Thanks for the kind words. Interesting about FA being a better bet for ED kids. I’ve never heard the like. Again, I have to note that, as of a couple of years ago, their endowment was 888 million dollars and their endowment/student was relatively high for selective LACs. Not that it’s my place to tell them how to spend their money and they could certainly have some internal issues that puts pressure on their finances in a way that is apparent to an outside observer. But from my perspective they stand out like a sore thumb.
We’ll see what they say.
Yes, the “Welsh school” does have more restrictive financial aid rules and policies than pretty much all of its peer schools.
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It starts in the 2023-24 year (October 2022 is when that FAFSA will be available). I posted the incorrect date earlier.
I’m sorry, I knew the correct years, I’m just so bad with dates. In my head I know it’s junior/senior year for my youngest, just not getting the years right.
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Update:
I’ve been going round and round with the Welsh school these past couple of weeks, always with my entreaties being deflected in some way or another. I ended up sending them a link to their own Net Price Calculator with all of our financial particulars entered in and pointed out that the cost estimate was about $7k lower than their actual financial aid offer.
After a week of silence I emailed to ask if there was perchance some movement on the aid front and received word that they were going to essentially match the NPC number. They said they uncovered a heretofore unknown bug. So good news. They’re still about $4k higher than all of D21’s other FA offers but this school just seems to be more expensive generally than many other LACs.
So I suppose the moral of the story is that if an FA offer seems way out of line with peer institutions, it’s worth it to make a pest of yourself. In the end they actually thanked me for my persistence as it allowed them to find a glitch in their system.
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Thanks for coming back to update. So have you decided on that school for your daughter? What about your son? Congrats to both of them for having great choices!
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That is fantastic news!! And what a reward for perseverence and testing!
I have spent a lot of time working with NPCs for my son’s choices. Would you be willing to post the error that you found? If not in public, in a DM? Just wondering if it might affect other schools as well, since I think they likely share a common algorithm.
Thanks so much!
Hi, @elena13. That’s her current top choice so that’s were we’ll be sending the check.
Her brother is likely leaning toward Hamilton over Wesleyan but that boy plays everything close to the chest. I’m afraid he hasn’t been thinking about the issue much at all lately, preferring to focus on school work, quiz bowl and the like. I think they’re both pretty burned out at this point. It’s been a bruiser of a admissions season and despite wide-spread rejection and wait-listing, we’re just thankful they both have fantastic options. I’m afraid there’s many that don’t have that.
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Hi @MMRose.
Our situatation is:
- S16 graduated from Middlebury in 2020 and may be in graduate school in Fall 2021
- S21 in college Fall 2021
- D21 in college Fall 2021
So we’ll have 2 kids in undergraduate colleges in Fall 2021 and whether or not S16 will be in graduate school should have no effect. Two of D21’s schools’ FA offices contacted me in Jan/Feb to clarify how many kids would be enrolled as undergraduates. I went back over the CSS profile and FAFSA to check and I’m pretty sure I was accurate. I got them all squared away and their ultimate FA offers were inline with everybody else’s so I assume they all got it right.
The only outliers were D21’s Welsh school (I’m rather enjoying this now) and S21’s Wesleyan offer, which was so generous as to knock my socks off. I took the unusual step of contacting the Wes FA office, asking them, essentially, to give me a pinch to verify that I wasn’t dreaming. They assured me I was not. (As I’ve written elsewhere, Hamilton shocked me further by coming in a bit cheaper than Wes when presented with their offer, halving their original FA figure. S21 was very excited by that development, which we took as a nod toward Hamilton. We had heard that Wes was not need blind but have come to learn that the families they do give aid to, they treat very well. At least in our case, it was extraordinary.)
Anyway, I thought that Wes might have figured we’d have 3 undergrads in college come the fall rather than two. The Welsh school said their glitch was such that they calculated the cost based on only one undergrad in school.
I have a whole spreadsheet (or 3) of college info including the NPC calculations. I have found that the actual numbers have all come in below the NPC, except for the one. I hesitate to call it a rule, though, as it may be due to the details in our CSS info that brought the prices down.
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I’m really happy you were able to get it worked out. I will always think of the Welsh school when I think of where the girls are going. 
Congratulations!
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Well, just this evening he navigated over to the Hamilton Bookstore website for to order up some swag. So I guess that’s that. A Continental he looks to be.
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Congrats! I hope both your kids have a wonderful college experience!
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@rjjxv26 Thank you so much for sharing this information. It was super helpful!
Congrats for both your kids!
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Thanks so much for all the kind words you guys. I think they’ll both be happy where they’re going. And good luck to your kids as well!
This is the last of our bunch. Relief, tinged with a bit of sadness.
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