<p>Hello, I have made an appeal to mit more than 7 days ago (and I have received a reply that says they are reviewing my appeal). Should I send them an email to remind them of the appeal or something? I am very anxious because I need to know if I can go to MIT and should be thinking about it as an option or just forget it and decide only among my other colleges.
Any advice would be appreciated.</p>
<p>contact them again</p>
<p>thank you MITChris! Hope I can join MIT in September!</p>
<p>Make sure you keep an eye on your email because they sent my new financial aid award to my email today without any warning or alert beforehand.</p>
<p>I hope your appeal turns out well! They gave me a whopping $700 more -__- And since that still leaves about $120,000 in debt for me or my parents I don’t think MIT is an option for me anymore :(</p>
<p>@arsenalcrazy: I am sorry you cannot attend MIT. 
I have a question: how long did it take the office to respond to your financial aid appeal?</p>
<p>Also, since yesterday, noone has replied to me. I sent my email to the officer I had previously sent my appeal. Should I send an email to the financial aid office as well?</p>
<p>It’s okay. I haven’t given up on MIT yet so i’ll be thinking of ways I can go until may 1st :)</p>
<p>As for how long it took, my parents sent in the appeal letter on the 11th (by mail, not email or fax) so about 9 days. </p>
<p>As for emailing again I would say wait at least until the end of the day. They’re probably all really busy trying to deal with everyones appeals and getting letters out before may 1st.</p>
<p>So, they increased my financial aid significantly. It’s still hard to afford, but I won’t give up on MIT until May 2nd! I wish you good luck arsenalcrazy and hope that we will be classmates next year! :)</p>
<p>Also, I noticed they have included $0 for travel allowance and I am an international student. Should I point that out?</p>
<p>(From another college they gave me like $1,900 for travel, which is a significant amount for my family.)</p>
<p>@arollingstone: MIT usually expects a certain amount of summer earning from all students. I think they expect international students/citizens who live aboard to use the “summer earning” for travel.</p>
<p>Nadalle, thanks for pointing that out! :)</p>
<p>No problem. =) I was actually wondering about the same thing earlier so I did some
googling.</p>
<p>@arsenalcrazy “… And since that still leaves about $120,000 in debt for me or my parents I don’t think MIT is an option for me anymore …”</p>
<p>It is still better than other parents/students who will have to cough out 1/4 million dollar for 4 years!</p>
<p>Yes, nadalle is absolutely right. MIT tries to use standard numbers for most things, but it is not possible to come up with standard numbers for international travel. London-Boston is a whole lot cheaper than Katmandu-Boston, which in turn is a lot cheaper than Vanuatu-Boston. As a result, Student Financial Services, does not provide any international travel budget but also does not expect any financial contribution from student summer earnings. as they do for US domestic applicants.</p>
<p>This is not always a wash. It is relatively easy for a student working over the summer in London to earn the cost of a few round trip tickets (including coming home for Christmas and the like). It is virtually impossible for that to happen for a student from Vanuatu.</p>
<p>Is it too late to submit an appeal? My family is not too satisfied with the package, but we didn’t realize it was possible to appeal until recently ;p.</p>
<p>No it is not. There isn’t really a timeline for these things. Many appeals come about due to a change in family circumstances (someone loses a job, needs expensive medical care, or otherwise leave the finances quite different than they were when the original application was filed). As a result of this, there isn’t really a deadline for filing an appeal. That being said, no other deadlines will move or change because an appeal is being filed.</p>
<p>The most important thing to do if you are thinking about an appeal is to talk to your assigned financial aid counselor. Student Financial Services assign counselors based the first letter of your last name. See [MIT</a> - Student Financial Services](<a href=“MIT Student Financial Services”>MIT Student Financial Services) to find your counselor.</p>
<p>The ideology underpinning Student Financial Services is that no admitted student should have to turn down MIT because they cannot afford to go. Yes, it is likely to hurt to afford it, and yes, SFS may calculate what the family can afford differently than the family can, however, if you are genuinely unable to afford MIT based on your award package, then you really must talk to SFS. This is particularly true given complex financial arrangements that they may not have calculated correctly. When contacting your counselor, it makes sense to indicate that you are not being unrealistic, and that you were basing your expectations, for example, on on the indicative financial aid calculator on the SFS website and were surprised to get an offer substantially different from that. Also talk to them if your family’s income last year is not indicative of your income next year (be that due to one time windfalls, or upcoming changes in a family’s financial circumstances).</p>
<p>SFS do make mistakes, although not often. Keep in mind that they need to turn around aid packages for 18,000 students in about 6 weeks. Now MIT will not negotiate financial aid offers nor will they match another school’s offer, but they are very willing to discuss with you your circumstances, particularly if you think you cannot afford to go. After your initial conversation with your counselor, SFS may ask you to complete a supplemental form such as a Parents Estimated Annual Year Income Statement or a Monthly Cash Flow Statement.</p>
<p>Again, they will not negotiate with you, but if you can convince them that they have got it wrong (which does not happen often, but which does happen) then they are happy to significantly change the award.</p>