive.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>She's in at the (for us) affordable UCSD and Rutgers NB Honors (with a scholarship), and I have to wonder if jumping through hoops like this for four years is worth the private vs. public education.</p>
<p>Wow, that is very sad that they treated you like that. I have had pretty good luck with them on the phone, but others here have also reported issues with GW on the financial aid question follow-up. I am not sure when the financial aid offers come, but you could enter a question on the colonial message board, I have had pretty good luck there.
[Colonial</a> Message Board • Index page](<a href=“http://www1.sass.gwu.edu/messageboards/]Colonial”>http://www1.sass.gwu.edu/messageboards/)
I have also heard that GW is much better with aid then places like BU, which are notoriously poor, so I would not give up until you hear.</p>
<p>On the GW admissions notice, it stated that Financial Aid would be emailing applicants on how to access their need-based aid, but any merit scholarships awarded will be included in admissions package this week. </p>
<p>We have to wait until May 1 for find out what our need-based aid will be?</p>
<p>We had a different experience. My D was at another DC area school when she got her acceptance email. Went to GW and was told what her Merit was, as well as her “honors” staus. They were quite kind, actually. They could not give exact amounts however, and said the full FA package would be mailed later next week (which would mean this wednesday)</p>
<p>I did have a question with another college Admissions officer, who went on to tell me what a difficult week this is for them (Every year) with calls from angry students, angry parents, angry councellors, unhappy about rejections, unhappy about honors status, unhappy about merit awards. A little ‘niceness’ can go a long way. I suggest you hang up, try again and hope to get someone different on the line!</p>
<p>Thanks, all. Sorry if I came off as a whiner. I was as sweet as I could be while still being persistent - I’m a project manager working for the state (the really big, really broke state!), so I know that nobody who is stressed and overworked ever responds well to anything but nice. 
And, in the financial aid person’s defense, he did keep responding, and later said he’d try to help us get information (haven’t heard back, but that was only 2 hours ago). I am positive it’s a horrible job this week, and I apologized (a lot) for bugging them.</p>
<p>Mostly I just need to book plane tickets, which keep going up every time I look!</p>